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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Feminist livelihood studies: Mapping future directions
Ann M. Oberhauser
1
| Jennifer C. Langill
2
1
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
2
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Correspondence
Jennifer C. Langill, University of Bristol,
Bristol, UK.
Email: jennifer.langill@bristol.ac.uk
Abstract
Feminist approaches to livelihoods deeply enrich development studies by
focusing on gender, social difference, intrahousehold considerations, and
other manifestations of power. In this paper, we suggest three pillars of fem-
inist livelihood studies that advance debates in this field. First, postcolonial-
ism and decoloniality are separate but related frameworks essential for
situating feminist approaches to livelihoods. Second, social-relational and
intersectional analyses provide critical understandings of the forces of
oppression and difference that co-produce livelihoods. Finally, feminist
research on the environment examines social-ecological dimensions of
livelihoods that complement studies in feminist political ecology. Feminist
methodologies are highlighted throughout our discussion and include the
application of decolonising methods, reflexivity, and socio-spatial dynamics
within livelihood research. Attention to these pillars through a critical feminist
lens provides a transformative agenda for livelihood studies. In sum, the
research and practice of feminist livelihoods presented here support new
directions for development studies to disrupt colonial, masculinist, and
racialised approaches and to decolonise the ways we interact with commu-
nities to affect change.
KEYWORDS
critical development studies, decolonial and postcolonial feminisms, feminist geography,
feminist livelihoods, feminist methodologies, feminist political ecology
1|INTRODUCTION
Livelihood studies are one of the larger subfields in criti-
cal development studies, and yet scholarship in this field
has largely failed to consider the contributions of broader
feminist geographies. Livelihood analyses examine the
means of making a living and the ways human agency
affects this process (Chambers & Conway, 1992;de
Haan, 2012; Natarajan et al., 2022). Livelihood studies
have origins in applied development scholarship and
practice that emerged in the 1990s and that have
expanded to occupy a large subfield on meeting house-
hold needs and desires (de Haan & Zoomers, 2003;
McLean, 2015;Miller,2019;Scoones,2009;
Turner, 2017). Foundational livelihood frameworks were
meant to focus on individuals and their agency.
However, many scholars critique these hegemonic per-
spectives on livelihood studies for lack of attention to
gender, social difference, intrahousehold considerations,
and other manifestations of power (Hanrahan, 2015;
Langill & Oberhauser, 2025;Miller,2019;Natarajan
et al., 2022;Oberhauseretal.,2004). We advance
these critiques and argue that research on, and prac-
tices related to, feminist livelihoods provide new direc-
tions for development studies to disrupt colonial,
masculinist, and racialised approaches. Critical feminist
perspectives can also help to decolonise how scholars
interact with communities, gather data, and analyse the
rich outcomes of livelihood research to affect change.
Gender permeates all phases of livelihood pursuit,
from vulnerabilities and opportunities to division of
labour and access to resources (Mandel, 2004;
Received: 11 March 2024 Revised: 25 November 2024 Accepted: 13 December 2024
DOI: 10.1111/1745-5871.12688
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproductio n in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2025 The Author(s). Geographical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Institute of Australian Geographers.
Geographical Research. 2024;1–10. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/geor 1
Oberhauser et al., 2004; Wangui, 2008). Gendered live-
lihood studies have focused on making women’s work
visible, often highlighting the social dimensions of
reproductive and care labour. While this approach has
been instrumental for understanding gender roles and
disparities, it is often limited to gender disaggregation,
without deeper analyses of intersectional social differ-
ences or work to draw on feminist theoretical founda-
tions, methodological practices, or transformative
capacities. For the most part, feminist approaches and
practices have been sidelined or overlooked completely
in livelihood research. There is, then, a need for more
critical feminist interventions to promote conceptual
and methodological approaches to feminist livelihoods
that focus on how power is embedded in diverse social
relations and on multiple scales of analysis, colonial
histories, human-environment relations, and liveli-
hoods’material dimensions.
