Women

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

Eco‐Feminism and Eco‐Socialism: Dilemmas of Essentialism and Materialism

Citation:

Mellor, Mary. 2009. “Eco‐Feminism and Eco‐Socialism: Dilemmas of Essentialism and Materialism.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 3 (2): 43-62.

Author: Mary Mellor

Annotation:

Summary:
“The core of my argument is that it will prove impossible to construct an eco-socialist/feminist revolutionary theory and practice unless we can finally break out of the laager of economic analysis to embrace women and nature, not as objects of the economic system but as subjects in their own right” (Mellor 2009, 43).

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

Year: 2009

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

Reclaiming Peoples’ Power in Copenhagen 2009: A Victory for Ecosocialist Ecofeminism

Citation:

Kaara, Wahu. 2010. “Reclaiming Peoples’ Power in Copenhagen 2009: A Victory for Ecosocialist Ecofeminism.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 21 (2): 107–11.

Author: Wahu Kaara

Abstract:

The article describes the contribution of African women to ecosocialism. The authors argue that the 2009 Copenhagen Conference represents the recognition that the collapsing patriarchal market economy owes humanity an economic debt, and owes the planet an ecological and climate debt. The author compares the status of the police forces in Kenya and Denmark, since both uphold the bankrupt system of neoliberalism.

Keywords: females, socialism, human ecology, protest movements

Topics: Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women Regions: Africa, East Africa, Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe Countries: Denmark, Kenya

Year: 2010

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

Climate Change and Feminist Environmentalism in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Citation:

Amadi, Luke A., Mina M. Ogbanga, and James E. Agena. 2015. “Climate Change and Feminist Environmentalism in the Niger Delta, Nigeria.” African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 9 (9): 361–71.

Authors: Luke A. Amadi, Mina M. Ogbanga, James E. Agena

Abstract:

Feminist environmentalist debate explores possible linkages between women and environmental issues such as inequality. One of the most pressing global problem at the centre of this debate is climate change vulnerability. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) creates global policy awareness on the realities of climate change vulnerability, women in the poor coastal regions of the periphery societies such as the Niger Delta, Nigeria, prone to environmental degradation seem to be missing out. This subject matter has been of immense policy concern. The increase in recent decades of environmental disasters, deleterious effects of oil resource exploitation by the Multinational Corporations (MNCs), pollution, gas flaring, acid rain, sea level rise, ozone layer depletion, global warming and related pressures, provide the need to explore feminist environmental challenges. As all such problems manifest with divergent climate related implications, the most fundamental challenge they pose to women seem less talked about. Niger Delta women who are largely bread winners in most rural households are at risk as their subsistence relies heavily on the natural environment such as farming, fishing, petty trading, gathering of periwinkles, oysters, crayfish etc. To explore this dynamic, the study deployed a desk review of relevant secondary data to examine possible linkages between feminist environmentalism and climate change mitigation. Findings suggest that climate change, mitigation has been minimal. The paper made some policy recommendations.

Keywords: environmental security, climate change, women, development, Niger Delta

Topics: Development, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Livelihoods, Multi-National Corporations Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2015

Ecofeminism and the Global Movement of Social Movements

Citation:

Turner, Terisa E., and Leigh Brownhill. 2010. “Ecofeminism and the Global Movement of Social Movements.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 21 (2): 102–6.

Authors: Terisa E. Turner, Leigh Brownhill

Abstract:

The article offers support for Wahu Kaara's recent article by emphasizing that the 2009 Copenhagen Conference expresses a new paradigm for ecosocialist ecofeminism. The authors argue that capitalists are preying more recklessly, more militantly and more aggressively in the post-financial collapse on women and other typically unwaged peoples as they scramble to enclose ever more of the earth's natural commons and commandeer human labor. The author supports Kaara's call for organic intellectuals to elaborate the contents of ecosocialist ecofeminist practice.

Topics: Economies, Economic Inequality, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality

Year: 2010

Women, Land and Power: The Impact of the Communal Land Rights Act

Citation:

Claassens, Aninka, and Sizani Ngubane. 2008. “Women, Land and Power: The Impact of the Communal Land Rights Act.” In Land, Power and Custom: Controversies Generated by South Africa's Communal Land Rights Act, edited by  Aninka Classens and Ben Cousins, 154-183. Cape Town, South Africa: UCT Press.

Authors: Aninka Claassens, Sizani Ngubane

Annotation:

Summary:
"This chapter examines the likely impact of the Communal Land Rights Act 11 of 2004 on rural women in South Africa. It is based on research undertaken by the authors in the context of the legal challenge1 to the Act. The Act deals with the content and vesting of land rights as well as the powers and functions of the structures that will administer 'communal' land. The chapter looks at the interplay between land rights and power over land. The discussion begins with a description of some of the problems facing rural women in the former homeland areas covered by the Act. It then describes issues raised by women's organisations in late 2003 during the parliamentary process leading to the passing of the Communal Land Rights Bill. There were two main objections to the Bill. The first was that entrenching the power of traditional leaders over land was likely to reinforce patriarchal power relations and harden the terrain within which women struggle to access and retain land. The second was that the Bill would entrench past discrimination against women by upgrading and formalising 'old order' rights held exclusively by men" (Claasens & Ngubane 2008, 154).

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Patriarchy, Governance, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2008

'Knowing One’s Place': Gender, Mobility and Shifting Subjectivity in Eastern Indonesia.

Citation:

Williams, Catharina Purwani. 2005. “‘Knowing One’s Place’: Gender, Mobility and Shifting Subjectivity in Eastern Indonesia.” Global Networks 5 (4): 401–17.

Author: Catharina Purwani Williams

Abstract:

In this article I analyse the gendered space of transnational mobility by problematizing migrant subjectivity in everyday practices. In line with feminist perspectives I highlight the significance of the micro-scale experience of female migrants from Eastern Indonesia in acquiring mobility as a struggle for new subjectivity. I frame this migration as a production of the subjective space of power. Based on in-depth interviews with returned migrants, I present reflexive accounts of two migrants on contract domestic work abroad to illuminate the changing contours of the relationships between gender, mobility and shifting subjectivity. Households take into account the cultural meanings of space in everyday life including local relations in the decisions on mobility. Strategies of ‘knowing one's place’ reflect women's agency in negotiating alternative roles and positions within the intra-household dynamics and in the workplace. Women's personal accounts have the potential to illuminate spatial processes of migration as a contested space for the repositioning of self in networks of family, kin, local and global relations.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Roles, Women Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Indonesia

Year: 2005

Gender and the Dynamics of Mobility: Reflections on African Migrant Mothers and ‘Transit Migration’ in Morocco

Citation:

Stock, Inka. 2012. “Gender and the Dynamics of Mobility: Reflections on African Migrant Mothers and ‘Transit Migration’ in Morocco.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35 (9): 1577–95.

Author: Inka Stock

Abstract:

By describing the everyday lives of African migrant mothers and their children in Morocco, this paper highlights how migration and ‘immobility’ in so-called ‘transit countries’ are gendering and gendered experiences. Relying on migrants' narratives, the paper demonstrates how migrants' transitions to motherhood create both specific and gendered spaces for agency and particular and gendered constraints upon agency that shape women migrants' mobility dynamics in space and time.

Keywords: migration, gender, Morocco, transit, African migrants, migrant mothers

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Women Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa Countries: Morocco

Year: 2012

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