Amber Fletcher

Contact Info

Research Interests

• Gender
• Environment
• Climate hazards
• Climate change
• Agriculture
• Rural communities
• Intersectionality
• Qualitative research methods
• Critical realism

Dr. Amber Fletcher’s research examines how gender and social inequity shape the lived experience of climate disasters (flooding, drought, and wildfire). Focusing on rural and Indigenous communities in the Canadian Prairie region, her work reveals the lived impact of inequity in the context of crisis. Her broader research interests include the intersection of environment, agriculture, and food; experiences of women in historically male-dominated occupations (e.g., agriculture, public safety), gender-based violence, and research methodologies—especially applied Critical Realism. Dr. Fletcher is Associate Editor for the Journal of Critical Realism.

Amber is currently Principal Investigator on a $2.4 million SSHRC Partnership Grant project entitled, “Connecting to Place through Disaster Response: New Opportunities for Community-Campus Partnerships” (2026-2031). The project explores how post-secondary institutions can effectively support communities experiencing disaster in equitable, inclusive, and collaborative ways. Dr. Fletcher also currently serves as Co-Director on an intercontinental project called “Bridging the Water Adaptation Gap: A Comparative Inter- and Transdisciplinary Perspective of Regional Risks and Vulnerabilities in Drylands in Canada and Latin America” (2022-27). Her previous projects include a five-year study on the social dimensions of climate hazards in agricultural and Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan and several SSHRC- and CIHR-funded projects on environmental impact assessment, rural communities, and public safety.

Dr. Fletcher has published research in international peer-reviewed journals, including Regional Environmental Change, Agriculture and Human Values, Journal of Rural Studies, Society & Natural Resources, Cuadernos de Desarrollo Rural, Geoforum, Climate Policy, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Evidence & Policy, Natural Hazards, International Social Work, and The Canadian Geographer/le Géographe canadien.

Amber has also published chapters in a number of anthologies, most recently Critical Realism in Health and Social Research (2025, edited by M.B. Solem and D. Jenssen), Critical Futures: Community-Engaged Research in a Time of Crisis and Social Transformation (2025, edited by S. Poyntz et al.), and Feminist Climate Policy in Industrialised States: A Gender-Just Climate Emergency Response (2025, edited by S. Buckingham et al.). Amber has published two edited collections, Gender and the Social Dimensions of Climate Change: Rural and Resource Contexts of the Global North (with Maureen G. Reed, Routledge, 2023) and Women in Agriculture Worldwide: Key Issues and Practical Approaches (with Wendee Kubik, Routledge, 2017). She is currently authoring an open-access textbook on qualitative research methods.

Amber has delivered over 120 presentations in Canada and worldwide—including invited talks to audiences in the Netherlands, Mongolia, Spain, Portugal, England, Italy, and the USA—and has contributed to expert testimonies for two Standing Committees of the Parliament of Canada. In 2012 she spoke at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on the topic of rural women’s wellbeing. Dr. Fletcher has also served as a consultant to the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme. She is a contributing author to Chapter 7 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land (2019).

Dr. Fletcher is a past President of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (2018-19). She holds a King Charles III Coronation Medal, awarded in 2025 for exceptional service to Canada, and two medals from the Governor General of Canada for her research and advocacy on gender equality in Canada. In 2020, she was the Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. In 2022, she received the Provost’s Award for Innovation in Teaching at the University of Regina, and in 2023 she received the Lieutenant Governor’s Postsecondary Teaching Award for Innovation in Teaching.

Amber teaches courses in social research methodology, qualitative research methods, and introductory sociology topics. She is always interested in partnering with community and non-profit organizations for collaborative research and learning.

Amber’s publications can be found on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amber-Fletcher