Coloniality/Post-Coloniality

Citation:

Njoh, Ambe J., and Elisabeth N. M. Ayuk-Etang. 2020. “Determinants of Ecofeminism in Anglophone Cameroon: A PESTECH Analysis.” Journal of Asian and African Studies. doi:10.1177/0021909620970571.

Authors: Ambe J. Njoh, Elisabeth N. M. Ayuk-Etang

Abstract:

This paper analyzes ecofeminism operationalized as the relationship between women and the natural environment. It treats ecofeminism as context-dependent and not a universal construct as suggested in the literature. It focuses on the political, economic, social, technological, ecological, cultural and historical (PESTECH) context of ecofeminism in Anglophone Cameroon, a polity with a unique pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial experience. Each dimension is shown to impact women–nature relations in its own unique way. This underscores the need to be more discerning and attentive to context in any analysis of ecofeminism.
 

Keywords: Anglophone Cameroon, ecofeminism, women-nature relations, feminism, gender-based discrimination, political, economic, social, technological, ecological, cultural and historical (PESTECH) context, environmental scanning model

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Cameroon

Year: 2020

Citation:

Jabeen, Neelam. 2020. “Women, Land, Embodiment: A Case of Postcolonial Ecofeminism.” International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 22 (8): 1095-109.

Author: Neelam Jabeen

Abstract:

In continuation of a previous essay about how Pakistani Anglophone literature intervenes into the mainstream ecofeminist paradigm, in this essay I show how South Asian literature – specifically, Pakistani and Indian fiction – challenges the mainstream ecofeminist assumption of a symbolic woman–nature (land) connection where terms like fertile, barren, seed, rape, womb, virgin, etc. are used for both women and land, symbolically feminizing land, and naturalizing women. I argue that this woman–land connection cannot be merely regarded as symbolic because in the post/colonial South Asian societies that the selected texts present, women’s bodies are actually treated as land, which in turn complicates the notion of women–land embodiment, allowing a deeper understanding of the cause of the twin oppression of women and land.

Keywords: embodiment, postcolonial ecofeminism, women-land/nature connection

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India, Pakistan

Year: 2020

Citation:

Chowdhury, Elora Halim. 2016. “Development Paradoxes: Feminist Solidarity, Alternative Imaginaries and New Spaces.” Journal of International Women's Studies 17 (1): 117–32.

Author: Elora Halim Chowdhury

Abstract:

In his seminal work Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (1995), post-development scholar Arturo Escobar likens development to a chimera. My work builds on a sophisticated body of post-development and transnational feminist theory drawing on conceptions of the relationship of representations of development in the Third World to the interconnected webs of various transnational patriarchal and economic dominations that affect, and are affected by, the realities of marginalized communities in the Global South. In particular, I am concerned with how development discourses interlock with global systemic hierarchies of race, gender, class as well as structural oppressions, including uneven global systems of economic restructuring, neo-colonial interventions, and donor-structured development operations that hinder global solidarity and cross-border feminist organizing. Enjoining development debates to cultural texts, I explore what disparate fields such as post-colonialism, feminism, post-development have to offer and enrich the ideas about the conflicted terrain of development discourse.

Keywords: development, post-development, post-coloniality, neocolonialism, transnational feminism, knowledge production, culture

Topics: Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Development, Economies, Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Patriarchy, Race

Year: 2016

Citation:

Tamale, Sylvia. 2020. Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. Ottawa: Daraja Press.

Author: Sylvia Tamale

Annotation:

Summary:
Why do so many Africans believe they cannot break the “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back” cycle?  Six decades after colonial flags were lowered and African countries gained formal independence, the continent struggles to free itself from the deep legacies of colonialism, imperialism and patriarchy.  Many intellectuals, politicians, feminists and other activists, eager to contribute to Africa’s liberation, have frustratingly, felt like they took the wrong path.  Analyzed through the eyes of Afro-feminism, this book revisits some of the fundamental preconditions needed for radical transformation.

The main focus of Decolonization and Afro-feminism is unlearning imperial power relations by relearning to “shake off” the colonial filters through which we view the world, including the instruments of law, education, religion, family and sexuality.  It re-envisions Pan-Africanism as a more inclusive decolonizing/decolonial movement that embraces Afro-feminist politics.  It also challenges the traditional human rights paradigm and its concomitant idea of “gender equality,” flagging instead, the African philosophy of Ubuntu as a serious alternative for reinvigorating African notions of social justice. (Summary from original source)

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Basics of Decolonization and Decolonial Futures

2. Feminists and the Struggle for Africa’s Decolonial Reconstruction

3. Challenging the Coloniality of Sex, Gender and Sexuality

4. Legal Pluralism and Decolonial Feminismn

5. Repositioning the Dominant Discourses on Rights and Social Justice

6. Rethinking the African Academy

7. Decolonizing Family Law: The Case of Uganda

8. Towards Feminist Pan-Africanism and Pan-African Feminism

Epilogue: Decolonizing Africa in the Age of Big Data

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Education, Feminisms, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Patriarchy, Religion, Sexuality Regions: Africa

Year: 2020

Citation:

Asher, Kiran. 2017. “Thinking Fragments: A Disciplinary Reflections on Feminism and Environmental Justice.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 3 (2): 1–28.

