Om krisen slår - vem skyddar de redan sårbara? : En kvalitativ intervjustudie om jämställdhetsintegreringen i Jönköping läns beredskap- och krishantering

Sammanfattning

The purpose of this study is to examine how disaster planning and crises management in Jönköping County integrate gender mainstreaming in policy formulations and practice. As well as how vulnerable groups are addressed in the governing documents of Jönköping Municipality and a national document. Through a gendered ideology critique inspired by Iris Marion Young, the study asks: what is considered to constitute a crisis, who is regarded socially vulnerable within it, and according to whose interpretation? The dissertation analyzes steering- and public information documents on public disaster management as well as semi-structured interviews with four public officials responsible for coordinating and structural planning of risk- and crisis management nationally, regionally and at council level. The material was analyzed through thematic coding. Our findings are that public disaster information texts and the planning and management articulated in interviews show a certain logic of gendered meanings and images of crises and protection. On the one hand, they can be interpreted as “masculine” in relation to a patriarchal logic, in which the worst-case-scenario is often represented to be armed conflict and war, and in which the role of the masculine protector is to provide concrete infrastructure and technical equipment for the populations’ survival. On the other hand, in this masculine framing, gender equality is regarded as integral by some, with a clear understanding of what that means in practice. For others, and interestingly even among some individuals working with gender mainstreaming at the regional level, there is no clear understanding of what gender equality entails. A third finding is that gender mainstreaming and crisis management are “under construction” and not fully developed in practice and policy formulations. Informants refer to the plans and codes to come, but that are not yet in place. We argue that crisis and risk management constitute a complex and are not fully gendered mainstreamed process, in which the core issue, whether gendered mainstreaming in general or disaster planning specifically, is passed on as being either “everyone’s” or someone else actual responsibility. We believe that this responsibility and role is not yet in place. Our findings show that there is a “blind spot” regarding gender and social vulnerability in emergency preparedness, both in policy formation and in practice.