Class

Water is Life: Women's Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa

Citation:

Hellum, Anne, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Barbara van Koppen, eds. 2015. Water Is Life: Women’s Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa. Weaver Press. 

Authors: Anne Hellum, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Barbara van Koppen

Abstract:

This book approaches water and sanitation as an African gender and human rights issue. Empirical case studies from Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe show how coexisting international, national and local regulations of water and sanitation respond to the ways in which different groups of rural and urban women gain access to water for personal, domestic and livelihood purposes. The authors, who are lawyers, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists, explore how women cope in contexts where they lack secure rights, and participation in water governance institutions, formal and informal. The research shows how women – as producers of family food - rely on water from multiple sources that are governed by community based norms and institutions which recognize the right to water for livelihood. How these 'common pool water resources' - due to protection gaps in both international and national law - are threatened by large-scale development and commercialization initiatives, facilitated through national permit systems, is a key concern. The studies demonstrate that existing water governance structures lack mechanisms which make them accountable to poor and vulnerable waters users on the ground, most importantly women. Our findings thus underscore the need to intensify measures to hold states accountable, not just in water services provision, but in assuring the basic human right to clean drinking water and sanitation; and also to protect water for livelihoods.

Annotation:

Table of Contents 
 
Part I Introduction
1. The Human Right to Water and Sanitation in a Legal Pluralist Landscape: Perspectives of Southern and Eastern African Women
 
2. Turning the Tide: Engendering the Human Right to Water and Sanitation 
Anne Hellum, Ingunn Ikdahl and Patricia Kameri-Mbote
 
Part II Kenya
3. Human Rights, Gender and Water in Kenya: Law, Prospects and Challenges 
Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Francis Kariuki
 
4. Not so Rosy: Farm Workers’ Human Right to Water in the Lake Naivasha Basin 
Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Edna Odhiambo
 
5. Watered Down: Gender and the Human Right to Water and Reasonable Sanitation in Mathare, Nairobi 
Celestine Nyamu Musembi
 
6. Gender Dimensions of Customary Water Resource Governance: Marakwet Case Study 
Elizabeth Gachenga
 
Part III Malawi 
7. The Political Economy of the Human Right to Water and Women in Malawi 
Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Timothy Chirwa, Asiyati Chiweza and Michael Chasukwa
 
8. Women’s Right to Water and Participation in Practice: Insights from Urban Local Water Governance Systems 
Asiyati Lorraine Chiweza, Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Michael Chasukwa and Timothy Chirwa
 
9. Primary Actors on the Back Seat: Gender, Human Rights and Rural Water Governance in Malawi – Lessons from Mpemba and Chileka 
 
Part IV Zimbabwe
10. Governance, Gender Equality and the Right to Water and Sanitation in Zimbabwe: Contested Norms and Institutions in an Unstable Economic and Political Terrain 
Anne Hellum, Bill Derman, Ellen Sithole and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
11. Zimbabwe’s Urban Water Crisis and its Implications for Different Women: Emerging Norms and Practices in Harare’s High Density Suburbs 
Anne Hellum, Ellen Sithole, Bill Derman, Lindiwe Mangwanya and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
12. Securing Rural Women’s Land and Water Rights: Lessons from Domboshawa Communal Land 
Anne Hellum, Bill Derman, Lindiwe Mangwanya and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
13. A Hidden Presence: Women Farm Workers Right to Water and Sanitation in the Aftermath of the Fast Track Land Reform 
Elizabeth Rutsate, Bill Derman and Anne Hellum
 
Part V South Africa 
14. Fixing the Leaks in Women’s Human Rights to Water: Lessons from South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen, Bill Derman, Barbara Schreiner, Ebenezer Durojaye and Ngcime Mweso
 
15. Gender-Equality in Statutory Water Law: the Case of Priority General Authorizations in South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen and Barbara Schreiner
 
16. Gender, Rights, and the Politics of Productivity The Case of the Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme, South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen, Barbara Tapela and Everisto Mapedza
 

Topics: Class, Governance, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Livelihoods, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Year: 2015

“In My Eyes He Was a Man”: Poor and Working-Class Boy Soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War

Citation:

Ahmadi, Shaherzad R. 2018. "'In My Eyes He Was a Man': Poor and Working-Class Boy Soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War." Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 14 (2): 174-192.

