Anthropological Insights about the Intersection of Climate Change, Women Agency and Food Security: An Ethnography of Maloch Swat, Pakistan

Abstract

Climate change is an international phenomenon which is affecting lives of human beings across the globe. There are significant changes in observation where economic, social, agricultural, political and cultural aspects of lives of different communities have been negatively affected. Many research works have documented the effects of climate change on food production and agriculture with clear illustration on impact of these climatic changes on food storage system and livelihood. Also, women play a key role in the production and providing food security to their families. To highlight these key factors and examine the nexus among climate change and women agency and household food storage is the main objective of this study. Lack of precipitation and ever lowering under-ground water table in North-West Pakistan i.e. Swat district has affected crop production / yield in some villages of Swat. Maloch village of tehsil Kabal faces such shortfall which is affecting household economy. Secured annual food supply has been a centuries’ long cultural practice of local families with additional dairy products from household livestock. Recently families have not been able to store enough food grains and lost livestock as well. This is directly affecting health of women and children. The research is ethnographic in nature to hold a grasp on how and why families have been getting away from cultural practices and how their lives positively or negatively being affected. The approach used in this research is deductive in nature. Purposive and snow ball sampling is used for selection of the sample. An open-ended questionnaire and semi structured interview guide are designed as a data collection tool.