This intervention proposes a more comprehensive
and critical field of feminist livelihood studies and offers
directions for future research and practice to expand and
enrich the field. Our discussion is based on an extensive
literature review of livelihood studies and related work in
development and feminist studies. The analysis draws
on insights garnered from organising themed sessions
at two academic conferences and on reflexive dialogue
between the co-authors and other feminist livelihood
scholars. Building from those experiences, we present
three key pillars in livelihood studies and broader devel-
opment geographies to advance a transformative future
in the field, which we refer to as feminist livelihood stud-
ies. The first is the need to incorporate postcolonial femi-
nism and decolonisation practices in livelihood research.
These practices challenge neoliberal and Western per-
spectives on development to reconfigure basic dimen-
sions of how livelihoods are embedded in colonialism
and global systems of diverse power dynamics. The
second pillar involves feminist analyses of the social
relational and intersectionality in livelihood studies.
Social relational work includes temporality and spatiality
of livelihood change and transition alongside the inter-
secting experiences of social differences such as gen-
der, race, sexuality, and class. The third pillar focuses
on the environment, nature, and climate change as criti-
cal in revealing how social dimensions of the environ-
ment affect livelihood pathways and constraints. Overall,
our approach to livelihoods builds on the conceptual,
empirical, and methodological bases established in
development studies by offering a feminist foundation as
well as vision for future directions of change.
2|POSTCOLONIAL FEMINISM,
DECOLONISATION, AND LIVELIHOODS
Postcolonialism and decolonisation are essential to
reconstitute a feminist conceptualisation of livelihood
research and practice. These approaches provide a cri-
tique of mainstream development thinking and offer
alternative epistemologies and methodologies to exam-
ine livelihoods. While livelihood thinking emerged out of
critical development perspectives, challenging modern-
ist and top-down approaches to development
(Natarajan et al., 2022; Scoones, 1998,2015), liveli-
hood scholars have yet to adequately reckon with the
politicised positioning of the field and question how
colonialism shapes livelihoods. This work is crucial,
particularly in a field that has been interwoven with
development policy and practice from its outset.
1
The aim of postcolonial and decolonial work in
feminist and other critical scholarship is to challenge
White, masculinist, heteronormative, and colonial
frameworks and epistemologies, and to show how
colonialism and patriarchy are interrelated (Asante &
Hanchey, 2021; Mohanty, 2003; Ojeda et al., 2022).
Postcolonial feminists reject colonial legacies of power
and knowledge production—including within ‘main-
stream’feminism (Mohanty, 1984). Together, postcolo-
nialism and feminism critique the homogenisation of
gender and feminism and the colonial manifestations
of academic knowledge production (Ballestrin, 2022).
In turn, decolonial feminism is a developing political
project rooted in the context of settler colonialism in
the Americas, in particular among postcolonial and
Latin American feminists. Critical feminist perspectives
on decoloniality challenge discourses that promote
essentialist views of masculinity and racialised ver-
sions of colonialism and global capitalism (Asante &
Hanchey, 2021; Mollett & Faria, 2013). Decolonial and
postcolonial feminisms share synergies and political
praxis, particularly in rejecting and overcoming colonial
Key insights
Feminist livelihood studies emphasise gender,
social difference, intrahousehold dynamics, and
other manifestations of power in understanding
livelihoods. Our approach focuses on three pil-
lars: (1) integrating postcolonial and decolonial
perspectives; (2) using social relational and
intersectional analyses to examine oppression
and difference; and (3) incorporating environ-
mental considerations and feminist political
ecology. Feminist methodologies also highlight
the importance of decolonising methods, reflex-
ivity, and socio-spatial awareness. In sum, our
feminist livelihoods approach helps transform
development geographies to decolonise the
ways we engage with communities, gather
data, and analyse the rich outcomes of liveli-
hoods research.
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power structures and their associated disruptions to
relations among land, bodies, and living worlds
(Mollett, 2021; Ojeda et al., 2022). According to Balles-
trin (2022, p. 109), this “heterogeneous set of perspec-
tives reclaims the importance of context, draws
attention to the power relations at work in the produc-
tion of knowledge, and states the importance of the
autonomy of thought.”Likewise, we argue that both
decolonial and postcolonial feminisms are pivotal to
the future of livelihood studies.
