Americas

Citation:

Harris, Melanie L. 2016. “Ecowomanism: An Introduction.” Worldviews 20 (1): 5–14.

Author: Melanie L. Harris

Abstract:

This essay provides a definition and theoretical frame for ecowomanism. The approach to environmental justice centers the perspectives of women of African descent and reflects upon these women's activist methods, religious practices, and theories on how to engage earth justice. As a part of the womanist tradition, methodologically ecowomanism features race, class, gender intersectional analysis to examine environmental injustice around the planet. Thus, it builds upon an environmental justice paradigm that also links social justice to environmental justice. Ecowomanism highlights the necessity for race-class-gender intersectional analysis when examining the logic of domination, and unjust public policies that result in environmental health disparities that historically disadvantage communities of color. As an aspect of third wave womanist religious thought, ecowomanism is also shaped by religious worldviews reflective of African cosmologies and uphold a moral imperative for earth justice. Noting the significance of African and Native American cosmologies that link divine, human and nature realms into an interconnected web of life, ecowomanism takes into account the religious practices and spiritual beliefs that are important tenets and points of inspiration for ecowomanist activism. 

Keywords: ecowomanism, gender analysis, environment, social justice, African women

Topics: Class, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Health, Race, Religion Regions: Africa, Americas, North America

Year: 2016

Citation:

Harper, A. Breeze, ed. 2010. Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health and Society. Brooklyn, NY: Lantern Books.

Author: Breeze A. Harper

Annotation:

Summary:

Sistah Vegan is a series of narratives, critical essays, poems, and reflections from a diverse community of North American black-identified vegans. Collectively, these activists are de-colonizing their bodies and minds via whole-foods veganism. By kicking junk-food habits, the more than thirty contributors all show the way toward longer, stronger, and healthier lives. Suffering from type-2 diabetes, hypertension, high blood pressure, and overweight need not be the way women of color are doomed to be victimized and live out their mature lives. There are healthy alternatives. Sistah Vegan is not about preaching veganism or vegan fundamentalism. Rather, the book is about how a group of black-identified female vegans perceive nutrition, food, ecological sustainability, health and healing, animal rights, parenting, social justice, spirituality, hair care, race, gender-identification, womanism, and liberation that all go against the (refined and bleached) grain of our dysfunctional society. Thought-provoking for the identification and dismantling of environmental racism, ecological devastation, and other social injustices, Sistah Vegan is an in-your-face handbook for our time. It calls upon all of us to make radical changes for the betterment of ourselves, our planet, and--by extension--everyone. (Summary from WorldCat)

Table of Contents:

Preface
Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson

Introduction: The Birth of the Sistah Vegan Project
A. Breeze Harper

1. Thinking and Eating at the Same Time: Reflections of a Sistah Vegan
Michelle R. Loyd-Paige

2. Veganism and Ecowomanism
Layli Phillips

3. Social Justice Beliefs and Addiction to Uncompassionate Consumption: Food for Thought
A. Breeze Harper

4. On Being Black and Vegan
Delicia Dunham

5. Nutrition Liberation: Plant-based Diets as a Tool for Healing, Resistance, and Self-Reliance
Melissa Danielle

6. Young, Black, and Vegan
Joi Marie Probus

7. Veganism: Stepping Away from the Status Quo
Venus Taylor

8. Being a Sistah at PETA
Ain Drew

9. Hospital-Sponsored Junk Food at a "Healthy" Bike-Riding Event?
Robin Lee

10. Black-a-tarian
Ma'at Sincere Earth

11. Identity, Freedom, and Veganism
Melissa Santosa

12. Terror Tara
Sophia Bahna-James

13. Eyes of the Dead
Mary Spears

14. I Am Sistah Vegan
Tasha Edwards

15. Gourmet Chef at McD's
Olu Butterfly Woods

16. To Eat or Not to Eat
Thea Moore

17. Stop Feeding Me Your Bullsh*t
Tishana Joy Trainor

18. "What You Cooking, Grandma?"
Nia Yaa

19. The Food and Sex Link
Angelique Shofar

20. Journey to Veganism
Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo

21. The Fulfillment of the Movement
Adama Maweja

22. Ma'at Diet
Iya Raet

23. Because They Matter
Tashee Meadows

24. Journey Toward Compassionate Choice: Integrating Vegan and Sistah Experience
Tara Sophia Bahna-James

25. Veganism and Misconceptions of Thinness as "Normal" and "Healthy": Sistah Vegans Break It Down in Cyberspace
A. Breeze Harper

Afterword: Liberation as Connection and the Decolonization of Desire
Pattrice Jones

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Health, Race Regions: Americas, North America

Year: 2010

Citation:

Hamrell, Sven, and Olle Nordberg, eds. 1993. Women, Ecology and Health: Rebuilding Connections. Uppsala, Sweden: The Dag Hammarskjöld Centre and Kali for Women.