Author: Shaherzad R. Ahmadi

Abstract:

During the Pahlavi period in Iran (1925–79), poor and working-class families were more likely to expect young sons to work to support the household. These boys, in turn, were more autonomous. Middle-class families, on the other hand, protected and controlled boys. Researchers have assumed that religious zealotry was the primary inspiration for boys to enlist in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, ignoring the ways in which class inflected boyhood. While religious fervor may have been a motivation for some of the poor and working-class Iranian boys (between ten and fourteen) who enlisted, the expectation that they work took precedence. Moreover, at least some of these boys were eager to participate in war-front masculine homosociality rather than remain in feminized domestic spaces. This study analyzes biographies, census data, newspaper accounts, and original oral history interviews.

Keywords: Iran-Iraq War, childhood, boy soldiers, Pahlavi Iran, class

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Class, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Male Combatants, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iran

Year: 2018

Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia

Citation:

Khoja-Moolji, Shenila. 2018. Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia. Oakland: University of California Press.

Author: Shenila Khoja-Moolji

Annotation:

Summary:
In Forging the Ideal Educated Girl, Shenila Khoja-Moolji traces the figure of the ‘educated girl’ to examine the evolving politics of educational reform and development campaigns in colonial India and Pakistan. She challenges the prevailing common sense associated with calls for women’s and girls’ education and argues that such advocacy is not simply about access to education but, more crucially, concerned with producing ideal Muslim woman-/girl-subjects with specific relationships to the patriarchal family, paid work, Islam, and the nation-state. Thus, discourses on girls’/ women’s education are sites for the construction of not only gender but also class relations, religion, and the nation. (Summary from UC Press)

Topics: Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Development, Education, Gender, Girls, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India, Pakistan

Year: 2018

O processo pedagógico da luta de gênero na luta pela terra: o desafio de transformar práticas e relações sociais

Citation:

Schwendler, Sônia Fátima. 2015. "O processo pedagógico da luta de gênero na luta pela terra: o desafio de transformar práticas e relações sociais." Educar em Revista 55, 87-109.

 

Author: Sônia Fátima Schwendler

Abstract:

PORTUGUESE ABSTRACT:

O presente artigo analisa o processo pedagógico da luta de gênero que ocorre dentro da luta pela terra a partir do protagonismo das mulheres trabalhadoras do campo. Com base na literatura da temática da educação, gênero e movimentos sociais e, a partir de extensa pesquisa de campo desenvolvida no Sul do Brasil com mulheres e homens do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) e com o Movimento de Mulheres Camponesas (MMC), este estudo evidencia os principais elementos que contribuíram para o empoderamento das mulheres camponesas e a mutação das relações de gênero na luta pela terra. Ao examinar o impacto da intencionalidade socioeducativa na transformação das relações de gênero, argumenta-se que o saber social produzido na luta político-organizativa, a partir de uma leitura de classe e da influência da teoria feminista, promove a organização das mulheres camponesas em torno das demandas estratégicas de gênero com vistas ao enfrentamento das desigualdades e da subalternização da mulher. Evidencia-se, no entanto, que apesar de sua importância, este processo pedagógico que emerge na dinâmica da luta social não é o suficiente para a transformação das relações de gênero. Há a necessidade de leis e políticas afirmativas que garantam à mulher condições efetivas de participação política, econômica e social.

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

This paper analyzes the pedagogical process of gender struggle that takes place within the struggle for land from the agency of rural workers’ women. Based on the literature on education, gender and social movements and, from extensive field work carried out in southern Brazil with women and men of the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – MST) and the Peasant Women’s Movement (Movimento de Mulheres Camponesas – MMC), this study highlights the key elements that contributed to the empowerment of rural women and the shifting of gender relations within land struggle. When examining the impact of socio-educational intention in changing gender relations, it is argued that the social knowledge produced within the political-organizational struggle, from a class consciousness and the influence of feminist theory, promotes the organization of peasant women around strategic gender demands aiming to confront inequality and women’s subordination. It is evident, however, that despite its importance, this pedagogical process which emerges in the dynamics of social struggle is not enough for the transformation of gender relations. There is a need for laws and affirmative action policies that guarantee effective conditions for women’s political, economic and social participation. 

