Wednesday, November 20, 2024
2:00–3:00 pm HST | 7:00–8:00 pm EST
Online Event
Join us on Wednesday, November 20, 2024 at 2:00 pm HST as Maryruth Belsey Priebe (co-founder, aXXelerate) presents her talk, “Climate Security Theory is Incomplete without a Gendered Human Security Lens.”
The climate crisis is one of the greatest threats to humankind, and is contributing to the occurrence of more frequent, intense, and severe weather events, natural disasters, and humanitarian crises globally. Alarmingly, the worsening impacts of the climate crisis are generating profound shifts in security from the local to the international level. The Indo-Pacific region is one of the global epicenters of climate-related insecurity, as it is home to some of the most vulnerable and disaster-prone countries in the world, posing major challenges to human rights, development, environmental stability, and sustainable economies. Conventional state-centric conceptualizations of “climate security” often too narrowly frame climate discussions within the scope of “hard security” issues. Military deployments in response to disasters are growing, yet dominant approaches to crisis response in many cases remain “gender blind” or “gender aware.” As the threats posed by the climate crisis and its impacts are taken more seriously by defense and security actors across the Indo-Pacific region, it is crucial to assess gender inequalities and insecurities in the midst of accelerating climate breakdown.
Maryruth Belsey Priebe is the Co-Founder of aXXelerate, a firm that works to bring gender perspectives into every security conversation. Consulting with the US Department of Defense and the Canadian Armed Forces, she researches and designs feminist solutions to the profound and uniquely gendered security threats faced by communities grappling with the impact of climate change and other non-traditional security concerns. Ms. Belsey Priebe serves as the Gender Interest Group of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association Co-Chair. She holds a Harvard International Relations graduate degree.
This event is sponsored by the Center of Indo-Pacific Affairs at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.