Ecofeminist Theory Research Articles

The Interconnection between Ecofeminist Theory and Gaian Hypothesis: Women Saving the Earth

The Interconnection between Ecofeminist Theory and Gaian Hypothesis: Women Saving the Earth

A Comparative Study On Two English Versions Of Shen Congwen’s ‘Biancheng’ From The Perspective Of Ecofeminism

The struggle to create a life-affirming society intensifies as globalization expands, which can be seen from the 1970s, women all over the world were formulating ecological feminist response to environmental influence of “modernization” through the intersection between gender, feminism and environmental issues. Ecofeminism is at the intersection of women’s rights, environmental issues and the various forms of oppression, such as those affecting marginalized and colonial people, as well as the Third World nations by the Western industrialized countries. One of the major propositions of ecofeminism is to build a harmonious planet and to abolish sexism and patriarchy, rather than subject to dominance of men and hierarchy. It, therefore, advocates to deconstruct the patriarchal perspective and reconstruct a community based on ecology and feminism, in a way to cease the exploitation of nature and promote the liberation of women. “Biancheng” is a representative work of renowned modern Chinese writer, Mr. Shen Congwen, who adhered to his contemplation on humanity’s existence and tried to communicate the essence of honoring nature and life. He transformed “Biancheng” from a conventional geographical term into a profound exploration of the intrinsic significance of human existence and spirit, with a particular emphasis on a woman’s existence and her connection with nature. Such focus led me to approach “Biancheng” through the lens of ecofeminism. In light of the ecofeminism theory, this paper selects the two prominent English translations of Biancheng by renowned translators Gladys Yang and American sinologist Jeffrey C. Kinkley for a comparative analysis. It is divided into five parts: the first deals with delineating the main ecofeminist theories, the second probes into the previous researches on ecofeminism and translated versions of Biancheng, the third refers to the work analysis, the fourth parts explores how ecofeminism is translated and demonstrated in the two versions through comparative analysis and the last part comes to a conclusion.

Child Freedom as Ecofeminist Praxis: Navigating Gender, Reproductive Choice, and Climate Action

This research explores the decision to have child freedom, namely the choice not to have children, as a form of ecofeminist praxis in supporting climate change action. By integrating ecofeminist theory, this study aims to analyze the individual impact of child freedom decisions on climate change and explore the gender dimensions that may be involved. Adopting a literature study approach, this research details how these decisions can be understood through an ecofeminist lens, linking issues of gender and reproductive choices to the ecological responsibility of individuals. Through an in-depth literature analysis, this research strengthens the argument that child freedom can be articulated as a positive action in reducing an individual's ecological footprint and consideringthe social impact of gender in the context of climate change. This discussion highlights ecofeminist perspectives in the context of child freedom and explores how policy and society can support this choice as a concrete contribution to environmental sustainability. It is hoped that the results of this research can deepen our understanding of the relationship between gender issues, family decisions, and climate change action. The implications of these findings can provide a basis for the development of more inclusive policies and support concrete steps in overcoming the challenges of climate change. Keywords: Child Freedom; Gender; Ecofeminism; Climate Change Action.

Ethics of care in Chicana lesbian writers

Chicana Lesbians: The Girls our Mothers Warned Us About (1991) by Carla Trujillo challenged conventional positions and ideology about gender and sexual roles when it was published. The controversial issue of the ethics of care, discussed and understood in ecofeminist theories as the imperative of heteropatriarchal societies towards women to become caretakers, finds in these texts reflections from the queer identities of their authors, transforming their actions into positive interactions. In this volume, relationships of sorority, expressing love and care for one another abound as the writers in the compilation explore new alternatives of building families aside from heteropatriarchal role models. Among these explorations, the different poems and essays included in the volume established a communication through eroticism and sexuality, and discussed their implications openly, in order to overcome the problematics of an imposed heterosexuality and, even, an imposed motherhood. This collection expresses how, thanks to all this previous work by writers and critics such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo, Cherrie Moraga, Emma Pérez or Carla Trujillo herself, whose stories are included in the volume, Chicana lesbian writers today can escape essentialist visions that place women and queers as closer to nature in order to undervalue both and find the justification to oppress them. On the contrary, Trujillo’s volume opens an avenue towards a more post anthropocentric attitude, exercising empathy towards the human and the more-than-human world in relation to making these writers aware of the influence of their origins, and the embracement of their roots through the expression of love and caring for other women.

