Research

Leder, S. (2024): “Translocal resource governance, social relations and aspirations: Linking translocality and feminist political ecology to explore farmer-managed irrigation systems and migration in Nepal”. Geoforum 148.

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Through a translocal feminist political ecology framework (tFPE), I show how translocal resource governance, social relations and aspirations change everyday practices and gender, caste and labor relations in irrigation, and how we may understand the water-migration nexus.

Leder, S. (2022): “Beyond the “Feminisation of Agriculture”: Rural out-migration, changing gender relations and emerging spaces in natural resource management” Journal of Rural Studies 91. 157-169.

For a transformative approach towards more just rural development, I reconceptualize narratives of a “Feminization of Agriculture”, and argue for building on feminist political ecology and rural out-migration research in order to draw attention to changing gender relations and emerging spaces in natural resource governance.

Leder, S., Clement, F., Karki, E. (2017): “Reframing women’s empowerment in water security programs in Western Nepal” Gender and Development 25 (2): 235-251.

Water security programs aiming at women’s empowerment are often apolitically and technically framed and fail to understand complex intersectional inequalities in contexts of rural out-migration. Based on research within the till date largest funded NGO-led climate resilience and adaptation program BRACED, I examine how to reframe water security programs to ensure more inclusive and locally adapted approaches to women’s empowerment in Nepal.

Leder, S., Sachs, C. (2019): “Intersectional Perspectives on the Gender- Agriculture Nexus. Relational life histories and additive indices” In: Sachs, C. (Ed.): Gender, Agriculture and Agrarian Transformations. Changing Relations in Africa, Latin America and Asia. New York: Routledge. 75-92.

Through extensive field work and survey data, I learned the need for a truly intersectional approach in food security programmes that supports challenging the structural barriers that keep marginalised men and women food insecure. Since these learnings I suggest informing standardised measures of empowerment with an assessment of local meanings and values, e.g. through qualitative interviews and oral histories.

Clement, F., Buisson, M., Leder, S., Balasoubramanya, S., Bastakoti, R., Karki, E., van Koppen, B., Saikia, P. (2019): “Does women’s empowerment lead to enhanced food security? Revisiting dominant food and water security discourses.” Global Food Security 23: 160-172.

Based on data from Nepal, Bangladesh and Tajikistan, I co-authored an innovative cross-country analysis on the causal linkages between women’s empowerment and enhanced food security.

Buisson, M.-C., Clement, F., Leder, S.: “Empowerment and the will to change: Evidence from Nepal.” Journal of Rural Studies 94: 128-139.

In this article, we show the importance of “the will to change” which explains the dynamic, and political nature of women's empowerment and its diversity of meanings.