ID: 1955
Presenting Author: Gerald Singh
Session: 681 - Gender and Intersectional Analysis in IA: Showcasing theory and practice
Status: pending
We present a repeatable method to develop intersectional pathway-of-effects models for impacts and mitigation measures in the context of mining effects on Canadian Indigenous communities.
Extractive development can have disproportionate effects across different subgroups of impacted populations. Effectively considering these disparities can increase the ability of Impact Assessment (IA) to accurately forecast impacts, as well as to meet growing requirements around gender mainstreaming and intersectional analysis in assessment. Such approaches have faced various practical challenges, including a preponderance of high-level guidance and relative lack of specific and repeatable methodologies. This talk will showcase a repeatable process to identify both the risks of differential impacts and appropriate, established mitigation measures to address such impacts. Drawing from theories of intersectionality, recognizing differences in risks and discriminatory forces affecting overlapping identity factors, we develop an intersectional pathway of effects model. We work in the context of mining projects in Canada, where mining is acknowledged to have the potential to disproportionately affect Indigenous communities. We build a database of potential pathways of effects from Canadian mining IA documentation as well as from scholarly literature. We find that mining has been documented to have differential and specific effects across age, gender, income, disability, and education levels within Indigenous communities. We also identify mitigation strategies previously proposed to address these differential effects by isolating specific pathways. We present this innovative practice as a way to increase rigour, relevance, and trust in IA.
Gerald Singh is Associate Professor and Ocean Nexus Chair of Global Change and Sustainable Development at the University of Victoria. He researches methods for risk and impact assessment.
Coauthor 1: Jackie Lerner
Coauthor 2: Ridhee Gupta
Coauthor 3: Connor Loch-Labelle