Americas

Patriarchy and Progressive Politics: Gendered Resistance to Mining through Everyday Social Relations of State Formation in Intag, Ecuador

Citation:

Billo, Emily. 2020. “Patriarchy and Progressive Politics: Gendered Resistance to Mining through Everyday Social Relations of State Formation in Intag, Ecuador.” Human Geography 13 (1): 16–26.

Author: Emily Billo

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
Over the last decade, the Ecuadorian government, following regional trends, called for social and environmental progress through state-controlled resource extraction. Scholars have demonstrated that this neo-extractive model warranted further investigation regarding its progressive aims. Specifically, this paper examines gendered critiques of state-led extractivism linked to expanding governmental and social programs. Even as women asserted their political recognition and rights in state politics, they still confronted patriarchal relations in their everyday lives. Drawing on eight months of ethnographic research over 6 years in campesino communities of Junín and Chalguayacu Alto, I argue that women in Intag challenged patriarchal state relations of extractive capitalism. This paper offers a novel contribution to literature on neo-extractivism and gendered forms of resistance. Women held the state accountable for its promises of social welfare and infrastructural development through which it generated public support for controversial mineral projects. These symbols of state paternalism revealed expanded patriarchal structures that underpinned their daily lives, with significance for a gendered politics of resistance.

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
Durante la última década, el gobierno ecuatoriano, siguiendo las tendencias regionales, pidió progreso social y ambiental a través de la extracción de recursos controlada por el estado. Los académicos han demostrado que este modelo neoextractivo justificaba una mayor investigación sobre sus objetivos progresivos. Específicamente, este artículo examina las críticas de género del extractivismo dirigido por el estado y vinculado a la expansión de los programas gubernamentales y sociales. Aun cuando las mujeres afirmaron su reconocimiento político y sus derechos en la política estatal, siguieron confrontando las relaciones patriarcales en sus vidas cotidianas. Basándome en ocho meses de investigación etnográfica durante seis años en comunidades campesinas de Junín y Chalguayacu Alto, sostengo que las mujeres en Intag desafiaron las relaciones estatales patriarcales del capitalismo extractivo. Este artículo ofrece una novedosa contribución a la literatura sobre neo-extractivismo y formas de resistencia de género. Las mujeres responsabilizaron al estado por sus promesas de bienestar social y desarrollo de infraestructura a través de las cuales generó apoyo público para proyectos minerales controvertidos. Estos símbolos del paternalismo estatal revelaron estructuras patriarcales expandidas que apuntalaron sus vidas cotidianas, con importancia para una política de resistencia de género.

Keywords: Ecuador, gendered resistance, neo-extraction, patriarchy, social reproduction, resistencia de género, patriarcado, reproducción social, neoextraccíon

Topics: Environment, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Governance Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Ecuador

Year: 2020

Ordinary Geographies: Care, Violence, and Agrarian Extractivism in ‘Post-Conflict’ Colombia

Citation:

Berman‐Arévalo, Eloísa, and Diana Ojeda. 2020. “Ordinary Geographies: Care, Violence, and Agrarian Extractivism in ‘Post-Conflict’ Colombia.” Antipode 52 (6): 1583–1602.

Authors: Eloísa Berman‐Arévalo, Diana Ojeda

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
In Colombia’s agrarian spaces, war and extractivism are deeply entangled. Almost four years after the peace accords signed between the national government and the FARC guerrilla, post-conflict geographies are best characterised by the ongoing dispossession of local populations related to the entrenchment of extractivism. Drawing from ethnographic work carried out in the Colombian Caribbean on the ordinary practices and spaces of social reproduction, the ordinary geographies, this article explores gendered practices of care and their role in both sustaining and disrupting paramilitary violence and agrarian extractivism. The focus not just on the gendered effects of war and extractivism, but on gender’s constitutive role in the configuration of these processes and dynamics, allows us to contribute to recent literature on extractivism, dispossession and violence from a feminist standpoint.
 
