Environmental public hearings and intersectionality: women's voices from Gujarat, India

Abstract

This article examines the application of the intersectionality framework to the Indian statutory institutional environmental public hearing (EPH) process that seeks to promote environmental justice. Intersectionality provides a framework to capture the processes of gender marginalization and exclusion. It critically demonstrates how the required gender participation in the regulatory EPH process is failing rural women in the state of Gujarat, India, thereby exacerbating discrimination and inequality. Building on the researchers’ mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) data, the article creates an evidence-based ‘fresh dossier’ reflecting the non-existent or limited participatory involvement of women as valuable stakeholders in the EPH process. Drawing on the evidence of lived experiences creates spaces for women's voices that are excluded from the social system due to dominant powers and institutional structures. We argue that respecting the diversity of interests and identities of rural Gujarati women within the institutionalized public sphere would promote participation and recognition of their knowledge and role as crucial stakeholders.