ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE? AN ANALYSIS OF GENDER IN ENVIRONMENTAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS (ENGOs) IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND TURKEY A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Rakibe Külcür School of Health Sciences and Social Care, Brunel University September 2012 Attended conferences and papers given: • 12 - 15 June 2007 - participation in the Greenweek ‘changing our behaviour’ organized by the EU Commission, DG Environment, Brussels, Belgium • 28 August 2007: Gendered spaces of further and higher education at the Centre for Human Geography, Brunel University; London, UK • 29 - 31 August 2007 - paper on ‘gender in ENGOs’ at PERGPGF1 (Postgraduate Research on Planning, the Environment and Sustainable Development) AC2007 RGS- IBG Annual International Conference, London, UK • 14 - 19 April 2008 - paper on ‘women in decision-making: governmental bodies; international organisations; ENGOs and grassroots activism in EJ movement”, AAG Conference, Boston, USA • 1 May 2008 - display of research poster on ‘women’s Invisibility in the environmental movement’ at Brunel University, London, UK • 27 - 29 April 2009 – paper on ‘Çevresel adaletsizlik? Türkiye ve İngiltere’deki çevre örgütlerinin cinsiyet faktörü açısından sorgulanması’. 2nd International Symposium on Women, University of Adnan Menderes, Aydın, Turkey • 18 - 19 March 2010 - paper on ‘gender and climate change in ENGOs in the UK and Turkey’ at the workshop on gender, power and climate change, Lund, Sweden • 21 - 23 June 2010 - paper on ‘gender in British ENGOs’ - Gender, Work and Organization 2010 - 6th Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK • 1 - 3 September 2010 - paper on ‘research methodology’ - IBG Conference, London, UK i Publications • Buckingham, S., Kulcur, R. 2009 Gendered Geographies of Environmental Injustice (Antipode Special Issue: Spaces of Environmental Justice, volume 41 issue 4 • Buckingham, S., Kulcur, R. 2010 Gendered Geographies of Environmental Injustice in Ryan Holifield, Michael Porter and Gordon Walker ‘Spaces of Environmental Justice’, Wiley-Blackwell (Chichester) • Külçür, R. 2010 Çevresel adaletsizlik? Türkiye ve İngiltere’deki çevre örgütlerinin cinsiyet faktörü açısından sorgulanması, in the Book ‘2nd International Symposium on Women’, University of Adnan Menderes, Aydın/Turkey (proceedings) • Kulcur, R. January 2012 Turkey aims to harmonize its chemical legislation with the EU REACH and CLP regulation, Environmental Expert (the Environmental Industry online) ii Abstract In this thesis I investigate gender in environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Turkey. ENGOs play an increasingly important role as lobbyists on environmental policy making at national and international scales. There is large literature dealing with gender inequalities in governing bodies, and in organisations. However, gender structures of ENGOs and their implications for campaigns have been under-researched. I therefore examined the structure and composition of ENGOs in the UK and Turkey, how far they include women in decision-making process and the implications for their campaigns. To this end, I undertook cross-national comparative research applying feminist research methodology to explore differences and similarities and underlying factors for gender inequalities in organisational settings in two different societies. The research methods included 38 interviews and one focus group interview in 9 ENGOs in the UK and 40 interviews in 10 ENGOs in Turkey. These were conducted mainly with senior managers, but also with junior managers and staff. Furthermore, I placed myself as a volunteer and researcher in two ENGOs, one in the UK and one in Turkey in order to observe the organisational practices directly and to enable triangulation of data. In addition, I collected secondary data from annual reports, staff charts, publications and websites of the organisations to collect data on gender compositions as well as campaigns of the ENGOs. In order to explore and provide sufficient explanation for the under-representation of female senior managers and gender inequalities in ENGOs settings, theoretical approaches were looked into in order to find the most appropriate feminist theories that explain the gendered nature of ENGOs. I found that while the ENGO sectors in iii both countries are dominated by female employees, white, middle class men are in charge of the decision-making in the ENGOs. Moreover, in the ENGOs I found that there seemed to be resistance to integrate gender related perspectives when deciding environmental campaigns. Since there is no research on ENGOs that makes gender blindness visible, this thesis is an attempt to fill that gap. I argue that neglecting gender relations in environmental decision-making and campaigns reinforces the current gendered practices and imbalances in ENGOs that fail to integrate women’s perspectives in environmental policies. iv Contents Attended conferences and papers given: ..................................................................... i Publications................................................................................................................. ii Abstract ....................................................................................................................... iii Contents ..................................................................................................................... v List of Figures ............................................................................................................ xii Acronyms .................................................................................................................. xiii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... xvi LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................... XI CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1 1.1. Situating the research .......................................................................................... 1 1.1.1. Scope and aims of the thesis ......................................................................... 3 1.1.2. Research Questions ...................................................................................... 5 1.1.3. Research locations ........................................................................................ 7 1.1.4. Methodology .................................................................................................. 8 1.1.5. Original contribution of the research .............................................................. 9 1.2. Structure of the thesis ........................................................................................ 12 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 1 – GENDER AND ENVIRONMENT ............ 16 2.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 16 2.2. Ecofeminism ...................................................................................................... 17 v 2.3. Feminist political ecology ................................................................................... 24 2.4. Gender and Environmental Justice .................................................................... 27 2.4.1. ENGOs and environmental justice issues.................................................... 30 2.5. Summary and conclusions ................................................................................. 36 CHAPTER 3 LITERATURE REVIEW 2 – GENDERED NATURE OF ORGANISATIONS .................................................................................................... 37 3.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 37 3.2. Feminist organisation theories ........................................................................... 40 3.2.1. Liberal feminist organisation theory ............................................................. 41 3.2.2. Radical feminist organisation theory ............................................................ 46 3.2.3. Marxist/socialist feminism on organisation................................................... 49 3.2.4. Post-structuralist theory ............................................................................... 52 3.2.5. Setting the theoretical context ..................................................................... 55 3.3. Organisational reasons for gender inequalities (meso-level perspectives) ........ 59 3.3.1. Organisational structures ............................................................................. 59 3.4. Gender denial .................................................................................................... 72 3.5. Implications of gender diversity in management ................................................ 73 3.6. Summary and conclusions ................................................................................. 76 CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................ 78 4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 78 4.2. Choosing the appropriate research methodology .............................................. 79 vi 4.3. Methodology .....................................................................................................