2
Our approach to decolonising livelihood studies
emphasises how knowledge production and subse-
quent understandings of gender, race, sexuality, and
other social dynamics are embedded in power relations
at multiple scales (McLaren, 2017; Mollett, 2021;
Zaragocin, 2019). Such efforts require un-learning con-
cepts and practices that are based on neoliberal and
Western approaches to ‘development’(Mollett, 2017;
Natarajan et al., 2022; Rodríguez Castro, 2021). As
articulated by Wangui (2008) and Keahey (2018), liveli-
hoods are shaped by historical and colonial dimensions
of access to and control over local resources, house-
hold gender relations, and global economic forces. With
its different histories and implications across space and
place, colonial power is fundamental to livelihoods
worldwide, and yet it is often excluded or underempha-
sised in livelihood studies.
Rodríguez Castro (2021) offers an example of how
livelihood scholars can better address the coloniality of
gender (and coloniality of power more broadly) through
research in Colombia that uncovers embodied violence
experienced—and resisted—by rural Colombian
women. Although not working within a livelihood frame-
work, Rodríguez Castro offers many influential points
for feminist livelihood studies, particularly expanding
the actor-based conceptualisation of livelihoods to be
done through feminist decolonial and reflexive lenses.
This research uses decolonial praxis to generate
knowledge of how interlocutors struggle to gain foot-
holds in Colombia’s contested peace accords and land
reform. Through a feminist methodology of sentipensar,
or feeling-thinking, Rodríguez Castro (2021) advances
anti-hegemonic knowledge production and offers a new
approach to situate researchers as relational to the
research project.
Additional decolonising feminist research that
relates to livelihood studies includes work in Latin
America by Zaragocin and Caretta (2021) and Cruz
(2016). These authors employ cuerpo-territorio to
underscore the ontological relationship between body
and territory that goes beyond verbal and written data
toward the interrogation of often overlooked emotions
and signs in data collection. Cuerpo-territorio embraces
embodied experiences and methods in decolonised
feminist research and deepens critical livelihoods
research by prefacing colonial histories and means of
knowledge production as relevant to local contexts and
populations (Kennemore & Postero, 2020; Rodríguez
Castro, 2021). This approach recognises the colonisa-
tion of both lands and bodies, their innate connections,
and the shared struggles for their decolonisation
(Ojeda et al., 2022; Zaragocin, 2019; Zaragocin &
Caretta, 2021). While neither Zaragocin and Caretta
(2021) nor Cruz (2016) directly engage with livelihood
literature, their approaches enrich decolonial
livelihood scholarship. We call for the integration of
these decolonial approaches as part of our vision of
feminist livelihoods.
Postcolonial feminism also offers critical foundations
from which to build livelihood studies. Working in the
African context, Keahey (2018) draws on postcolonial
feminism to research livelihoods among rural tea
farmers in post-apartheid South Africa. Based on exten-
sive participatory research, Keahey identifies the inter-
sections of patriarchy, colonialism, racial hierarchies,
and globalisation in shaping the uneven processes of
development and livelihood pursuit. Importantly, Kea-
hey (2018, p. 529) articulates the potential of research
conducted at the nexus of postcolonial feminism and
(feminist) livelihoods:
Postcolonial feminism is compatible with
livelihoods analysis as it offers a theoretical
foundation for examining nuanced and
shifting power dynamics in an unequal
world. It …employs a historical and trans-
national lens to explore the intersections
and impacts of patriarchy, colonialism, and
globalisation on subaltern populations.
With a shared commitment to decolonial knowledge
production and methodologies, Keahey’s(
2018) direct
engagement of postcolonial feminism with livelihood
studies offers an important conceptual bridge beyond
the Latin American context. Thus, livelihoods are best
understood through feminist decolonial and postcolo-
nial framings that create space for social and cultural
experiences and insights of Indigenous, marginalised,
and subaltern peoples (Asher, 2013; Mohanty, 1984;
Mollett, 2021; Radcliffe, 2015).
These studies also demonstrate how postcolonial
feminism explicitly contends with the racialising pro-
cesses of ‘development’(Mollett & Faria, 2013). For
example, Mollett (2017) draws from postcolonial femi-
nism, Black feminism, and feminist political ecology to
examine the scales of resistance among Afro-
descendant women in Panama against narratives that
homogenise the contexts and objectives of ‘develop-
ment’and ‘human rights.’These women operationalise
place-making and their own epistemologies to reject
tourism-oriented dispossession and to secure their live-
lihoods. Mollett (2017) demonstrates how racism and
racialisation shape livelihood struggles for these
Afro-descendent women.
