Ecofeminism

Citation:

Paddock, Jessica Rhiannon. 2017. "Changing Consumption, Changing Tastes? Exploring Consumer Narratives for Food Secure, Sustainable, and Healthy Diets." Journal of Rural Studies 53: 102-110. 

Author: Jessica Rhiannon Paddock

Abstract:

Mirroring trends across the Caribbean and the West Indies, the Turks and Caicos Islands are seeing an increase in the consumption of foods associated with diet-related disease and ill-health such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension and heart disease. These shifts are often attributed to the changing food preferences of consumers, as islanders are thought to be aspiring to a modern and ‘Americanised’ diet. Drawing on accounts derived from group and individual interviews with Turks and Caicos islanders – chiefly the women who are responsible for feeding work – this paper unpacks the notion that changing diets are a symptom of shifting tastes and preferences. Rather, narratives point to interlocking ecological, economic and social shifts that over time compound the effects of losing access to a culturally valued local source of healthy protein: fish and seafood. Taking an ecofeminist sociological perspective, this paper argues that challenges of food insecurity and diet-related ill-health share both mutual problems and pathways to common solutions.

Keywords: consumption, production, food security, ecofeminism, sustainability

Topics: Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Health, Livelihoods, Security, Food Security Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries

Year: 2017

Citation:

MacGregor, Sherilyn, and Nicole Seymour, eds. 2017. “Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change.” RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society (4), 1-93.

Authors: Sherilyn MacGregor, Nicole Seymour

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Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Race, Sexuality Regions: Africa, Central Africa, Americas, Central America, North America, Asia, East Asia Countries: Japan, Nicaragua, United States of America

Year: 2017

Citation:

De, Mitu. 2015. “Green Revolution, Plant Biodiversity and Eco-Feminism” The Beats of Natural Sciences 2 (2).

Author: Mitu De

Abstract:

Green Revolution is a unique event in the agricultural history of Independent India. It has saved us from the disasters of hunger and starvation. But higher yields and greater food security came at the expense of higher inputs of pesticides and fertilizers. The agricultural systems created by the Green Revolution are dependent on a handful of varieties for its major crops. The loss of biodiversity and traditional knowledge is detrimental for food security, nutritional security and also endangers health of peoples. The central tenet of ecofeminism is that social and environmental issues are not separate. The simultaneous emergence of women and environmental movements raises a question about the relationships between feminism and ecology.

Keywords: Green Revolution, ecofeminism, biodiversity loss, monoculture

Topics: Agriculture, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Health, Security, Food Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2015

Citation:

Sempértegui, Andrea. 2019. “Indigenous Women's Activism, Ecofeminism, and Extractivism: Partial Connections in the Ecuadorian Amazon.” Politics & Gender 1–28. doi: 10.1017/S1743923X19000023.

Author: Andrea Sempértegui

Abstract:

Over the last two decades, Latin America has witnessed a massive expansion of resource extraction. One of the most significant countermovements to emerge out of this context in Ecuador features a strong base and leadership of indigenous women from the Amazon. In their collective effort to resist extractivism, Amazonian women have drawn from elements of ecofeminist discourse and, in the process, situated their own claims within the broader indigenous territorial struggle. Ecofeminism has been transformed through this allyship as well, becoming more inclusive of indigenous women's perspectives. To shed light on these complex relationships, this article applies the framework of “partial connection” from feminist anthropology. It shows how postcolonial encounters between the state, missionaries, environmental activists, and indigenous communities in the Amazon carved out unique spaces for indigenous self-organization and politics. The historical analysis of such spaces, I argue, is crucial for grasping the allyship between Amazonian women and ecofeminists today. Rooted in a combination of positions that are partially, asymmetrically, and ambiguously connected, the allyship between Amazonian women and ecofeminists is best understood as a form of partially connected relationship.

Keywords: indigenous women, ecofeminism, state extractivism, environmental movements, indigenous politics, Ecuadorian Amazon

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Ecuador

Year: 2019

Citation:

Cirefice, V’Cenza, and Lynda Sullivan. 2019. ‘Women on the Frontlines of Resistance to Extractivism.’ Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review, no. 29, 78–99.

Authors: V'Cenza Cirefice, Lynda Sullivan

Abstract:

We are living in extreme times with planetary boundaries being breached and our current economic model pushing life to collapse.  The pressure to switch to renewable energy can no longer be avoided.  However, many industry actors want to continue with our current economic model and simply switch the energy source.  For this to happen, mining needs to increase dramatically.  Rural and indigenous communities are disproportionately impacted by mining and other extractive industries, with severe negative consequences on local livelihoods, community cohesion and the environment.  In this article we will explore the gendered impacts experienced by these communities, which see women facing the worst impacts of a neoliberal extractive agenda.  Conversely, women are leading the resistance to extractivism and stepping outside of traditional gender roles to be leaders in movements fighting destructive extraction.  We will draw upon examples from the Americas, through a lens of ecofeminism and feminist political ecology, to explore how the women of these movements are demanding systematic change to the paradigms of capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy – highlighting that these forms of domination are connected and thus, need to be eliminated together.