SPANISH ABSTRACT: 
La guerra y el extractivismo estan profundamente entretejidos en los espacios agrarios en Colombia. Casi cuatro a~nos despues de la firma de los acuerdos de paz entre el gobierno nacional y la guerrilla de las FARC, las geografıas del post-conflicto estan caracterizadas por el despojo sostenido de poblaciones locales tras el afianzamiento y la expansion del extractivismo. A partir de trabajo etnografico llevado a cabo en el Caribe colombiano sobre las practicas y los espacios cotidianos de la reproduccion social, que definimos como geografıas ordinarias, este artıculo explora las practicas de cuidado atravesadas por genero y su papel en el mantenimiento y la irrupcion de la violencia paramilitar y el extractivismo agrario. El enfoque, no solo en los efectos generizados de la guerra y el extractivismo, sino tambien en el papel constitutivo del genero en la configuracion de estos procesos y dinamicas, nos permite contribuir a la literatura reciente sobre el extractivismo, el despojo y la violencia desde un punto de vista feminista.

Keywords: ordinary geographies, gender, care, extractivism, dispossession, war, Colombia, geografías ordinarias, género, cuidado, extractivismo, despojo, guerra

Topics: Agriculture, Armed Conflict, Extractive Industries, Gender, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups, Paramilitaries, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, Violence Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2020

Ecology Is a Sistah’s Issue Too: The Politics of Emergent Afrocentric Ecowomanism

Citation:

Riley, Shamara Shantu. 2003. “Ecology Is a Sistah’s Issue Too: The Politics of Emergent Afrocentric Ecowomanism.” In This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, edited by Roger S. Gottlieb, 368–81. Abingdon: Routledge. 

Author: Shamara Shantu Riley

Annotation:

Summary:
“The extinction of species on our ancestral continent, the “mortality of wealth,” and hazardous-waste contamination in our backyards ought to be reasons enough for Black womanists to consider the environment as a central issue of our political agendas. However, there are other reasons the environment should be central to our struggles for social justice. The global environmental crisis is related to the sociopolitical systems of fear and hatred of all that is natural, nonwhite, and female that has pervaded dominant Western thought for centuries. I contend that the social constructions of race, gender, class and nonhuman nature in mainstream Western thought are interconnected by an ideology of domination. Specific instances of the emergent Afrocentric ecowomanist activism in Africa and the United States, as well as West African spiritual principles that propose a method of overcoming dualism, will be discussed in this paper" (Shantu 2003, 369).

Topics: Class, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Race Regions: Africa, West Africa, Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2003

Ecofeminism and Forest Defense in Cascadia: Gender, Theory and Radical Activism

Citation:

Mallory, Chaone. 2006. “Ecofeminism and Forest Defense in Cascadia: Gender, Theory and Radical Activism.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 17 (1): 32–49.

Author: Chaone Mallory

Annotation:

Summary:
"[T]he intent of this essay is to report on the radical activism that began in the summer of 2003 and has continued through the present (fall of 2005) by women in the Pacific Northwest. I look at how such activisms represent an explicit and direct integration of feminism with environmentalism that should encourage and inspire ecoliberatory theorists such as ecofeminists, ecosocialists, green anarchists, and deep ecologists. I also consider how such activism exemplifies the kind of intersection of theory and praxis long sought by ecofeminist, ecosocialist, and other scholars concerned with liberation. I explore these questions using the analytic tools developed through the academic discourse of ecofeminism to examine how both gender identity and movement-generated understandings of the intersection of oppressions affects, informs, and produces environmental activisms. Such an analysis, done in the context of women’s direct action forest defense in the Pacific Northwest, reveals interesting and important knowledges about the character of the interrelation between ideas and action, a subject of long-standing interest to those engaged in the practice of environmental theory. Such an analysis also advances the liberatory goals of ecotheorists and ecoactivists by contributing to the development of a robust, efficacious ecofeminist political theory that does not reinscribe a theory/activism dualism." (Mallory 2006, 34-5).