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In sum, we call for feminist approaches to liveli-
hoods that are informed by postcolonial and decolonial
feminisms to challenge conventional and Western
narratives of ‘development,’‘modernity,’and ‘sustain-
ability’. These perspectives add to critiques of hege-
monic neoliberalism and market-based development
approaches and emphasise the intersectionality
required of livelihood studies (McLaren, 2021;
Mollett & Faria, 2013). Such work has also been inte-
gral to critiques of the coloniality of gender and gender
binaries (Asante & Hanchey, 2021; Lugones, 2009;
Schiwy, 2007). In livelihood studies, tendencies to
silence gender or to bring women’s experiences to the
foreground offer opportunities for decolonial feminists
to help direct livelihood scholars to better integrate
gender identity and sexual orientation. We acknowl-
edge that some feminist thought has perpetuated the
colonial project. Given the global matrices of power
inequities, however, we contend that critical feminist
livelihood studies examine colonial histories, decolo-
nial and postcolonial knowledge production, and multi-
ple manifestations of power. Furthermore, decolonial
and postcolonial feminist approaches present an
urgent agenda to analyse the transformative potential
for marginalised individuals and their shifting subjectiv-
ities in relational arenas, which we outline in the follow-
ing section.
3|SOCIAL RELATIONAL AND
INTERSECTIONAL LIVELIHOOD
APPROACHES
Livelihood approaches are meant to be people-centred.
Building upon foundational livelihood frameworks,
scholars suggest how to mobilise actor-oriented
approaches that emphasise socio-cultural positioning
(Hebinck & Bourdillon, 2001; Long, 2001;
Turner, 2012b). Beginning with a feminist lens means
focusing on how livelihoods are inherently social rela-
tional and intersectional and showing how changing
economic processes and livelihood activities can rede-
fine gender roles and relations (Mandel, 2006;Po
et al., 2020; Wangui, 2008; Yeoh et al., 2017). In turn,
deeper feminist analyses reveal how social difference
and power in many forms shape and are shaped by
livelihoods across multiple scales.
Social difference and power are as relevant to us as
researchers as they are to our research topics. Critical
reflexivity is a widely-practiced process in feminist
research that includes attending to positionality, ethics,
and power in research (Faria & Mollett, 2016;
Sultana, 2007; Whitson, 2017). As Prowse (2010)
argues, reflexivity has an important place in livelihood
research, ensuring rigour and adhering to important
feminist principles that acknowledge data collection
and interpretation as situated and relational. Feminist
livelihood scholars often reflect on methodology and
positionality when reporting their research findings.
Increased engagement with feminist theory and anti-
hegemonic data collection methods will help to
advance important reflexive discussions within liveli-
hood studies.
Critical livelihoods scholars emphasise the numer-
ous social and cultural aspects of livelihoods as rela-
tional (Beall, 2002; Langill, 2025; Miller, 2019;Po
et al., 2020; Turner, 2012b). For example, access, a
central aspect of livelihood analyses, reflects how kin-
ship relations, social identity, and related cultural fac-
tors all shape who has access and who does not
(Mandel, 2006; Ribot & Peluso, 2003). Feminist inter-
ventions identify how access to assets, mobility, and
household budgets are linked to intrahousehold rela-
tional considerations (Arun, 2012;Fan,2022;
Radel, 2012). Alternatively, the asset ‘pentagon’is one
of the most contested pieces of the livelihoods puzzle.
While intended to avoid reductive econometric
approaches to livelihoods, the ‘capitalisation’of assets
often results in restrictive and problematic conceptuali-
sations of assets (Hebinck & Bourdillon, 2001;
McLean, 2015). Our feminist examination of livelihood
assets shows how they cannot be quantified without
capturing their intrinsic social relational dimensions, if
at all (Hanrahan, 2015; Rakodi, 2002; Staples, 2007;
Toner, 2003). This examination includes paying atten-
tion to how social capital can be leveraged by some to
the disadvantage or exclusion of others (Beall, 2002;
Portes & Landolt, 2000). In another approach, Turner
(2012a) demonstrates that endogenous definitions of
wealth that require attending to plural knowledges and
worldviews can avoid problematic assumptions of liveli-
hood assets and interpretations of temporal changes.
