Gendered spaces of payment for environmental services: A critical look

Abstract

This article investigates the paradoxical outcomes of a mechanism to promote women’s participation in PES. Focusing specifically on the “Legal Representative,” position, I examine how gendered and generational power dynamics become re-inscribed through this position and the various ways that this position is conceptualized, performed, and negotiated. To do this, I combine theoretical insights from feminist theories of subjectivity, political ecology, and forest governance with empirical evidence from a small case study of PES in Jalisco, Mexico. I find that the subjectivity of women within the case study both produce and are produced by gendered and generational differences that paradoxically both challenge and also maintain social-spatial exclusions. Although this study is limited by its focus on the Legal Representative and a small sample size, such a focused case study sheds light on the social and spatial ways in which PES runs the risk of exacerbating already existing inequities.