The Shadow State: Women Building What Government Won’t
The man-made degradation of the natural environment and women’s struggles against structural violence are mirrored in a multitude of ways, particularly through the subjugation and oppression inflicted upon them. The acknowledgment of these parallel struggles invites us to collectively reconsider what environmental ethics truly entail, and whether they can be fully understood if not studied in conjunction with human ethics and the unjust treatment of marginalised groups. It is important to thoroughly explore the systems that place women in such oppressive and hazardous positions, continuously putting their livelihoods at risk.
Through a patriarchal and hierarchical lens, women are perceived as inexhaustible optimised products, similarly to how nature’s elements are regarded. Under the umbrella of the Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5): Gender Equality, this podcast uncovers how these are both intertwined using different examples where women become subjects of excessive human labour. The purpose of this study is to encapsulate the recurrent tendency of women cleaning up the messes of man-made activities and systemic neglect. Subsequently, it is to open up critical discourses regarding whether these women are partaking voluntarily in mitigation and recovery strategies, or if they are forced to do so, considering that powerful institutions remain idle and weaponise the vulnerability of disempowered groups. In view of this, the podcast poses an important question: when should women occupying the labour sphere be considered empowering, and when should it be recognised as government abandonment disguised as community resilience? Storytelling is the selected approach to gauge different perspectives on this subject matter, amplifying the unheard voices of women and encouraging the ecosomatic practice of centring life, experience, and relatedness in this research.
Credits to the materials used in the podcast
Names of Interviewees:
Kasia Skuratowicz, Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at Universiteit Gent
Shokooh, Graduate of the University of Tehran
Music:
Blue Dot Sessions (2022). Temperance. Eltham House. Free Music Archive (FMA) https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/eltham-house/temperance/
HoliznaCC0 (2022). Autumn. Lo-fi And Chill. Free Music Archive (FMA) https://freemusicarchive.org/music/holiznacc0/lo-fi-and-chill/autumn/
References:
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ActionAid International Nepal (2025). REFLECTIONS AND LEARNING 2024. ActionAid https://nepal.actionaid.org/publications/2025/annual-reflection-and-learning-2024
ActionAid Nepal (2015) Community Led Reconstruction Programme Build-Back-Better. ActionAid Nepal. https://nepal.actionaid.org/sites/nepal/files/final_annual_report_2015_0.pdf
ActionAid Nepal (n.d.) Community Led Reconstruction Programme. ActionAid. https://nepal.actionaid.org/emergencies/community-led-reconstruction-programme
Block by Block Foundation. (n.d.). Our Approach. Retrieved October 25, 2025, from https://www.blockbyblock.org/our-approach
Clean Cooking Alliance (2015). Women Spend 374 Hours Each Year Collecting Firewood in India, Study Finds. CCA News, Women & Gender. https://cleancooking.org/news/05-05-2015-women-spend- 374-hours-each-year-collecting-firewood-in-india-study-finds/
D’Alisa, G., Deriu, M., Demaria, F., (2014). Care. In D’Alisa G., Demaria, F., Kallis., Degrowth – A Vocabulary for a New Era (1st ed., pp. 60-62). Routledge.
Elmhirst, R. (2015). Feminist political ecology. The Routledge handbook of gender and development, 519-530.
Gonda, N. (2019). Re-politicizing the gender and climate change debate: The potential of feminist political ecology to engage with power in action in adaptation policies and projects in Nicaragua. Geoforum, 106, 87–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.07.020 HarassWatch. (n.d.). About us.
HarassWatch. Retrieved from https://harasswatch.com/news/1002/%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%87- %D9%85%D8%A7
Mininni, G. M. (2021). The Barefoot College ‘eco-village’ approach to women’s entrepreneurship in energy. Environmental Innovation And Societal Transitions, 42, 112–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.12.002
Moulaert, F., MacCallum, D., & Hillier, J. (2013). Social innovation: intuition, precept, concept, theory and practice. The international handbook on social innovation: Collective action, social learning and transdisciplinary research, 13, 13-24.
Parajuli, A. (2019). The punishment gap: how workplace mistakes hurt women and minorities most. World Economic Forum. Education And Skills https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/06/thepunishment- gap-how-workplace-mistakes-hurt-women-and-minorities-most/
Patterson, J., & Kinchington, F. (2024). Learning sustainability at the Barefoot College: local and global community values in action. Sustainable Earth Reviews, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42055-024- 00086-c7
Plaisance, S. (2024). Rates of sexual harassment and assault nationwide still high after #MeToo movement. Tulane University. https://news.tulane.edu/pr/rates-sexual-harassment-and-assaultnationwide- still-high-after-metoo-movement
UN-Habitat. (2021). The Block by Block Playbook: Using Minecraft as a participatory design tool in urban design and governance. United Nations Human Settlements Programme. https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2021/09/1-bbb_playbook_publication_final.pdf
Author contributions
Ada Vermeire contributed to the script and the oral presentation of the podcast. Wrote both Part 2 (Reality Check, The Quiz) and Part 3 (Importance of Story Telling) sections of the script.
Amir Fakhri contributed to the structure, oral presentation, and editing of the podcast. Communicated with the Iranian girl to obtain the required voice note.
Arghavan Joolaie contributed to the structure, the script, and the editing of the podcast. Wrote part 1 (Introduction) and part 6 (Outro) of the podcast. Communicated with the Iranian girl to obtain the required voice note.
Natalia Waite contributed to the script and the short document of the podcast. Wrote both Cluster A and Cluster B for Part 5 (The Solutions) Roundtable section of the script. Authored the written document (summary/abstract of the podcast, credits to materials used in the podcast, and author contributions).
Shruti Sajjalguddam contributed to making edits and comments in the process of making the structure and the oral presentation. She also communicated with the lecturer to obtain the required voice note.
Every group member contributed equally to the podcast and participated in both online and offline meetings.