Livelihood assets thus need to be understood as
socially and culturally embedded, with complex rela-
tions existing across different components of livelihood
frameworks.
Much work in gendered livelihoods research has
focused on women’s changing economic roles and
livelihood activities (Arun, 2012; Awumbila & Ardayfio-
Schandorf, 2008; Oberhauser, 2016; Radel, 2012).
Feminist livelihood studies ask how these shifts are
(re)shaping gender roles and relations with deeply
social relational configurations. Mandel’s(
2004,2006)
work examines how rural–urban livelihood connec-
tions in Benin reorganise household structuring, gen-
erating more female-headed households led by
women who have been abandoned by their husbands.
In this urban setting, livelihood access and mobilities
shift alongside the roles that are required in household
structures and composition. These dynamics also offer
opportunities to research sexuality and non-binary
gender identities in individual and household relations
and power dynamics (Wangui, 2008). Greater atten-
tion to gender and sexual diversity through feminist
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livelihood scholarship has the potential to generate
vital understanding of these social relational dimen-
sions of livelihoods.
Attention to social relational dynamics also includes
recognition of generational aspects of livelihood
changes and transitions. Fan (2022) explores temporal
themes through long-term research in rural China, illus-
trating how intergenerational livelihoods are shaped by
place-specific gendered ideologies surrounding mar-
riage and livelihood objectives. Together these exam-
ples emphasise how feminist livelihood studies must go
further than just including women to analyse individuals
of all gender identities and the relational dynamics
among them (Langill, 2025; Nyantakyi-Frimpong, 2020;
Wangui, 2008).
To better capture the social-relational components
of livelihoods, and importantly to understand the roles
of power and marginalisation in the pursuit of liveli-
hoods, we call for a greater focus on intersectional
forces of social differentiation. Developed by Black fem-
inist scholars, intersectionality highlights co-existing
and compounding forms of social difference and mar-
ginalisation, including and beyond gender (Cho
et al., 2013; Crenshaw, 1991). Gendered disaggrega-
tion in livelihood studies has made critical contributions
to understanding gender roles in livelihood activities
and foregrounding women’s productive and reproduc-
tive labour. We also envision a deeper understanding
and interrogation of sexuality and queer identities in
conceptualising livelihoods. Those engaged in feminist
livelihood studies recognise the potential of and need
for engagement with intersectionality to better grasp
social differences and their many manifestations. As a
conceptual and methodological approach, intersection-
ality captures numerous axes of social differentiation
and positionalities to understand the interlocking of
race, gender, class, and sexuality, among other
subjectivities.
Systems of power, oppression, and difference are
deeply embedded in colonial histories, embodied
through racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other
forms of discrimination that are integrated through
transnational and relational struggles (Mohanty, 1984,
2003; Mollett, 2017,2021). An intersectional approach
contextualises mediating institutions and processes in
pursuing livelihoods, and for researchers means going
beyond acknowledging their presence to question
how they are differentially experienced. Feminist liveli-
hood scholars have begun to unravel the complex
intersections of systems of marginalisation and
oppression in livelihood undertakings (Arun, 2012;
Christie et al., 2025; Hanrahan, 2015; Keahey, 2018),
including recent direct engagement with intersection-
ality (Langill, 2025; Radel et al., 2025). Thus, intersec-
tionality and the social relational are imperative to
livelihood research agendas for scholars and
practitioners.