 

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

Year: 2006

Conservation as Enclosure: An Ecofeminist Perspective on Sustainable Development and Biopiracy in Costa Rica

Citation:

Isla, Ana. 2005. “Conservation as Enclosure: An Ecofeminist Perspective on Sustainable Development and Biopiracy in Costa Rica.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 16 (3): 49–61.

Author: Ana Isla

Annotation:

Summary:
"This paper argues that the rhetoric of sustainable development reinforces the power and reach of global capitalism. Using the language of conservation, industry, large environmental NGOs, and local government elites are sacrificing the survival of forest peoples to capital accumulation. Enclosures of common lands for the purpose of bioprospecting liquidate the customary claims of forest ownership. As a result, conservation as enclosure suppresses the human rights of local communities and the rights of nature. In this process, campesinos and indigenous people are impoverished as their local environments move from abundance to scarcity in a commodified world, and they themselves become displaced, marginalized, even criminalized, and unwaged in a waged global world. Women lose their autonomy in gender and development programs that claim to promote equality by including them in the international market. They are pushed into capitalized biotech micro-enterprises, become indebted, overextend their work time, and substitute family food production for the cultivation of medicinal plants—all for less than a minimum wage. By these predatory programs, a vulnerable local nature and vulnerable local women are tied into the world economy, not for conservation or emancipation, but to be exploited for capital accumulation" (Isla 2005, 13-4).

Topics: Development, Environment, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Indigenous, Rights, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Costa Rica

Year: 2005

Ecofeminist Cosmology in Practice: Genesis Farm and the Embodiment of Sustainable Solutions

Citation:

Godfrey, Phoebe C. 2008. “Ecofeminist Cosmology in Practice: Genesis Farm and the Embodiment of Sustainable Solutions.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 19 (2): 96–114.

Author: Phoebe C. Godfrey

Annotation:

Summary:
“Heather Eaton's article, “Feminist or Functional Cosmology? Ecofeminist Musings on Thomas Berry's Functional Cosmology,” explores Berry's notion of a functional cosmology and questions some of its implications from an ecofeminist perspective. She concludes that functional cosmology and ecofeminism are “incomplete” alone, but that “[t]ogether these could be powerful allies in transforming the world, respecting the Earth, and honoring the holy.” Thus, my objective here is to support Eaton's assertion that Berry's functional cosmology and ecofeminism need each other. Further, I will propose that Genesis Farm, a 140-acre farm and Learning Center for the Earth in northern New Jersey founded by Dominican Sisters, is an example of “ecofeminist cosmology” in practice. As such, I want to show how through their holistic solutions to the growing ecological crisis of global capitalism, the Green Sisters at Genesis Farm, like others around the world, are embodying Eaton's notion of an ecofeminist cosmology, demonstrating that not only could it play a part in “transforming the world, respecting the Earth and honoring the holy,” but that it already is doing this in a locally based, yet globally focused way” (Godfrey 2008).

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

Year: 2008

Ecofeminism in Two Worlds

Citation:

Hawthorne, Susan. 2005. “Ecofeminism in Two Worlds.” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 16 (4): 145–47.

Author: Susan Hawthorne

Annotation:

Summary:
"These 2005 conferences suggest a growing engagement with ecofeminist concerns among feminist theorists. My hope is that alongside this theory, there is also a growing engagement with intersections between the inbuilt violence of globalization, free trade, war, fundamentalism and anti-feminism. That is, ecofeminism must remain trenchantly political if it is to be relevant. But it seems that feminist conferences these days do not end up even attempting to outline a forward position. Have we lost the skill and political will to do that?" (Hawthrone 2005, 147).

Topics: Economies, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Globalization Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, East Asia Countries: South Korea, United States of America

Year: 2005

Transmobilities: Mobility, Harassment, and Violence Experienced by Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Public Transit Riders in Portland, Oregon

Citation:

Lubitow, Amy, JaDee Carathers, Maura Kelly, and Miriam Abelson. 2017. “Transmobilities: Mobility, Harassment, and Violence Experienced by Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Public Transit Riders in Portland, Oregon.” Gender, Place & Culture 24 (10): 1398–418.