Ecofeminism ↔ Intraconnectivism: working beyond binaries in environmental education

ABSTRACT Over the last decades, ecofeminist thought has moved into a ‘fourth stage critical ecofeminism’ (Gaard 2017, xvi), based on an understanding that humans are unavoidably part of a multifaceted and interconnected global ecosystem. This paper suggests that ecofeminist theory and practice can now grow further into a fifth stage: an era of expanded intersectionality that moves beyond the dualisms and hegemonies of neo-liberal patriarchal and colonial capitalist structures that can limit ecofeminist theorizing and material practice. This fifth stage must be based on an amalgamation of engaged theory, education, and activism, grounded in ancient wisdom and with the understanding that all material-discursive phenomena are interconnected. For this next era of ecofeminism, the terms intraconnectivism and intraconnective education (Siegel 2022) are proposed. Intraconnectivism offers a bridge that connects past theoretical frameworks with ecofeminist presents. It can build a helpful theoretical pathway through and amongst the non-dualistic educational pedagogies that are needed at this time, as well as expand understanding of the role that gender and other identities can play in education.

Teaching and learning critical ecofeminism in (and outside of) the graduate classroom

ABSTRACT An autoethnographic exploration of critical ecofeminist theory and pedagogy, by four students and their professor, provides strategies for creative teaching, learning, writing, and publishing.

Analysing Bijaya Hitan’s some Selected Stories from an Eco-centric Approach

This paper makes the Ecocritical reading of three stories, namely, “Bagmati Blues”, “Saharle Panchhayeki Buhari” (My translation “A Daughter-in-Law Disregarded by a City”) and “Nawabarshale Janmayeka Brykshyaharu” (My translation “The Groves Bred by New Year”), written by an ecowriter, Bijaya Hitan. Drawing on the Ecocritical and Ecofeminist theories of Lawrence Buell, Vandana Shiva, Greta Gaard, and some relevant journals and books, it analyzes the portrayals of non-human world that is the Bagmati river and her declining physical environment. As soon as Bagmati river enters the Kathmandu valley near Sundarijal, the water starts to deteriorate. The river has been used as dumping site for domestic and industrial waste water and solid waste. Besides that, the river has been widely used for sand extraction and land encroachment through squatter settlements at the bank of the river. Hitan, in his three short stories questions the ethics, policies, and cultural values of people at Kathmandu for treating Bagmati as an instrument, only a means of human ends. This paper scrutinizes the power of words, subject, images and narrative of aforementioned stories to reinforce to understand the oppressive human-environment relations causing multiple forms of ecodegradation that afflict Bagmati river today. The significance of this study is to exhibit how Hitan’s ecowriting has proved to be an effective means of communicating the burgeoning environmental concerns of Bagmati and resolving this environmental harm through the adoption of possible alternatives practically and morally.

Characterization and Presentation of Capitalist Environmental Destruction: A Critical Reading of Austin Bukenya’s A Hole in the Sky (2013) and Okiya Omtatah’s Voice of the People (2007)

This paper investigates how playwrights employ characterization to illuminate acts of capitalist environmental destruction in Austin Bukenya’s A Hole in the Sky (2013) and Okiya Omtatah’s Voice of the People (2007). The central idea is to examine the presentation of environmental destruction and the critical responses as dramatized through character articulation. The paper is premised on Ecofeminist and Eco-Marxist theoretical frameworks. The proponents of Ecofeminist theory are Karen J. Warren, Vandana Shiva, Greta Gaard, Carolyn Merchant and Ynestra King, whereas those of the Eco-Marxist framework are John Bellamy Foster, Herbert Marcuse and Paul Burkett. Ecofeminists argue that there is a close interrelation between women and nature. The theorization is that there is an interconnection between women and nature, particularly regarding their nurturing abilities, exploitation, and liberation. The paper contends that the twin-exploitation aspect of ecofeminism portrays acts of domination wrought by patriarchy and capitalism. Eco-Marxists expound on the exploitation aspect by linking ecological destruction to unbridled capitalism. The article uses qualitative methodology whereby the plays were purposively sampled and thematic analysis was done to examine the articulation of characters in depicting environmental destruction. The study establishes that playwrights have appropriately used their characters to illuminate environmental degradation. The depiction of characters as either conservationists or agents and orchestrators of environmental destruction helps the playwrights present capitalist oppression, repression, and expansionism