4|CONNECTING THE ENVIRONMENT,
CLIMATE CHANGE, AND LIVELIHOODS
Feminist approaches also enhance our understanding of
livelihoods by analysing social dimensions of the envi-
ronment, nature, and climate change. Feminist political
ecology (FPE) contributes to this work by examining both
material and social-relational aspects of the environment
and, in turn, livelihoods. The foundations of FPE chal-
lenge neoliberal, Western approaches to gender’sroles
in environmental issues, practices, and conflicts in the
Global South (Nightingale, 2006; Rocheleau et al., 1996;
Sultana, 2011). More recently, this work has shifted to
incorporate analyses of postcolonial and intersectional
forces that impact, for example, land use, access to and
distribution of natural resources, and decision-making
(Harcourt, 2017; Mollett, 2022; Nightingale, 2011). Mol-
lett and Faria (2013) expand on narratives of FPE to
include race, racialisation, and racism in livelihood and
other analyses of gender and the environment. Their
framework of postcolonial intersectionality highlights
how racial and gender dynamics among people of Afri-
can descent affect access to land and resources in
Latin American communities (Mollett, 2017,2021;
Mollett & Faria, 2013). In addition, critical feminist schol-
arship enhances our understanding of nature beyond
the material and physical realms to address social con-
structions of the environment and nature (Christie
et al., 2025; Serra et al., 2023). Drawing from research
in rural Bangladesh, Sultana (2009) argues that subjec-
tivity and socialisation factor into the use and control of
‘natural’resources and the environment.
However, much of the literature within the fields of
FPE and livelihood studies does not overlap. We regret
these missed opportunities for engagement. The exam-
ples we outline below are relevant to livelihood studies
and demonstrate how feminist empirical and concep-
tual approaches can connect the environment, climate
change, and livelihoods. The following sections discuss
environmental issues in feminist livelihoods that include
critiques of Western technocratic interventions, social
dimensions of migration and displacement, and feminist
approaches to climate change.
4.1 |Feminist challenges to
environmental development interventions
Development organisations implement various inter-
ventions that affect the environmental aspects of liveli-
hoods. Yet, gender, subjectivity, and inherent power
dynamics are often ignored by these mainstream insti-
tutions (Bonnin & Turner, 2014). Their interventions
tend to emphasise technology and mechanisation, as
well as genetic modification and chemical inputs in
agriculture, for example, through ecosystem services
and resource extraction (Aregu et al., 2019;
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Radel, 2012). Cruz-Garcia et al. (2019) point to the
impact of mainstream institutional interventions in their
research on ecosystem services such as land, water,
and forests for use in farming, fishing, and hunting in
the Colombian Amazon. Evaluations and assess-
ments of these services often overlook gender roles
and power dynamics in conservation initiatives and
development interventions. Similarly, Arun (2012)
notes how agricultural extension services in India tend
to overlook women farmers—both in initial targeting
and sometimes altogether. In such cases, feminist
livelihood perspectives on human-environment rela-
tions can be applied to development interventions and
help prevent inappropriate implementation of agricul-
tural programmes.
Livelihood analyses also include multi-level
approaches involving methodological “tools that are
attentive to structural shifts in markets, state welfare
and regulation, global finance, and more”(Natarajan
et al., 2022, p. 6). A critical feminist approach extends
the complexity of these tools to include more expan-
sive ways of understanding livelihoods. For example,
the disaggregation of comprehensive databases by
gender, age, race or ethnicity, and other relevant cate-
gories is done by development organisations. Among
those organisations is the World Bank Group, which
collects and analyses economic indicators, and the
UN Development Programme, Gender Open Data,
and UN Women, which collect data on health, educa-
tion, and other social issues. McLean (2015)offersa
nuanced examination of the methodological attributes
of hybrid methods in a discussion of the livelihoods
approach with broad quantitative categories in the
‘pentagon’of livelihood assets. This framework is
examined alongside a more reflexive narrative
described as a livelihood trajectories approach which
addresses the “complexities of material and discursive
realities in daily life”(McLean, 2015, p. 390).
Finally, quantitative and mixed-method livelihood
analyses are instrumental in work to develop effective
interventions and policies. Meta-analysis provides a
focused, but comprehensive overview of research that
identifies themes and perspectives in development lit-
erature (de Haan, 2012). Comparative and synthesis-
ing work by Vercillo et al. (2021) offers a systematic
review of livelihoods literature on gender and climate
change on the African continent. Such work is method-
ologically helpful in offering policy recommendations
to cover gaps in this field of development studies,
especially in terms of addressing power dynamics
between scientists and communities. In sum, interven-
tions from Western and global development organisa-
tions often overlook or omit the social contexts of
environmental issues that affect women, Indigenous
communities, and other marginalised and racialised
individuals and are central to feminist livelihood
perspectives.
