Climate Challenges and Adaptive Futures for Women Seaweed Farmers in the Global South

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-545-4_42How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Women Seaweed Farmers; Feminist Political Ecology; Climate Vulnerability; Environmental Marginalisation; Adaptive Strategies

Abstract

Seaweed aquaculture has expanded rapidly since the 1990s, celebrated for its ecological services, livelihood benefits, and potential to support inclusive and sustainable community prosperity. Women often dominate production in shallow coastal zones, yet their contributions remain undervalued in research and policy. While seaweed farming is frequently framed as empowering, emerging literature highlights how environmental pressures—driven by climate change and local anthropogenic stressors—can deepen intersectional marginalisation, especially for women constrained by limited marine access and resources. This paper examines environmental and ecological marginalisation in women’s seaweed aquaculture through a Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) lens. An analysis of the relevant scholarship reveals that low-income women producers, in particular, are disproportionately exposed to ecological stresses because they farm in shallow inshore sites most vulnerable to heat stress, disease outbreaks, seasonal temperature fluctuations, storms, and irregular rainfall, as well as pollution. These dynamics undermine yields, income, and health while intensifying resource precarity. Women nevertheless innovate adaptive practices, from deepwater farming to value addition, though their capacity is constrained by structural and intersectional inequalities in access to knowledge, finance, and mobility. The paper argues that addressing environmental marginalisation requires context-specific research, stronger peer exchange, and South–South collaboration.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Chu Chun Yu
AU  - Bradley Parrish
AU  - Raminder Kaur
AU  - Maria Apolonia
AU  - Runavia Mulyasari
AU  - Diah Irawaty
AU  - Monika Swastyastu
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/13
TI  - Climate Challenges and Adaptive Futures for Women Seaweed Farmers in the Global South
BT  - Proceedings of the World Conference on Governance and Social Sciences 2025 (WCGSS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 624
EP  - 635
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-545-4_42
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-545-4_42
ID  - Yu2026
ER  -