Redesigning cultural identity in Euro-Arctic Russia

The starting point for this article is The Living North project conducted by the non-governmental organization Arctic Art Institute in Arkhangelsk, Russia, in 2019–21. The project team digitized archives of the crafts factory, Belomorskie Uzory (‘The White Sea patterns’), for the first time and through art-based participatory research revealed the existing challenges of the industry, communicating marginalized knowledge and creating new social choreographies. The case of reviving tacit knowledge and re-creating narratives in the context of the hypercentralized knowledge production of Euro-Arctic Russia is discussed in the article. The rapid modernization of the first half of the twentieth century led to radical changes of everyday life, including the disappearance of tacit knowledge, erosion of memory and cultural identity of northerners. In 1968, during Khrushchev’s ‘ottepel’, a crafts factory Belomorskie Uzory opened in Arkhangelsk with the goal to document and restore decaying crafts and fashion design from Euro-Arctic Russia. In the article, I discuss the case of the factory in light of decolonial and ecofeminist theory with a particular focus on fashion. The project shows that art-based participatory research strategies stimulate dialogical relations between the factory and young fashion designers and artists, leading to the revitalization of communities in the North.

‘Let’s sharpen the blades’: ecofeminism in American COVID literature

ABSTRACT During the spring of 2020, literary responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were quick to appear. Poetry, essays and diaries proliferated, and collective initiatives sprang up, with authors delving into a crisis that was national as well as global; political as well as health-based. In their lockdown works, US-based authors tackled their experience in the context of the country, chronicling the virus alongside inequality, racism and environmental challenges. Sheltering in place on either side of the Continental Divide, Pam Houston and Amy Irvine maintained an intense correspondence that was later published as Air Mail. Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place, which this article approaches as representative of ecofeminist COVID literature. It tracks their epistolary journey from the self to the social and back, discussing their narrative of the pandemic within the framework of their shared stance. Their letters are read as heirs to second-wave feminism and analysed as one instance of the current permeation of ecofeminist theories, specifically the material perspective. Through the study of Houston and Irvine’s correspondence, this article aims to illuminate the cultural work done by American ecofeminist writers during an extraordinary period.

The Gender Gap in Environmental Concern: Support for an Ecofeminist Perspective and the Role of Gender Egalitarian Attitudes

Quantitative studies analysing individual differences in environmental concern (i.e., apprehension about the quality of nature and natural resources including air, water, soil and animal and plant species) have consistently found differences between men and women, whereby women are more likely to display pro-environmental attitudes, although the underlying reasons remain largely unclear. Understanding the gender gap in environmental concern is crucial for designing and targeting environmental policies and for developing environmental education programmes. This paper examines five prominent theories that address the gender gap: Socialisation theory, Economic Salience theory, Parenthood Status theory, the Class-Gender effect and Ecofeminism. Ecofeminism constitutes a theoretical perspective which, despite offering a joint analysis of feminism and environmentalism, has rarely been employed in applied research regarding the gender gap in environmental concern. Using hierarachical regression techniques and data from the World Values Survey (N = 51,763) across 45 countries, this study finds that attitudes of gender equality are positively correlated with environmental concern. The present study supports ecofeminist theory by highlighting the positive role played by gender egalitarian attitudes in environmental concern. This research is the first of its kind to study the influence of gender egalitarian attitudes on environmental concern with such a large representative sample of countries, using hierarchical models to evaluate the effect of contextual factors.

“Green Aisyiyah” : Praksis Ekofeminis Gerakan Aisyiyah dalam Mengatasi Perubahan Iklim di Indonesia

This study aims to identify the Green Aisyiyah Program as a realization of the eco-feminist idea of dealing with climate change in Indonesia. The Green Aisyiyah Program is a program initiated by the Division of the Environmental Agency for Disaster Management (LLHPB), as one of the divisions within the structure of the Aisyiyah Movement. In elaborating this research, using qualitative methods with a phenomenological approach supported by Green Politics theory and ecofeminist theory. The results of the study explained that the Green Aisyiyah program is synonymous with empowering women to commit and contribute to protecting the environment in a sustainable manner in anticipation of climate change, various derivatives of the Green Aisyiyah program such as Green Ramadan, Green Eid al-Fitr, and Green Eid al-Adha were constructed through various activities that are very close to the daily lives and lives of women as agents of change because it cannot be denied that women are an important subject in access to natural resources, food and the environment.