4.2 |Migration, displacement, and the
environment
Feminist livelihoods researchers also analyse migration
and displacement among people in rural and urban
areas using an environmental lens. Whether pursued
opportunistically or as a result of heightened vulnerabil-
ity, migration is a livelihood activity that connects
people and places through dynamic socio-economic
and spatial processes (Awumbila & Ardayfio-
Schandorf, 2008; Oberhauser, 2016; Radel
et al., 2025). Migration decisions are embedded in and
affect unequal social relations and intrahousehold
economies that often depend on access to resources.
In turn, displacement entails both the physical move-
ment of people and the constraints placed on liveli-
hoods and socio-cultural relations through the loss of
land and other resources (Mollett, 2017;Vaz-
Jones, 2018; Zaragocin, 2019).
Linkages among migration, displacement, and
human-environment dynamics also point to how envi-
ronmental shifts affect agricultural activities, which can
lead to diversified and disrupted livelihoods (Jokisch
et al., 2019; Kelly, 2011; Rigg, 2006). For example,
Radel et al. (2018) highlight how gendered patterns of
labour migration affect women’s agricultural participa-
tion in smallholder households of Southeast Mexico.
Male out-migration in this area often exacerbates vul-
nerability among women and families who remain at
the homesteads amid the restructuring of household
divisions of labour (McEvoy et al., 2012). Migration and
livelihoods scholars tend to overlook these gender
and intrahousehold considerations of migration that are
important to feminist livelihood scholars (see
Arun, 2012; Langill, 2021a; Oberhauser, 2016; Radel
et al., 2012,2025). Feminist approaches consider the
environmental implications of increasing global migra-
tion and human displacement for individual and house-
hold livelihoods.
Furthermore, many households continue to negotiate
gender-based control of land, resources, and labour,
with uneven outcomes among and within households
amid increasing rural outmigration (Francis, 2002;
Kawarazuka et al., 2020). These unequal burdens are
connected to environmental injustices that give rise to
uneven risk burdens (Pulido, 2000). Consequently,
migratory patterns can further marginalise rural house-
holds and communities with the loss of labour, insecure
and intermittent income sources, and food insecurity
(Oberhauser, 2016; Radel et al., 2012).
4.3 |Livelihoods and climate change
Feminist livelihood work has contributed to timely
research on climate change. Intersecting social forces
shape and are impacted by environmental processes
6OBERHAUSER and LANGILL
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that include climate change (Buechler & Hanson, 2015;
Nyantakyi-Frimpong, 2020; Sultana, 2014). In particu-
lar, climate-induced vulnerability and resilience are
linked to gender, class, race, and other axes of power.
These social norms and power relations in livelihood
practices stem from and affect environmental changes,
such as increasing intensity and frequency of storms,
flooding, and shifting seasonality (Owusu et al., 2019;
Sultana, 2021; Wangui, 2018). Working with a
livelihood lens, Langill (2021a,2021b) unravels the co-
constitution of intrahousehold dynamics and seasonal-
ity for floodplain livelihoods in the Peruvian Amazon,
and questions how these interlinkages may shift with
ongoing environmental change.
These interrelated factors impact environmentally
conscious measures to mitigate and adapt to climate
change. For example, Sultana (2021) emphasises the
importance of exposing structural inequities and
marginalisation across scales and places to advance
more equitable analyses of and resistance to climate
change. Socio-ecological crises such as COVID-19
and climate change increase economic insecurity
among marginalised individuals and households
(Sultana, 2021). In addition, adaptation to climate
change in rural agricultural communities is often led by
women. Wangui (2018) describes this trend in exten-
sive research on the adaptation by rural women to cli-
mate change through agricultural practices and access
among pastoral communities in Kenya. Government
investment and land use policies impact many of these
mitigation and adaptation strategies, yet often lack fem-
inist insights and foundations.