Authors: Sven Hamrell, Olle Nordberg

Annotation:

Summary:
The seminar on 'Women, Ecology and Health: Rebuilding Connections', which has provided the basis for the material presented in this issue of Development Dialogue, was held in Bangalore in southern India from July 17 to 22, 1991. It was jointly organised by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, Dehra Dun, India, and moderated by the Director of the latter foundation, Vandana Shiva. It brought together 25 participants from seven South Asian and Southeast Asian countries and one participant from the United States. Both foundations are grateful to the participants for their valuable contributions to the seminar discussions and to the authors for the pains they have taken in thoroughly revising and updating their papers.The basic idea behind the organisation of the Bangalore seminar was the conviction that, twenty years after 'the Environment' was placed on the international agenda, the time was ripe to take stock, from a women's perspective, of two decades of development in the environmental field. Furthermore, an important factor was the growing recognition that across the world women are rebuilding connections with nature and renewing the insight that what people do to nature directly affects them, too; that there is, in fact, no insular divide between the environment and their own bodies and health (Summary from original source).

Table of Contents:

1. Women, Ecology and Health: An Introduction
   Vandana Shiva
2. After the Forest: AIDS as Ecological Collapse in Thailand
   Ann Danaiya Usher
3. Killing Legally with Toxic Waste: Women and the Environment in the United States
   Penny Newman
4. Environmental Degradation and Subversion of Health
   Mira Shiva
5. Using Technology, Choosing Sex the Campaign Against Sex Determination and the Question of Choice
   FASDSP Group
6. Legal Rights… and Wrongs: Internationalising Bhopal
   Indira Jaising, C. Sathyamala
7. ‘Green Earth, Women’s Power, Human Liberation’: Women in Peasant Movements in India
   Gail Omvedt
8. Filipino Peasant Women in Defence of Life
   Loreta B. Ayupan, Teresita G. Oliveros
9. Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Its Ecological and Political Consequences
   Rita Sebastian
10. The Seed and the Earth: Biotechnology and the Colonisation of Regeneration
    Vandana Shiva

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Health Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: India, Thailand, United States of America

Year: 1993

Citation:

Godfrey, Phoebe. 2005. "Diane Wilson vs. Union Carbide: Ecofeminism and the Elitist Charge of 'Essentialism.'" Capitalism Nature Socialism 16 (4): 37-56. 

Author: Phoebe Godfrey

Annotation:

Summary:
“I am especially interested in whether the academic charge that ecofeminism is essentialist and contaminated by capitalist patriarchal ideology can withstand political scrutiny. I argue that the ultimate test of a theory is its outcomes, because all theory is a form of practice, and all practice incorporates a form of theory. It is when the connection remains unarticulated and a process of privileging one side over the other emerges that constructive critique becomes counterproductive. So, with an over literal emphasis on discursive practices and a corresponding lack of conceptual tools for discussing material objects and relations, constructionist academics are made uneasy by feminist, environmentalist, or ecofeminist activists, who situate their politics in the material experiences and language of everyday life” (Godfrey 2005, 37-8).

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women Regions: Americas, Asia, South Asia Countries: India, United States of America

Year: 2005

Citation:

Gaard, Greta, and Lori Gruen. 1993. "Ecofeminism: Toward Global Justice and Planetary Health." Society and Nature 2 (1): 1-35.

Authors: Greta Gaard, Lori Gruen

Annotation:

Summary:
“This confluence of writers, scholars, and activists has answered four questions in developing a theory of ecofeminism: what are the problems that ecofeminism has addressed; how did these problems arise; why should these problems concern feminists; and why might ecofeminism offer the best framework for analyzing them? In this essay, we will explore ways that ecofeminists have answered each of these questions” (Gaard and Gruen 1993, 234).

