This is a great recognition for Jelena Luyts, a PhD student in the Department of geography at the UNamur.
On 17 February 2023, she was awarded the second Research Prize 2022 by the ARES Women and Science Committee, on the theme of "Gender and Environment". Since 2020, Jelena Luyts has been carrying out her PhD on adaptation to environmental change in Senegal, with a particular focus on the differential behaviour of men and women.
Faced with climate change, who adapts when, why, how and according to what timeline?
These questions are at the centre of the research of Jelena Luyts, PhD student under the supervision of Sabine Henry and Florence de Longueville. In her thesis, she explores the gender differences in the choices and timing of these adaptive choices in rural Senegal, using an original qualitative approach. "The focus is on the one hand on the place of migration in the chronology of adaptation, as the complexity of the phenomenon raises the need to examine it in greater depth. On the other hand, particular attention is paid to power relations and the place of women within households, in order to better understand how adaptation decisions are made and how responsibilities are distributed within a household", the doctoral student explains.
After several visits to the Saint-Louis region in north-western Senegal to conduct interviews in several households, the doctoral student is now in the analysis phase of the data collected. "My initial observations still need to be studied in more detail, but among the first findings are gender differences: for example, the different roles of men and women in the household result in different adaptations. In particular, men, as heads of households, will migrate for longer periods than women to provide for the family. Women, who are responsible for the domestic aspects, tend to adopt more local and daily practices," Jelena Luyts quotes.
It is for this innovative and particular approach, both methodologically and scientifically, to the issue of migration in the face of climate change, that Jelena Luyts was awarded the 2nd Research Prize of the ARES Women and Science Committee. The aim of this prize is to promote and stimulate research work carried out in the universities of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and which integrates gender issues. For the 2022 edition, the theme chosen was "Gender and Environment" and three laureates were awarded.