Feminist Ecological Pacifism and Care in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Abstract The shared materiality of all living entities on the planet and their connectivity becomes an invitation to rethink pacifism to explore new forms of being in the world. This paper asks how we can think about the environment, violence, and pacifism when the older conceptions of violence do not capture all of its complex and interrelational features in the Anthropocene. Feminist new materialism moves away from anthropocentrism and offers an alternative trajectory for thinking about the environment and practicing pacifism in light of environmental, slow, and epistemic violence. It emphasises that since we are always already part of the world and thereby ethically responsible for the intra-actions we share with all beings, we bear a ‘response-ability’ (Barad 2012, 206–207). As a radical theory and practice, feminist environmental pacifism makes visible the violent socio-political complexities of human – nature connections and suggests caring about earthly co-existence with all beings.