Embedding Gender in the Last Mile Connectivity: Walkability and Inland Waterways

12/12/2023

Vani Bhardwaj

Sustainable Inland Water Transport (IWT) entails going beyond physical infrastructure and capital investment market making, seeking to underscore subjectivities of social inequities in the built environment around the IWT ecosystem^[1]Cavalcante de Barros, B.R., Bulhoes de Carvalho, E., Pinho Brasil Junior, A.C. (2022). Inland Waterway Transport and the 2030 Agenda: Taxonomy of Sustainability Issues. Cleaner Engineering and … Continue reading. Inland Waterway Transport has established itself as the most sustainable and cost-efficient mode of transport in Chinese and European contexts. IWT is the oldest mode of transportation for Bangladesh from distinct vessels plying on routes such as country boats, ferries, trawlers, fishing vessels, cargo vessels and steamers^[2]Uddin I.M., Islam, M.R., Awal, Z.I., Newaz, K.M.Z. (2017). An Analysis of Accidents In the Inland Waterways of Bangladesh: Lessons from A Decade (2005-2015). Procedia Engineering, 194, 291-297. … Continue reading. In mapping out the impediments to the consolidation of IWT in the Asian context, the theory-practical implementation chasm has been highlighted in particular. Inter alia, inadequate ports and terminals development is a barrier to expanding inland water transport^[3]Trivedi, A., Jakhar, S.K., Sinha D. (2021). Analyzing Barriers to Inland Waterways as a Sustainable Transportation Mode In India: A Dematel-ISM Approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 295, 126301. … Continue reading in countries like Bangladesh and India.

This article aims to synergize feminist political ecology with inland water transport planning in order to prioritize gender lens in transport planning and design. The article problematizes how last-mile connectivity to inland waters terminals and ports in the context of Asia, particularly in India and Bangladesh, is enmeshed in gender-based violence and gendered discrimination both in the last-mile connectivity and while using the ferries and vessels for mobility. The article reviews the literature by applying feminist political ecology to gender and mobility. In this regard, mobilities of care, the gendered nature of transits in last mile connectivity to the ports (ghats) and varying intersections are explored.

Gaps in Research for Transport Planning in Peri-Urban Areas

While researching the Inland Water Transport ecosystem, last mile connectivity, on-ground everyday stories of margin communities and transport planning are intertwined. Transport planning in peri-urban areas is in paucity as transport planning prominently remains an urban policy issue. Moreover, the nature of governance for internal ports in IWT across Bangladesh and India is dependent on the extent of urbanization^[4]Daamen, T.A., Vries, I. (2013). Governing the European Port-City Interface: Institutional Impacts on Spatial Projects Between City and Port. Journal of Transport Geography, 27, 4-13. … Continue reading in and around the said ports or terminals, whether it is in the rural hinterlands^[5]Witte, P., Wiegmans, B., Braun, C., Spit, T. (2016). Weakest Link or Strongest Node? Comparing Governance Strategies. Research in Transportation Business & Management, 19, 97-105. … Continue reading undergoing urbanization or already has urban sprawl around it. Such studies in the context of IWT across India and Bangladesh are amiss. This makes it a challenge to assess the social geography that women and gender minorities are navigating in the IWT ecosystem.

Another understudied theme has been the accidents caused by inland waterway transport^[6]Uddin I.M., Islam, M.R., Awal, Z.I., Newaz, K.M.Z. (2017). An Analysis of Accidents In the Inland Waterways of Bangladesh: Lessons from A Decade (2005-2015). Procedia Engineering, 194, 291-297. … Continue reading. There is a research gap on how the above-mentioned impediments to inland water transports are gendered and reflect non-feminist sustainable transports. Gender assessment in inland water transports in the context of northeast India and Bangladesh^[7]The World Bank. (2019), Assam Inland Water Transport Project, 157929. p-35. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/298881576551761721/pdf/India-Assam-Inland-Water-Transport-Project.pdf conducted by the World Bank in 2019 revealed how truncated last mile connectivity from IWT ports and terminals disable women’s connectivity to distribution channels and marketplaces such as women weavers. Women get discouraged from using IWT due to the unsafe and fragmented last-mile connectivity to these ports and terminals. Trip chaining, the frequent to and fro for household chores from dropping kids off to school, medical visits to grocery shopping, are feminized routinized household activities^[8]Asian Development Bank (2013). Gender Toolkit: Transport-Maximizing the Benefits of Improved Mobility for All. … Continue reading mired in patriarchal gender roles in a cis-hetero family. Resultantly, the majority of pedestrians are women and therefore inadequacies in inclusive nonmotorized transports have gendered ramifications. Such unsafe routes can reflect gender-blind transport planning^[9]Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (2006). Is It Safe to Walk? Neighborhood Safety and Security Considerations and Their Effects on Walking. Journal of Planning Literature, 20: 3, 219-232. … Continue reading women’s safety while in mobility remains a pertinent red flag as sexual crime in transit environments remains under-reported^[10]Ceccato, V. (2017). Women’s transit safety: making connections and defining future directions in research and practice. Crime Prevention and Community Safety. 19, 276–287. … Continue reading.

