Becoming difficult over time? Women’s voluntary labour in the Indian Sundarbans

We explore how women’s voluntary labour on climate adaptation in the Indian Sundarbans creates long-term pathways to disrupting gender norms. We bring debates around liberal and liberating empowerment into dialogue with research on volunteering to explore how shorter-term programs engaging volunteers can lay foundations for transformational change. We show how women’s voluntary labour plays diverse roles, predominantly aligning with liberal feminist empowerment. We argue that this can foster agency and provide important bonds and shared identities which can be harnessed to challenge gender norms in a more purposive and transformational way, aligning with a liberating empowerment approach.