Keywords: ecofeminism, extractivism, feminist political ecology, resistance, climate change, neoliberalism, gender, Americas

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Climate Change, Extractive Industries, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Gender Roles, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Indigenous, Livelihoods Regions: Americas

Year: 2019

Citation:

Mann, Susan A. 2011. “Pioneers of U.S. Ecofeminism and Environmental Justice.” Feminist Formations 23 (2): 1–25.

Author: Susan A. Mann

Abstract:

From the late-nineteenth through the early decades of the twentieth century, women in the United States played important roles in the conservation and preservation of wildlife, as well as in environmental activism that fostered clean air, water, and food in our nation’s urban centers. This article examines the contributions of women of different classes and races to these environmental struggles. It not only synthesizes the findings of previous environmental histories, but also focuses more attention on the ways environmental contamination affected the lives of women of color and their struggles against environmental racism. In this way, an environmental justice lens is used to excavate and reclaim the history of our ecofeminist predecessors to better ensure that the visions and voices of marginalized peoples do not remain hidden from history.

Keywords: ecofeminism, environmental history, environmental justice

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Justice

Year: 2011

Citation:

Warren, Karen J. 1990. “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism.” Environmental Ethics 12 (2): 125–46.

Author: Karen J. Warren

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Summary:
Ecological feminism is the position that there are important connections-historical, symbolic, theoretical-between the domination of women and the domination of nonhuman nature. I argue that because the conceptual connections between the dual dominations of women and nature are located in an oppressive patriarchal conceptual framework characterized by a logic of domination, (1) the logic of traditional feminism requires the expansion of feminism to include ecological feminism and (2) ecological feminism provides a framework for developing a distinctively feminist environmental ethic. I conclude that any feminist theory and any environmental ethic which fails to take seriously the interconnected dominations of women and nature is simply inadequate.

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy

Year: 1990

Citation:

Tickner, J. Ann. 1993. “States and Markets: An Ecofeminist Perspective on International Political Economy.” International Political Science Review / Revue Internationale de Science Politique 14 (1): 59–69.

Author: J. Ann Tickner

Abstract:

This article examines the way in which the interaction between states and markets since the seventeenth century has depended on the exploitation of nature. The accumulation of wealth and power by the early modern state depended on the enlightenment ideology that saw nature as a resource to be exploited for human progress. An expansionary Eurocentric state system imposed this ideology on other cultures through imperialism and the globalization of capitalism. Feminists believe that this attitude toward nature has also been associated with the exploitation of women and other cultures. While environmentalists look to international regulation to solve ecological problems caused by the development of the international system, feminists and social ecologists claim that not until all these forms of exploitation are ended can an ecologically secure future be achieved.

Topics: Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Globalization, Political Economies

Year: 1993

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Author: Catriona Sandilands

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Summary:
Heroic mothers defending home and hearth against a nature deformed by multinationalist corporate practice: this may be a compelling story, but it is not necessarily the source of valid feminist or ecological critique. What’s missing is the democratic element, an insistence on bringing to public debate all the relations of gender and nature that such a view takes for granted. This book aims to situate a commitment to theory and politics—that is, to democratic practice—at the center of ecofeminism and, thus, to move toward an ecofeminism that is truly both feminist and ecological.

The Good-Natured Feminist inaugurates a sustained conversation between ecofeminism and recent writings in feminist postmodernism and radical democracy. Starting with the assumption that ecofeminism is a body of democratic theory, the book tells how the movement originated in debates about “nature” in North American radical feminisms, how it then became entangled with identity politics, and how it now seeks to include nature in democratic conversation and, especially, to politicize relations between gender and nature in both theoretical and activist milieus. (Summary from University of Minnesota Press)

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender

Year: 1999

Citation:

Rosser, Sue V. 1991. “Eco-Feminism: Lessons for Feminism from Ecology.” Women’s Studies International Forum 14 (3): 143–51.

Author: Sue V. Rosser

Abstract:

For almost two decades feminists have successfully used the lens of gender to critique the extent to which androcentric bias has distorted the theory and practice of science. More recently ecofeminists have extended this critique to ecology, recognizing male domination and exploitation of both women and the environment. In this paper I pose the question in the other direction, to explore what the science of ecology in its theories, methods, and practice might contribute to the critique of feminism. In their fusion as ecofiminism both theories can intertwine and complement to form a strong framework for praxis.

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Gendered Power Relations

Year: 1991