In the above section, the rural ecology, and its linkage with last mile connectivity in terms of Inland Water Transport has been spotlighted with an evident lack of studies in rural India in terms of gendered narratives in terms of mobility to the ghats.

Feminist Political Ecology and Inland Water Transport

Feminist Political Ecology entails the problematising of gender narratives around the binaries of masculinities and femininities and the material and non-material impacts accruing out of such gendered power dynamics^[11]Masse F., Giva, N., Lunstrum, E. (2021). A Feminist Political Ecology of Wildlife Crime: The Gendered Dimensions of A Poaching Economy and Its Impact on Southern Africa. Geoforum, 126, 205-214. … Continue reading. For instance, if the man of the household takes the only mode of transport in a household such as a cycle for his breadwinning responsibility, women of the household have restricted mobility options during the entire day to carry out domestic chores in terms of trip chaining.

Ingrid Behrsin, an interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner and Chris Benner, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology explore the synergies between political ecology and transportation geography. The daily use of transport by users transforms their subjectivity. A woman travelling from her household to reach the port is embedded in gender dynamics of accessibility, safety, and gender sensitivity of last mile connectivity. If she has to keep walking long distances to access IWT, it will become a disincentive for her to use the ghats until unavoidable, such as for a long list of non-remunerative domestic chores such as grocery shopping, access to healthcare facilities for families. Gender dynamics also inform the power in mobility; whether a woman is transiting solo, in a women’s group or co-transiting with a cis-male guardian?

The political processes and public activism related to transport justice intersect with the environmental subjectivities of these very communities^[12]Behrsin, I., Benner, C. (2017). Contested Spaces and Subjectivities of Transit: Political Ecology of a Bus Transit Development in Oakland, California. Journal of Transport Geography, 61, 95-103. … Continue reading. This is reflective of the everyday embodiment of transport practice. Mass transit gets transformed as constant interactions of transport users with their built environment create environmental subjectivities associated with transportation. This article seeks to unravel a specific set of subjectivity among the intersections of inter-subjectivities, through the lens of feminist political ecology.

Feminist political ecologies bring knowledge producers from the margins to the center, relying on self-reflexivity, tenets of contiguous decolonization in intersectional gendered analyses^[13]Sultana, F. (2021). Political ecology 1: From margins to center. Progress in Human Geography, 45: 1, 156-165. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132520936751 mobility related to last mile connectivity is mired in socio-economic and gendered paradigms^[14]Chidambara, C., Gupta, S. (2018). Effect of Walkability on Users Choice of ‘Walking’ the Last Mile to Transit Stations: A case of Delhi Metro. Urban Studies and Public Administration. 1: 1. … Continue reading as class gets linked to the affordability of the transport mode^[15]Tran, H.A., Schlyter, A. (2010). Gender and Class in Urban Transport: The Cases of Xian and Hanoi. Environment and Urbanization. 22:1, 139-155. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247810363526. the context of connectivity of metro stations in India, walkability dominates the First Mile (FM) connectivity as opposed to last mile connectivity, a study said^[16]Chidambara, C., Gupta, S. (2018). Effect of Walkability on Users Choice of ‘Walking’ the Last Mile to Transit Stations: A case of Delhi Metro. Urban Studies and Public Administration. 1: 1. … Continue reading. Walkers are a majority in Asian cities^[17]James Leather, H. F. S. G. a. A. M., (2011). Walkability and Pedestrian Facilities in Asian Cities, Asian Development Bank. and with the acceleration in climate change, the average length of kilometers to walk has increased, particularly for women^[18]Kajumba, T.C. (2013). The Role of Women In Adaptation Work. Gender and Climate Change. https://www.wvi.org/article/gender-and-climate-change-role-women-adaptation-work ^[19]Obuchi, S.P., Kawai, H., Garbalosa, J.C. et al. (2021). Walking Is Regulated by Environmental Temperature. Scientific Reports, 11, 12136. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91633-1. To consolidate walkability, the pedestrian environment^[20]Anapakula, K.B., Eranki, G.A. (2021). Developing an Index to Evaluate the Quality of Pedestrian Environment: Case Study Application in An Indian Metro. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary … Continue reading- inclusive of safety, security in street design and vulnerability to fatalities – needs to be planned with greater feminist accountability. Data about walking, for hinterlands near ports development for gender-inclusive Inland Water Transport, is entirely unavailable. Obscured treatment of creating an enabling environment for walking (i.e. walkability) in Transport Policy harms women as they are the ones undertaking the majority of trip chaining. These short journeys remain out of sight for policymakers in urban design^[21]Perez, C.C. (2020). Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In A World Designed For Men. Penguin Random House..

