Limits and barriers to climate adaptation among Indigenous women: Insights from Vedda communities in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Climate change disproportionately affects Indigenous communities, yet the gendered dimensions of these impacts, including the ways Indigenous women experience and respond, remain underexplored. This study examines how Indigenous Vedda women in Sri Lanka experience climate change, the strategies they employ in response, and the limits and barriers that constrain their adaptive capacity. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and field journaling conducted across four Vedda communities, the study adopts an intersectional and community-engaged approach to center women’s lived experiences. Findings reveal that Vedda women experience climate change primarily through declining agricultural productivity, food insecurity, water scarcity, and emerging health challenges, driven by drought, precipitation variability, and extreme heat. In response, women employ strategies spanning coping (e.g. manually watering plants), adaptive (e.g. collective resource-sharing), and transformative actions (e.g. increased reliance on daily wage jobs and Western medicine). Yet, these responses are often constrained by intersecting financial, institutional, and social/cultural barriers. Limited access to income, inadequate government support, gendered restrictions on mobility, and unequal access to Indigenous knowledge systems restrict women’s ability to move beyond short-term coping strategies. The study further identifies emerging limits to adaptation, where environmental change and structural inequalities together undermine the viability of traditional livelihood practices and knowledge systems. By foregrounding Indigenous women’s perspectives, this research advances an understanding of how intersecting social and ecological factors shape adaptation. Findings highlight the need for climate adaptation policies that are gender-responsive, context-specific, and grounded in Indigenous knowledge, while addressing structural inequalities that constrain adaptive capacity.