Topics: Feminisms, Ecofeminism Regions: Americas Countries: United States of America

Year: 1993

Citation:

Gaard, Greta. 2010. “New Directions for Ecofeminism: Toward a More Feminist Ecocriticism.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 17 (4): 643-65.

Author: Greta Gaard

Annotation:

Summary:
"In both Simon Estok’s provocative essay, “Theorizing in a Space of Ambivalent Openness: Ecocriticism and Ecophobia” (2009), as well as Joni Adamson and Scott Slovic’s “The Shoulders We Stand On: An Introduction to Ethnicity and Ecocriticism” (2009), we are offered two readings of ecocritical history, suggesting real or desired relations among various ecocritical perspectives. In these discussions, feminism is variously referenced—sometimes it is implied or addressed, other times it is backgrounded, omitted, or even distorted. Similarly, in the two book-length introductions to ecocriticism to date, Lawrence Buell’s The Future of Environmental Criticism (2005) and Greg Garrard’s Ecocriticism (2004), the retelling of ecocritical roots and developments marginalizes both feminist and ecofeminist literary perspectives. Such presentations (and misrepresentations) of feminist scholarship by collegial ecocritics warn of a larger potential for misreading or omission by broader audiences, hence the importance of both correcting the historical record and actively contributing to the future of ecocriticism. In this essay, I would like to suggest at least seven new directions, or continued developments, for ecofeminist and feminist ecocritics" (Gaard 2010, 643).

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Race Regions: Americas Countries: United States of America

Year: 2010

Citation:

Gaard, Greta. 1997. “Toward a Queer Ecofeminism.” Hypatia 12 (1): 114-37.

Author: Greta Gaard

Abstract:

Although many ecofeminists acknowledge heterosexism as a problem, a systematic exploration of the potential intersections of ecofeminist and queer theories has yet to be made. By interrogating social constructions of the "natural," the various uses of Christianity as a logic of domination, and the rhetoric of colonialism, this essay finds those theoretical intersections and argues for the importance of developing a queer ecofeminism.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, LGBTQ, Sexuality Regions: Americas Countries: United States of America

Year: 1997

Citation:

Gaard, Greta, ed. 1993. Ecofeminism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press

Author: Greta Gaard

Annotation:

Summary:
Drawing on the insights of ecology, feminism, and socialism, ecofeminism's basic premise is that the ideology that authorizes oppression based on race, class, gender, sexuality, physical abilities, and species is the same ideology that sanctions the oppression of nature. In this collection of essays, feminist scholars and activists discuss the relationships among human begins, the natural environment, and nonhuman animals. They reject the nature/culture dualism of patriarchal thought and locate animals and humans within nature. The goal of these twelve articles is to contribute to the evolving dialogue among feminists, ecofeminists, animal liberationists, deep ecologists, and social ecologists in an effort to create a sustainable lifestyle for all inhabitants of the earth. Among the issues addressed are the conflicts between Green politics and ecofeminism, various applications of ecofeminist theory, the relationship of animal liberation to ecofeminism, harmful implications of the romanticized woman-nature association in Western culture, and cultural limitations of ecofeminism. (Summary from Temple University Press)

Table of Contents:

1. Living Interconnections with Animals and Nature
   Greta Gaard
2. Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice
   Janis Birkeland
3. Dismantling Oppression: An Analysis of the Connection Between Women and Animals
   Lori Gruen
4. Roots: Rejoining Natural and Social History
   Stephanie Lahar
5. Ecofeminism and the Politics of Reality
   Linda Vance
6. Questioning Sour Grapes: Ecofeminism and the United Farm Workers Grape Boycott
   Ellen O'Loughlin
7. Animal Rights and Feminist Theory
   Josephine Donovan
8. The Feminist Traffic in Animals
   Carol J. Adams
9. For the Lover of Nature: Ecology and the Culture of the Romantic
   Chaia Heller
10. From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge
    Marti Kheel
11. A Cross-Cultural Critique of Ecofeminism
    Huey-li Li
12. Ecofeminism and Native American Cultures – Pushing the Limits of Cultural Imperialism?
    Greta Gaard

Topics: Class, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Indigenous, Race, Rights Regions: Americas Countries: United States of America

Year: 1993

Citation:

Fakier, Khayaat, Diana Mulinari, and Nora Räthzel, eds. 2020. Marxist-Feminist Theories and Struggles Today: Essential Writings on Intersectionality, Labour and Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books.