Keywords: education, gender, women, land reform, social movements, educação, género, mulheres, reforma agraria, movimentos sócias

Topics: Class, Education, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Roles, Men, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure, Political Participation, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Brazil

Year: 2015

Ecofeminism as Gendered, Ethnicized Class Struggle: A Rejoinder to Stuart Rosewarne

Citation:

Turner, Terisa E., and Leigh Brownhill. 2006. “Ecofeminism as Gendered, Ethnicized Class Struggle: A Rejoinder to Stuart Rosewarne.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 17 (4): 87–95.

Authors: Terisa E. Turner, Leigh Brownhill

Abstract:

Stuart Rosewarne’s comment on our essay ‘‘We Want Our Land Back,’’ underlines the need for clarification of the relationship between the exploited, both waged and unwaged, on the one hand, and between all within the hierarchy of the exploited and capital, on the other. Hence, our response addresses the fundamental struggle between classes over enclosures of the commons and the defense (and extension) of life-centered, subsistence relations. To bridge the divide that Rosewarne identifies between ecosocialism and ecofeminism, we proceed by critiquing James O’Connor’s analysis of the ‘‘second contradiction of capitalism,’’ offering an alternative perspective*gendered, ethnicized class analysis. 

Topics: Class, Environment, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender

Year: 2006

Reshaping the Ear: Honorable Listening and Study of Ecowomanist and Ecofeminist Scholarship for Feminist Discourse

Citation:

Harris, Melanie L. 2017. “Reshaping the Ear: Honorable Listening and Study of Ecowomanist and Ecofeminist Scholarship for Feminist Discourse.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 33 (2): 158–62.

Author: Melanie L. Harris

Abstract:

Harris utlilizes an ecowomanist approach to tackle the issue of climate change and its impact on women. Ecowomanism is an approach that centers the voices, theoretical, religious, and ecospiritual activism of women of African descent and other women of color. It uses race-class-gender intersectional analysis to highlight the impact environmental health disparities have on communities of color in the age of climate change. Rather than ignore the plight of thousands upon thousands of African American and Latino/a families living in food deserts and the historical connections this social injustice has to white supremacy and access to land rights and clean water, ecowomanist approaches raise awareness about environmental racism. It links a social justice agenda with earth justice recognizing the similar logic of domination at work in parallel oppressions suffered by women of color and the earth. 

Keywords: Alice Walker, Delores S. Williams, ecowomanism, sin of defilement, social justice, women of color

Topics: Class, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Health, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Race, Religion, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, Americas

Year: 2017

Ecowomanism: Black Women, Religion, and the Environment

Citation:

Harris, Melanie L. 2016. “Ecowomanism: Black Women, Religion, and the Environment.” The Black Scholar 46 (3): 27–39

Author: Melanie L. Harris

Annotation:

Summary:
“This essay is an introduction to ecowomanism, an interdisciplinary discourse in womanist thought that reflects upon black women’s religious orientations and connections with the earth. It serves as an overview and provides a survey of ecowomanist discourse. Ecowomanism centers the religious, theological, and spiritual perspectives of black women and women of color as they confront multilayered oppressions such as racism, classism, sexism, and environmental injustice. In the essay I explicate the theoretical foundations for ecowomanism, namely the womanist writings of Alice Walker, the environmental justice movement, and its relation to eco-feminism. I also describe the important roots of African American religious thought for an ecowomanist approach. In addition, I provide a brief survey of four important sources for ecowomanist research from the theological perspectives of Karen Baker Fletcher, Delores S. Williams, the ecological perspective of Shamara Shantu Riley, and the scholarly insights and personal reflection of African theologian, Mercy Amba Oduyoye" (Harris 2016, 27).

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

Year: 2016

Ecowomanism: An Introduction

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

Ecofeminism

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

Marxist-Feminist Theories and Struggles Today: Essential Writings on Intersectionality, Labour and Ecofeminism

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

Pages

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