Undesigned World: what educating through walking means in the Anthropocene

For this essay, we draw from a collaborative experience between two educators and thirty students in a course called Designed World, taught at a public university, to explore how attention and intention develop within the practice of walking across “patchy landscapes” (Tsing 2015, 20) or the anthropocentric landscape, and how they can assist thinking about the design of “possible worlds” (Haraway 1991). This essay adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates ecofeminist theory with ideas of Romantic empiricism and relates them to aesthetic education and theories about walking. This journey to new places of learning – beyond the indoor structure of the classroom or studio – begins with becoming attentive to the complexity around us. Attention is a lack of intention (Masschelein 2010, 48). In contrast to most design activities that begin with an intent to produce a desired outcome, and a rich methodology, such as Design Thinking, there is no method here and no sequence to follow. Instead, the goal is to allow the present to be sublime to us so that we open ourselves up in a vulnerable way to being changed by that through which we move. This form of teaching helps us practise attention, presence, and responsibility. We do not expect anything in return. The simple act of walking can help us navigate an indeterminate time and place and create a social art and commons.

Alter-Narrativity and Ecofeminism in the Mythical Account of Sogidi Lake in Awe, Oyo, Nigeria

ABSTRACT Before modernity, oral narratives were an invaluable means of solving ecological challenges, of which the woman’s image was an integral part. Existing studies on mythical stories among Yoruba people of Western Nigeria focus on cultural realities that underscore the socio-historical experiences of the people. Still, little attention has been paid to the ecofeminist experiences foregrounded in the Sogidi Lake as a mythical, alter-narrative text. This study, therefore, examines the myth as an alter-narrative to ecological conservation, which conveys the cultural practices and taboos of the Awe people in Oyo town that serve as protective measures against climate change and human-induced disruption of the eco-tourist site. The study adopted the Ecofeminist Theory to examine ecological and gender issues foregrounded in the mythical narrative. The selected narrative was tape-recorded, translated and subjected to close literary analysis. Also, literary devices such as narratological strategies, symbolisms, characterisation, and poetic devices are evident in Sogidi Lake.

The Womb and the Representation of Ecological Cohesion: A Linguistic Reading of Nicole Chinelo’s Save the African Womb

This paper examined the place of the womb as a representative of ecological cohesion. Using the selected text, the paper explored the didactic role of literature, essentially from the purview of imparting on the youth and the adolescent; and based on this background, the paper made use of a literary text, Save the African Womb, which is one of the Government recommended texts for students at the junior secondary level of education in Nigeria. The adolescent and youth stage in human development, no doubt, is critical in the social, moral, cultural, intellectual, and psychological education and formation. Again, the paper advanced from the understanding that literature as a special area of writing thrives in the indirect expression of ideas and messages. As much as a literary writer sets to communicate his or her literary messages, such are often allegorically embedded, demanding the creative ability of the reader to decode and sieve the messages from the twined knot in the writer’s language choices. To be able to do this in our paper, we adopted the eclectic approach in the selection of theoretical framework, considering the fact that the paper involves a cross disciplinary adventure. The paper thus adopted principally, the semiotic theory, and then the eco-feminist theory as relevant theories. Part of the findings of the paper is that the writer represented the importance of the womb using different manners of signification, both the literal and the semiotic. The conclusion of the paper is that the womb is central to the woman’s position as unique biological specie. The womb is also critical in the discussion of the overall human nature, and the need for mutual co- existence in the ecology of human existence. Therefore, the text can be read from the viewpoint of fostering a solution to the social tensions which often arise in the society.