Authors: Khayaat Fakier , Diana Mulinari, Nora Räthzel

Annotation:

Summary:

This vital new collection presents new Marxist-Feminist analyses of Capitalism as a gendered, racialized social formation that shapes and is shaped by specific nature-labour relationships. Leaving behind former overtly structuralist thinking, Marxist-Feminist Theories and Struggles Today interweaves strands of ecofeminism and intersectional analyses to develop an understanding of the relations of production and the production of nature through the interdependencies of gender, class, race and colonial relations. With contributions and analyses from scholars and theorists in both the global North and South, this volume offers a truly international lens that reveals the the vitality of contemporary global Marxist-Feminist thinking, as well as its continued relevance to feminist struggles across the globe (Summary from Zed Books).

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Khayaat Fakier, Diana Mulinari, Nora Räthzel

Part I – Conceptualising

1. Standpoint Theory
Cynthia Cockburn

2. Outside in the Funding Machine
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

3. Contradictions in Marxist Feminism
Frigga Haug

4. Ecofeminism as (Marxist) Sociology
Ariel Salleh

5. The ‘Flat Ontology’ of Neoliberal Feminism
Jennifer Cotter

6. The Byzantine Eunuch: Pre-capitalist Gender Category, ‘Tributary’ Modal Contradiction, and a Test for Materialist Feminism
Jules Gleeson

7. Reading Marx against the Grain: Rethinking the Exploitation of Care Work Beyond Profit-Seeking
Tine Haubner

Part II – Production

8. Marx and Social Reproduction Theory: Three Different Historical Strands
Ankica Čakardić

9. The Best Thing I Have Done Is to Give Birth; The Second Is to Strike
Paula Mulinari

10. Women in Small Scale Fishing in South Africa: An Ecofeminist Engagement with the ‘Blue Economy’
Natasha Solari and Khayaat Fakier

11. The ‘Crisis of Care’ and the Neoliberal Restructuring of the Public Sector – a Feminist Polanyian Analysis
Rebecca Selberg

12. Gender Regimes and Women’s Labour: Volvo Factories in Sweden, Mexico, and South Africa
Nora Räthzel, Diana Mulinari, Aina Tollefsen

Part III – Religions and Politics

13. Religious Resistance: A Flower on the Chain or a Tunnel towards Liberation?
Gabriele Dietrich

14. A Marxist-Feminist Perspective: From Former Yugoslavia to Turbo Fascism to Neoliberal Postmodern Fascist Europe
Marina Gržinić

15. Feminism, Antisemitism and the Question of Palestine/Israel
Nira Yuval Davis

Part IV – Solidarities

16. Women in Brazilian's Trade Union Movement
Patricia Vieira Trópia

17. Argentinean Feminist Movements: Debates from Praxis
Ana Isabel González Montes

18. Marxist Feminism for a Global Women’s Movement against Capitalism
Ligaya Lindio McGovern

19. Marxist/Socialist Feminist Theory and Practice in the USA Today
Nancy Holmstrom 

20. Solidarity in Troubled Times: Social Movements in the Face of Climate Change
Kathryn Russell

Topics: Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Economies, Care Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Intersectionality, Race, Religion Regions: Africa, MENA, Southern Africa, Americas, North America, South America, Europe, Balkans, Nordic states Countries: Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, South Africa, Sweden, United States of America

Year: 2020

Citation:

Epstein, Barbara. 1993. “Ecofeminism and Grassroots Environmentalism in the United States.” In Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice edited by Richard Hofrichter, 144-52. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers.

Author: Barbara Epstein

Annotation:

Summary:

"Toxic Struggles forcefully documents this fast-growing environmental justice movement led by the very people who suffer most from corporate ecological devastation—people of color, women, and low-income, working class populations. The essays in Toxic Struggles reflect the diversity of this new alliance by addressing such issues as environmental racism, ecofeminism, occupational health and safety, and the exploitation of Third World peoples" (Summary from Google Books).

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 1993