Author: Kiran Asher

Abstract:

Feminisms and environmental justice are some of the names of struggles to understand nature-culture linkages and conceptualize just worlds for nonhumans and their human kin. In this paper, I revisit my journey of doing environmental justice research, i.e. of my feminist scientific practice in Asia and Latin America. In this retrospective telling I highlight how gender, political economy, and race were and remain fundamental in producing the subjects and objects of my research and analysis. I discuss how an implicit feminism helped me grapple with the complex nature-culture linkages I observed in the field. Postcolonial and marxist insights supplement and complement feminisms in the questions I pose as we attempt to imagine new nature-cultures.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Justice, Political Economies, Race Regions: Americas, Asia

Year: 2017

Citation:

Abdelrahman, Hadiya. 2020. "Unmasking the Gaze: Unpacking Colonial Understandings of Gender Programming in Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan." PhD diss., Fordham University.

Author: Hadiya Abdelrahman

Abstract:

There have been emerging bodies of literature and research that are addressing the colonial roots of humanitarian aid. Research and literature that center humanitarianism in that history aim to disrupt the neutral and impartial framework that informs general understandings of it. In this thesis, I hope to disrupt the notion of its impartiality by contextualizing humanitarian aid, specifically around gender programming, in Zaatari Camp in Jordan through a colonial lens that further perpetuates inequality. By engaging with existing literature around colonial roots of humanitarianism and the colonial gaze around the brown (re: Muslim/Arab) bodies, I will further problematize Zaatari Camp as a space that serves as a continuum of both the roots and gaze of the colonial imagination.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Humanitarian Assistance, Race Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Jordan

Year: 2020

Citation:

Stock, Ryan, and Trevor Birkenholtz. 2020. “Photons vs. Firewood: Female (Dis)Empowerment by Solar Power in India.” Gender, Place and Culture 27 (11): 1628-51.

Authors: Ryan Stock, Trevor Birkenholtz

Abstract:

Renewable energy transitions are accelerating in the Global South. Yet many large-scale renewable energy infrastructures are developed on public lands with unknown impacts on commons access and usage. A prime example of this is the Gujarat Solar Park (GSP) in India, which is one of the world’s largest solar photovoltaic facilities. The GSP is situated on 2,669 acres of previously common property, which has historically been used by female pastoralists for firewood collection. In this paper, we examine the following research questions: How do gender and caste power shape natural resource access in this region?; Does the Gujarat Solar Park exacerbate already gendered social-economic-political asymmetries? Our study utilizes a feminist political ecology framework to analyze the social dimensions of the GSP, drawing on recent work in this vein that uses a postcolonial and intersectional approach to examine the production of social difference through the spatial processes and political economy of solar energy generation. We find that the enclosure of public ‘wastelands’ to develop the Gujarat Solar Park has dispossessed resource-dependent women of access to firewood and grazing lands. This spatial dislocation is reinforcing asymmetrical social power relations at the village scale. Intersectional subject-positions are (re)produced vis-à-vis the exclusion of access to firewood in the land enclosed for the solar park. Affected women embody this dispossession through inter- and intra-village emotional geographies that cut across caste, class and gender boundaries.

Topics: Caste, Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Women, Infrastructure, Energy, Intersectionality Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2020

Citation:

Gruner, Sheila. 2018. "Territorio y el ser decolonial: Pervivencia de las mujeres y los pueblos en tiempos de conflicto, paz y desarrollo." In Movimientos indígenas y autonomías en América Latina: Escenarios de disputa y horizontes de posibilidad, edited by Flores Pavel C. López and Guerreiro Luciana García, 259-84. Buenos Aires, Argentina: CLACSO.

Author: Sheila Gruner

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT:

La autonomía de los movimientos étnico-territoriales está orientada por conceptualizaciones de territorio y los derechos políticoterritoriales, y las relaciones sociales de producción que se producen y reproducen dentro del mismo territorio. Para entender lo que está en juego para pueblos indígenas y negros tanto como sociedad en general, se requiere abordar temas del desarrollo, conflicto y paz en su conjunto, mirar las tendencias de violencia contra las mujeres, y las mujeres racializadas en específico, desde un marco crítico, global y decolonial, tanto como anti-racista y depatriarcal. En este artículo serán explorados movimientos étnico-territoriales en Colombia y Canadá, examinando aquellos que han avanzado hacia formulaciones ontológicas alternativas al desarrollo, representado en conceptos como el buen vivir, ubuntu, y mino-bimaadiziwin. En este escrito se examinarán de igual forma los esfuerzos de los pueblos indígenas y negros en Colombia en cuanto a la construcción de la paz, la defensa del territorio y su autonomía, y la inclusión del Capítulo Étnico en los Acuerdos de paz de la Habana.