Authors: Amy Lubitow, JaDee Carathers, Maura Kelly, Miriam Abelson

Abstract:

This research endeavours to fill a conceptual gap in the social science literature on gender, public space, and urban mobilities by exploring how transgender and gender nonconforming individuals experience public transit. Although previous research has surveyed gender minorities about harassment and discrimination in a range of environments, little is known about the quality or content of these experiences. Drawing from 25 interviews with transgender and gender nonconforming individuals in Portland, Oregon, this article finds that gender minorities experience frequent harassment while engaging with the public transit system. We articulate the concept of transmobilites to describe the ways that transgender and gender nonconforming individuals experience a form of mobility that is altered, shaped, and informed by a broader cultural system that normalizes violence and harassment towards gender minorities. We conclude that gender minorities have unequal access to safe and accessible public transportation when harassment is widespread, normalized, and when policies prohibiting discrimination remain unenforced on urban public transit.

Keywords: gender minorities, harassment and discrimination, non-hegemonic mobilities, public transportation, transmobilities, urban mobility

Topics: Gender, Infrastructure, Transportation, LGBTQ, Violence Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2017

Gender, Power, and Mobility among the Awá-Guajá (Maranhão, Brazil)

Citation:

Hernando, Almudena, Gustavo Politis, Alfredo González Ruibal, and Elizabeth Beserra Coelho. 2011. “Gender, Power, and Mobility among the Awá-Guajá (Maranhão, Brazil).” Journal of Anthropological Research 67 (2): 189–211.

Authors: Almudena Hernando, Gustavo Politis, Alfredo González Ruibal, Elizabeth Beserra Coelho

Abstract:

The Awá (also known as Guajá) are hunter-gatherers whose way of life prior to their first contact with Brazilian society has been altered after relocation to a reservation. Basically, their mobility is reduced and they have been forced to start cultivation. Although these changes are beginning to affect women's social role, the traditional power relationships can still be inferred from the present conditions. The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to argue that, in otherwise "egalitarian" societies, the differences in physical mobility involved in the complementary tasks carried out by men and women may account for gender inequality on the symbolic domain, given that mobility is a key factor in the construction of personhood in contexts of "relational, "non-individualized identity; and (2) to check the validity of that assumption in the light of fieldwork data about gender relationships among the Awá-Guajá.

Topics: Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Indigenous Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Brazil

Year: 2011

Listening to the Landscapes of Mama Tingo: From the ‘Woman Question’ in Sustainable Development to Feminist Political Ecology in Zambrana-Chacuey, Dominican Republic

Citation:

Rocheleau, Dianne. 2007. “Listening to the Landscapes of Mama Tingo: From the ‘Woman Question’ in Sustainable Development to Feminist Political Ecology in Zambrana-Chacuey, Dominican Republic.” In A Companion to Feminist Geography, edited by Lise Nelson and Joni Seager, 419–33. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Author: Dianne Rocheleau

Abstract:

Summary:
“In the rural countryside of the Dominican Republic environmental change has long been tied to livelihoods and landscapes and enmeshed in struggles for social justice and rights to land. In the early 1990s I went with a team of three other researchers to the rolling hills of the Zambrana–Chacuey region in the center of the country to learn about and document the recent community forestry experience of women and men who had been engaged in peasant land struggles against large commercial landowners for decades. Our goal was to see how gender and class had affected their sustainable development and forestry enterprise efforts, and in turn, how these initiatives had changed gendered social relations in the region. We ended up in a dialogue that I call “listening to the landscape,” since every feature in this patchwork of farms, forests, gardens, and homesteads was tied to stories of individual lives, families, communities, and social movements” (Rocheleau, 2007, 419).

Topics: Class, Development, Environment, Feminisms, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Dominican Republic

Year: 2007

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