In sum, feminist livelihood approaches emphasise
social and political aspects of human-environment rela-
tions and specifically the use of and access to
resources (Christie et al., 2025; Langill, 2021a; Radel
et al., 2012; Sultana, 2021). The three areas of feminist
livelihoods outlined here reflect the need to challenge
mainstream development interventions, understand
how migration and displacement are linked to liveli-
hoods, and examine livelihoods in analysing climate
change. This work contributes to research on socio-
economic dimensions of the environment and how live-
lihoods at all scales will be continually reshaped by
environmental change.
5|CONCLUSION
Feminist livelihood studies offer a critical and transfor-
mative approach that builds on ground-breaking work
in development, environmental studies, and related
feminist and social geographies to understand how
people make a living. This paper advances conceptual
and methodological perspectives that inform feminist
livelihood literature and proposes three key pillars for
future research agendas.
First, postcolonial and decolonial feminisms inform
our approach to theorising and empirically examining
livelihoods as situated in social and cultural contexts.
Such work critiques colonial legacies and promotes
livelihood research that is grounded in non-hegemonic
worldviews to better capture the lifeworlds of people
with diverse subjectivities. In addition, the decolonisa-
tion of research provides historical context and
reframes knowledge production from Western to Indig-
enous and subaltern perspectives.
Second, postcolonial and decolonial principles pave
the way for feminist analyses that focus on relational
and intersectional social dynamics. As outlined above,
livelihoods are deeply embedded within social, cultural,
and relational contexts. Critical feminist foundations
offer a strong platform from which to understand the
social-relational at all stages of livelihood frameworks
and pursuits. While many dimensions of intersectional
social identities are interrogated, sexuality and gender
identities are generally neglected in these analyses.
We urge feminist livelihood scholars to include intersec-
tionality, the multiple and compounding forms of social
differentiation, in their approaches to understanding the
means of making a living.
Finally, connections between livelihood studies and
development geographies include the environment,
resources, agriculture, and, increasingly, climate
change. Here we have drawn on feminist political ecol-
ogy to highlight how these issues advance feminist live-
lihood studies. Feminist perspectives on socio-spatial
aspects of livelihoods, including considerations of
mainstream interventions, migration, displacement, and
climate change, are essential to understand uneven
development and compounded marginalisation of indi-
viduals, households, and communities.
It can be argued that livelihood studies developed
out of an ‘impasse’in development thinking and cri-
tiques of mainstream approaches. We argue that there
is an important place for livelihood thinking that
embraces its origins in critical development work while
advancing feminist scholarship. Feminist livelihood
studies have the potential to transform power relations
and support feminist ethics in development studies and
knowledge production as a whole. Our work reframes
livelihood analyses with attention to critical feminist
epistemologies, methodologies, and practices to avoid
repeating earlier limitations of livelihood frameworks.
Such an approach points to the rich material and trans-
formative potential of this field.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to sincerely thank the two anonymous
reviewers for their constructive comments that helped
us to strengthen this paper. We would also like to thank
Editor Elaine Stratford at Geographical Research,as
well as our many colleagues for the stimulating conver-
sations that deepened our engagement on this topic
OBERHAUSER and LANGILL 7
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and encouraged us to write this paper, particularly
those at the 2021 American Association of Geogra-
phers annual meeting and the 2022 Feminist Geogra-
phy conference, Pushing Boundaries. Open Access
funding was provided by University of Bristol.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors declare no conflicts of interests.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no data-
sets were generated or analysed during the current
study.
ETHICS STATEMENT
No ethical approval or funding was required for this
research.
ORCID
Ann M. Oberhauser https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
0732-1371
Jennifer C. Langill https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5463-
8681
ENDNOTES
1
For example, livelihoods frameworks were quickly adopted by the
United Kingdom’s Department for International Development
(DfID). (For additional discussion of this application of livelihoods
frameworks, see Carney et al., 1999; Natarajan et al., 2022; and
Scoones, 2015).
2
See Ballestrin (2022) for further discussion on the distinct genealog-
ical histories as well as the shared and divergent conceptual orien-
tations of postcolonial and decolonial feminisms that are referred to
as ‘subaltern feminisms’in relation to hegemonic feminism.
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How to cite this article: Oberhauser, A. M., &
Langill, J. C. (2024). Feminist livelihood studies:
Mapping future directions. Geographical
Research,1–10. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-
5871.12688
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