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

The autonomy of ethno-territorial movements is oriented by conceptualizations of territory, political and territorial rights and the social relations of production that are produced and reproduced within this same territory. To understand what is at stake for indigenous and black people, as well as for society in general, issues of development, conflict, and peace must be addressed in relation to each other, examining tendencies of violence against women and racialized women in particular, from within a critical, global and decolonial framework, that is also anti-racist and depatriarchal. Ethno-territorial movements in Colombia and Canada will be explored, examining those that express ontologies alternative to that which underpins dominant development, represented in concepts such as good life, ubuntu and mino-bimaadiiziwin. Efforts of indigenous and afrocolombian communities will also be explored in relation to the construction of peace, the defense of territory, autonomy and will centre on the inclusion of the Ethnic Chapter in the Havana Peace Accords.

Keywords: decolonial, buen vivir, good life, ubuntu, mino-bimaadiiziwin, movimiento etno-territorial, ethnoterritorial movement, territorio ancestral, ancestral territory, Acuerdos de Habana, Havana Accords, Ethnic Chapter, Capitulo Etnico

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Conflict, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Indigenous, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Peacebuilding, Race, Rights, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, North America, South America Countries: Canada, Colombia

Year: 2018

Citation:

Isike, Christopher, and Ufo Okeke Uzodike. 2011. “Towards an Indigenous Model of Conflict Resolution: Reinventing Women’s Roles as Traditional Peacebuilders in Neo-Colonial Africa.” African Journal on Conflict Resolution 11 (2): 32–59.

Authors: Christopher Isike, Ufo Okeke Uzodike

Abstract:

Women have always been at the centre of peace processes across different pre-colonial African societies. Their peace agency in these societies can be located in their cultural and socio-political roles as well as their contributions to the overall well-being of these societies. It is noteworthy that women’s peacebuilding roles then were reinforced by perceptions which stereotyped women as natural peacemakers, and as being more pacific than men. However, women in neo-colonial African states appear to have lost this myth/sacredness that surrounded their being and social existence in pre-colonial Africa. This is because apart from being marginalised socially, economically and politically, they have increasingly become victims of male violence. How and why did women transform from being active participants in precolonial politics and peace processes to being passive observers of politics and peacebuilding in neo-colonial Africa? And second, given their pre-colonial peacebuilding antecedents, do women have the potential to transform politics and conflict in neo-colonial Africa?In building towards an indigenous model of conflict resolution and peacebuilding, this paper contends that the feminist ethic of care (defined by ubuntu) that was appropriated by pre-colonial African women to wage peace and maintain societal harmony, is still very much a part of the core of contemporary African women, and can be appropriated in resolving subnational conflicts in neo-colonial Africa. Indeed, it is possible to develop it into a model of African feminist peacebuilding which can be utilised as an ideological rallying point to transform politics and create a suitable environment for development in the continent.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Indigenous, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Peace Processes, Peacebuilding Regions: Africa

Year: 2011

Citation:

Holzberg, Billy, and Priya Raghavan. 2020. “Securing the Nation through the Politics of Sexual Violence: Tracing Resonances between Delhi and Cologne.” International Affairs 96 (5): 1189–208.

Authors: Billy Holzberg, Priya Raghavan

Abstract:

Postcolonial and black feminist scholars have long cautioned against the dangerous proximity between the politics of sexual violence and the advancement of nationalist and imperial projects. In this article, we uncover what it is in particular about efforts to address sexual violence that makes them so amenable to exclusionary nationalist projects, by attending to the political aftermaths of the rape of Jyoti Singh in Delhi in 2012, and the cases of mass sexual abuse that took place during New Year's Eve in Cologne in 2015. Tracing the nationalist discourses and policies precipitated in their wake, we demonstrate how across both contexts, the response to sexual violence was ultimately to augment the securitizing power and remit of the state—albeit through different mechanisms, and while producing different subjects of/for surveillance, control and regulation. We highlight how in both cases it is through contemporary resonances of a persistent (post)colonial echo—which enmeshes the normative female body with the idea of the nation—that sexual abuse becomes an issue of national security and the politics of sexual violence becomes tethered to exclusionary nationalisms. Revealing the more general, shared, rationalities that bind the nation to the normative female body while attending to the located political reverberations that make this entanglement so affectively potent in the distinct contexts of India and Germany helps distinguish and amplify transnational and intersectional feminist approaches to sexual violence that do not so readily accommodate nationalist ambitions.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Intersectionality, Nationalism, Security, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, SV against Women Regions: Asia, South Asia, Europe, Central Europe Countries: Germany, India

Year: 2020