Having seen how feminist political ecologies enables the study of everyday realities of the people that traverse the last mile connectivity for Inland Water Transport, we can now look further across multiple intersections that are intrinsic to Inland Water Transport Planning through a gendered lens. The inter-subjectivities produced thereby can be studied in terms of how they interact with the pedestrian enabling or disabling environment in interplay with the IWT on Brahmaputra River Basin.

Intersectional Gender Lens in Inland Water Transport Planning

Very often equipping ferries with sanitation facilities is seen as encouraging women inclusivity in Inland Water Transport. Sanitation is a feminist issue^[22]Koonan, S. (2019). Sanitation Interventions in India: Gender Myopia and Implications for Gender Equality. Indian Journal of Gender Studies. 26:1-2, 40-58. https://doi.org/10.1177/0971521518812114 as inadequate access to public toilets trigger gender-based violence and the availability of public toilets inevitably determines the cognizance of gender sensitivity in urban design and transport planning. The transphobic spatialities^[23]Pagliarini Bagagli, B., Veriato Chaves, T., Zoppi Fontana, M.G. (2021). Trans Women and Public Restrooms: The Legal Discourse and Its Violence. Frontiers in Sociology. 6. … Continue reading and transport design restrict access to public sanitation for trans communities; concomitantly halting their mobility. Building women-only public toilets and waiting rooms at ghats and terminals for IWT however, are ad hoc measures that have begun to get multilateral funding such as by the World Bank in 2016^[24]The World Bank, (2016). World Bank Provides Bangladesh $360 million for Improving Inland Waterways. … Continue reading. The structural ecosystem around sanitation and mobility for women, however, remains gender inadequate. Dilapidated conditions of Inland Water Transport ports imply that wooden planks function as shelter facilities at ghats for physically disabled passengers, women and children, pregnant ladies, and elderly folks^[25]The World Bank. (2019), Assam Inland Water Transport Project, 157929. p-35. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/298881576551761721/pdf/India-Assam-Inland-Water-Transport-Project.pdf. Navigation safety equipment remains non-prioritized in Inland Water Transport as reported with respect to the Bangladesh Regional Waterway Transport Project 1^[26]The World Bank. (2019), Assam Inland Water Transport Project, 157929. p-35. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/298881576551761721/pdf/India-Assam-Inland-Water-Transport-Project.pdf. The paucity of navigational aids and overloading of carriers plying on IWT amount to increased accident casualties . The risks for lives are gender differentiated, however, this is not reflected in transport planning, making public spatialities as male dominated and male designed^[27]Perez, C.C. (2020). Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In A World Designed For Men. Penguin Random House..

