Incorporating gender, health, and climate justice in your research: A reflexive question card exercise
ModulesIncorporating gender, health, and climate justice in your research: A reflexive question card exercise
This micromodule introduces a reflexive tool based on question cards designed to support researchers and practitioners in integrating intersectional gender, health, and climate considerations into their research. Developed by Verdonk et al. (2024), the card prompts support thoughtful engagement with public policy contexts, systemic inequities, and positionality. Drawing on the Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (IBPA) framework, ecofeminist theory, and feminist systems thinking, the cards help participants address equity, voice, and sustainability in the context of planetary health and just urban transitions. the end of this micromodule, participants should be able to:
- Identify and reflect on intersectional dimensions (e.g. gender, race, class, disability) in climate and health research.
- Explore how power and privilege operate in environmental and health research design and policy influence.
- Formulate more inclusive and socially just research questions using reflexive prompts.
What is this about?
Why critical reflection is needed: core concepts behind the question cards
Please go through the summary PowerPoint presentation about the rationale for incorporating gender, health, and climate dimensions together.
These themes (gender and social positioning, health equity, climate justice, reflexivity, and intersectionality) help uncover hidden power dynamics in research.
The goal is not to memorise definitions, but to reflect on how these issues relate to their own research.
(Please click on the bottom right of the slides to expand it to full screen and improve your experience).Re4Green_Micromodule presentation Incorporating gender, health, and climate justice
Reflect individually - Incorporating gender, health, and climate justice in your research: A reflexive question card exercise
After the presentation, reflect on the following:
- Which of these four themes feels most relevant to your current research or study field?
- Can you identify a research decision (e.g., topic, method, interpretation) that might be shaped by your own position or assumptions?
- What is one insight or discomfort you experienced during the slides?
Reflexive inquiry into research framing
This activity helps uncover blind spots in conventional research approaches by encouraging reflexivity and intersectional thinking.
The goal is to reflect on one’s own positionality and framing, not to produce right answers, but to surface assumptions and expand accountability.
(Please click on the top left of the image to expand it to full screen and improve your experience).
Building equity-driven research questions
Based on your previous reflections please revise or formulate a research question that integrates intersectional awareness.
References
1. Hankivsky, O. (2014). Intersectionality 101. The Institute for Intersectionality Research and Policy, Simon Fraser University. https://bccampus.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Hankivsky-Intersectionality101-2014.pdf
2. Hankivsky, O., Grace, D., Hunting, G., Giesbrecht, M., Fridkin, A., Rudrum, S., Ferlatte, O., & Clark, N. (2014). An intersectionality-based policy analysis framework: Critical reflections on a methodology for advancing equity. International Journal for Equity in Health, 13, 119. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-014-0119-x
3. Kaijser, A., & Kronsell, A. (2014). Climate change through the lens of intersectionality. Environmental Politics, 23(3), 417–433. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2013.835203
4. Verdonk, P., van Marlen, J., Tumas, N., & van Valkengoed, I. (2024). Coloring connections: Researching gender, intersectionality and health in the climate crisis. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14047986Remarks
After completing this module:
- explore “Mapping research connections to environmental justice: Crisis Tree exercise” to connect personal reflection to systemic analysis (to help you see the system you are reflecting on)
- continue with “Doing research with communities affected by climate change: Climate-conscious methodologies matrix (for researchers and ethics reviewers)” to apply reflexive insights in research design (to help you act on what you realised through reflection)
- deepen with “Planetary health: Connecting climate, health, and power” to understand intersectionality and power structures (to explain the structural inequalities you reflected on in the card exercise)
