Gender, intersectionality and Indigenous rights in social impact assessment

SIA and the gendered dimensions of projects interconnect with the topics of Indigenous rights, including land rights and colonialism. In this chapter, we explore barriers and opportunities to improve gendered analyses in SIA. We do so with an emphasis primarily on Canada, and with an undercurrent that examines issues that are sensitive – often deemed too hard. There remains a gap in SIA to meaningfully integrate gender analysis and address the rights of populations that experience gendered systems of oppression. Our focus is on the challenges and aspirations for implementation of gender in impact assessment, with a focus on advances regarding how policy can be improved internationally and how practice still has a way to go to incorporate a gender lens in impact assessment. We draw on a ‘walk softly’ teaching approach. In drawing on the walk softly approach, we understand gender violence as prominent and misunderstood in the SIA domain.