Waterways remain the sole mode of transport for floating islands and chars, for example, across the Brahmaputra River Basin. Are vessels plying on Inland Water Transport customized for pregnant women and physically disabled women? Transport planning and transport design are thereby closely interlinked. Port and terminal facilities need to be child and women-friendly so that women while executing their gender roles of committing to household chores and undertaking short trips across chars (shoals) do not accrue aggravation of time poverty. The greater amount of time spent in trip chaining amounts to an escalation of economic poverty^[28]Perez, C.C. (2020). Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In A World Designed For Men. Penguin Random House. as well and for women in rural and peri-urban women that can imply decline in developmental indicators^[29]Sikarwar, A., Chattopadhyay, A., Jaiswal, A.K. et al. (2022). Devaluation of female work participation with urbanization: a case of peri-urban Ahmedabad. GeoJournal 87, 319–331 … Continue reading ^[30]Chikengezha, T., Thebe, V. (2022). Living on the Periphery and Challenges of Mobility: A Tale of Transport-Induced Social Exclusion in Southlea Park, Harare, Zimbabwe. Urban Forum, 33, 267–279. … Continue reading. Are vessel traffic timings scheduled and adjusted to peak hours for women traveling and using the Inland Water Transport, particularly in the early mornings and evenings or are they tailored around men’s needs? Given sociocultural contexts women are very often chaperoned by male guardians of the family, particularly in rural and semi-urban contexts^[31]Asian Development Bank, (2013). Gender Toolkit: Transport-Maximizing the Benefits of Improved Mobility for All. … Continue reading. In such a scenario, the adoption of CCTV cameras to provide safety for women become redundant, as the perception of safety resides not in the technology but in the male guardian. Therefore, we need to remember the cultural contexts in gender mainstreaming of transport planning. As transport options are numbered, transport accessibility can be mired with issues of co-transiting with male strangers in a ferry or a vessel, incidences of possible sexual harassment, physical and sexual assault^[32]Asian Development Bank, (2013). Gender Toolkit: Transport-Maximizing the Benefits of Improved Mobility for All. … Continue reading.

Sexual harassment on public transport goes under-reported^[33]Osmond, J., Woodcock, A. (2015). “Are Our Streets Safe Enough for Female Users? How Everyday Harassment Affects Mobility”. In Sharples S., Shorrock S., and Waterson, P. (Eds), Contemporary … Continue reading in such experiences discourage women from using public transport. Not only does this disincentivize^[34]Gardner, N., Cui, J., Coiacetto. (2017). Harassment on Public Transport and Its Impact on Women’s Travel Behaviour. Australian Planner, 54:1, 8-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/07293682.2017.1299189 carbon-friendly and sustainable use of public transport as women fear gender-based violence, but also due to unprivileged environments and unavailability of alternate modes of transportation implies complete immobility for women and girls at the spatial and socio-economic fringes. This has been labelled as “women’s fear-induced time-sensitive immobility” ^[35]Zhang, M. Zhao, P, Tong, X. (2022). Constructing Women’s Immobility: Fear of Violence and Women’s Constricted Nocturnal Travel Behaviour. Travel Behaviour and Society, 26, 178-192. … Continue reading. Unravelling the ‘social geography of fear for women’, it is found that the lack of population density around IWT terminals and ports, making the areas as desolate would again inhibit women’s mobility and usage of Inland Water Transport^[36]Zhang, M. Zhao, P, Tong, X. (2022). Constructing Women’s Immobility: Fear of Violence and Women’s Constricted Nocturnal Travel Behaviour. Travel Behaviour and Society, 26, 178-192. … Continue reading, particularly for nocturnal connectivity during emergencies.

Such gender-blind transport planning and gender-blind transport behaviour masculinize^[37]Hille, K. (1999). ‘Gendered Exclusions’: Women’s Fear of Violence and Changing Relations to Space. Geographiska Annaler, 81:2, 111-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0435-3684.1999.00052.x transport spatialities and mobilities. Transport behaviour for women is enmeshed in heavy domestic burdens entailed by gender norms and trip chaining. Emotional geography aids in better comprehension of access and use-related concerns in feminist political ecology^[38]Sultana, F. (2011). Suffering for water, suffering from water: Emotional geographies of resource access, control and conflict. Geoforum, 42: 2, 163-172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.12.002 as emotions imbibe the lived experience of space, mobilities and the context. This will help us understand the pattern of men and women’s mobilities when they undertake trip chaining, particularly for the latter. We see this in practice all around us as women undertake mobility driven by non-remunerative care responsibilities rather than men’s trips for paid labour. This influences how women interact with their built environment, that is to say road filled with potholes to the inland terminal or port to the ferry will be more of an inconvenience and dangerous to women.

The interaction of local communities with the waterscape of the Brahmaputra River Basin is dependent upon many non-competing but compounding marginalities along with gender, such as class, caste, ethnicity and age. Is access to the port in last mile connectivity similar for an indigenous man and a Dalit man as compared to an upper-caste woman from a poor household?

Palatability of Inland Water Transport for girls, young women and women in old age requires differentiated segmentation. Elderly do not commute for utilitarian chores or leisure, in fact, usually it is for health check-ups^[39]Croucher, K., Gilroy, R., Bevan, M. Attuyer, K. (2021). The Mobilities of Care in Later Life: Exploring the Relationship Between Caring and Mobility in the Lives of Older People. Ageing and Society, … Continue reading. In studies regarding Ghana and China, Jessica Villena‐Sanchez and E. Eric Boschmann analyse how intergenerational care for the elderly posits responsibility on women of the household^[40]Villena Sanchez, J, Boschmann, E.E. (2022). A Scoping Review of the Daily Mobilities of Older Adults in the Global South. The Canadian Geographer, 66: 1, 1788-1809. https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12736, in which case mobility of the elderly is again about ease of Inland Water Transport as public transport for women in the Asian context. For instance, women in Assam find it difficult to access markets as they have to walk longer miles from their households to inland water ports. The point is to not design transport merely as friendly for the aged population in terms of technocratic policies, but also amenable for the caregivers who accompany them, which is the norm in family structures of the underprivileged in the Global South of India and Bangladesh.

According to Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, Professor of Urban Planning at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, transport planning cannot occur in isolation and a multimodal comprehension of mobilities of care is vital for making transport more gender equitable. That is to say that the ‘mobilities of care’ approach to transport planning is cognizant of trip chaining, the transit women undertake on a routine basis for non-remunerative care work. The time burden for women in transportation is disproportionately higher due to gender norms. Consultation with women while designing markets and services^[41]The World Bank, (2007). Implementation Completion and Results Report for Peru’s Second Rural Roads Project. around Inland Water Transport ports and terminals can ensure gender-sensitive planning in urbanization processes for rural and semi-urban areas.

The informalised nature of Inland Water Transport in India-Bangladesh can amount to transportation ancillary activities remaining out of the purview of gender assessments of project design conducted by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, besides the unregistered nature of ferries and vessels plying on IWT routes in the Brahmaputra Basin.

Perspectives on Intersectionality and Sustainable Transports

The article emphasises how gender and mobility when looked at from a feminist political ecology approach places mobilities of care as central to comprehending the IWT ecosystem. Multiple stakeholders must account for that the Feminist Transport policies need to be studied via a multimodal lens. Synergy across walkability that facilitates last-mile connectivity needs to be studied in the context of Inland Water Transport ecosystem in the Global Majority (Global South). The article has discussed how the gendered mobility factor of Inland Water Transport in respect to Inland Water Transport coalesces with the feminist political ecological lens to transport geography to ensure gendering and greening of Inland Water Transport.

The politics of mobility is highly gendered and sensitive to urban design, transport planning and commuter behaviour. Gender-sensitive agglomerations require neighbourhoods and housing to ingrain gendered urban planning^[42]Gendered Innovation of Standford University (n.d). Housing and Neighborhood Design: Analyzing Gender. https://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/case-studies/urban.html. There is a lack of gendered transport planning in urban design is lacking in the context of semi-urban and rural environments that are undergoing urbanization. However, the rural emphasis on political ecology that spotlights the power dynamics and inter-subjectivities of the built environment interweaves critical transport and feminist political ecology. Modelling of travel patterns in transit environments for Inland Water Transport and the meshwork of power interplay across hinterlands, ports and processes of urbanization requires exploration in Asian contexts.

A combination of making sustainable roadways, walkability and inland water transport can enhance the last-mile connectivity for the marginalized communities being exposed to the sustainable mode of transport in the form of Inland Water Transport. The article has developed the synthesis between feminist political ecology and intersectional sustainability of walkability. Nonetheless, the scope of aspiration to go beyond walking must also be included for everyday walkers in these communities. They aspire to change to an easier mode of transport given any enhanced capabilities. Such context must also be remembered while researching walkability within communities.

The article remains optimistic about undertaking research in gender and mobility studies via a feminist political ecology lens by unpacking the intricacies of walkability. This will help us further comprehend nuances of mobilities of care in rural parts of the Inland Water Transport ecosystem in India and similar Global Majority (Global South) countries.