Earth, gender and food security: Maria Zaloumis’ journey of feminising Agric-business in Zambia

This article explores the interconnectedness of the earth, gender and food security in the Zambian context using the narrative of Maria Zaloumis (a female Zambian farmer) in the public sphere. It draws on a narrative research design by the restorying of Maria’s trajectory in Agric-business as informed by the African ecofeminist theory. The study shows that Maria was described as an emerging young farmer and an emblem of female entrepreneurship. Her trajectory mirrored the intersection of the earth, gender and food security through her portrayal as a woman who endured life tragedies of losing a child, and being a victim of gender-based violence in her marriage. She drew inspiration from her mother (venturing into farming was linked to her mother), the earth (farming was an outlet for healing from her marital challenges) and religion (attributed her success to God as a member of the Baptist church). Maria’s account which resonates with the injustice suffered by the earth and shared by women through the environmental crises affirms that in the midst of suffering, women could still contribute to food security by turning a crisis into an opportunity and fostering a life-affirming theology.Contribution: The article contributes to scholarship on the earth, gender and food security by bringing to the fore the ways in which women have contributed to changing the Agric-business landscape through the intersection of the earth, gender and religion from the Zambian context. It also adds a new perspective to women’s empowerment and the preservation and stewardship of mother earth.

Reproductive Rights and Ecofeminism

The U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in its Dobbs decision in June 2022 came as a shock. Yet, upon reflection, the decision simply reinforced what history has shown: women’s rights and opportunities have always been subject to controls, fluctuations, and specious rationales. Dobbs is one in a long line of legal edicts in the U.S. and elsewhere that either allow or curtail and control female agency, including reproductive agency. The decision’s devastating consequences for U.S. women’s reproductive lives are damaging enough, but they are only part of the story. In addition to its hobbling effects on reproductive rights and justice, the Dobbs decision goes hand in hand with the underlying causes of today’s unparalleled environmental emergency. This article argues, through ecofeminist theory and feminist and Native American climate fiction, that Dobbs is a catalyst for understanding the role of patriarchy—as a particularly insidious form of androcentrism—in the destruction of our planet. Evidence is mounting to support claims made by ecofeminists since the 1970s: patriarchy and resulting masculinist values have been foundational to the extractive and exploitative attitudes and practices regarding marginalized peoples, colonized lands, and racialized entitlements to natural resources that have endangered the earth’s biosystems.

Ecofeminist Ontology in Karen Warren's Ethic

Abstract: In this paper I argue that ecofeminist theory needs a clearly stated ontological grounding in order to strengthen its ethical framework. In Karen Warren's work, she proposes an ecofeminist ethic delineated by "boundary conditions" which determine the approaches that cohere to ecofeminist concerns. One such condition is a reconceptualization of "what it is to be human." Here I trace the ontological assumptions present in Karen Warren's work in order to argue for the acceptance of a feminist, relational and context-dependent ontology as a boundary condition of an ecofeminist ethic. I propose that Karen Warren's approach to ontology functions similarly to her ethic in that she allows for a pluralistic approach to ontology and presents a number of boundary conditions that limit which ontologies can be deemed "ecofeminist ontologies." I conclude that Warren's ethic and ontology are closely intertwined and suggest that further ontological analysis of ecofeminist work could strengthen the growing field of ecofeminist ethics.

Knowledge Production Around and About Raced Covered Body: Reclaiming Muslim Female Body in Ecofeminist Theories of Embodiment

Abstract: Ecofeminists have called for adding an ecological dimension to gender research to address various forms of oppression that women experience in their daily lives and to explain how feminine exploitation of the planet results from the same logic of patriarchal domination. Now that the flow of essentialism-phobia (Field 2000, 39) has decreased, it seems that it is time to deal with the risky topic of the body in ecofeminist research and theory to make it more central in feminist epistemologies. Yet feminist theory needs to avoid repeating the past mistakes in theorizing embodiment from an ecofeminist point of view and pay proper attention to the questions of difference and diversity: whose body is being discussed and generalized? This paper builds upon the postcolonial ecofeminist perspectives of embodiment and highlights the diversity of lives and experiences of living in Others of cisgender heterosexual male bodies with a focus on covered raced body.

Indicting Frost for Androcentric Speciesism: An Ecofeminist Reading of Robert Frost’s “The Most of It”

Using the critical framework of ecofeminism, this paper examines Robert Frost’s attitudes towards both women and nature in his poem “The Most of It”. Whether ecocritical or feminist, the mainstream readings of Robert Frost fall into two main axes: 1) Frost for Nature and/or Women Views argue that Frost’s poetry is for nature and women (Srivastava, 2017; Shah, 2022); and 2) Frost for Ambiguity Views claim that Frost’s poetic work is ambiguous—it could be for or against nature and women (Benin, n.d). This paper belongs to neither of the two. This study makes it unequivocally clear that Frost's view of nature, in “The Most of It”, is androcentric as well as anthropomorphic. Ecofeminism is about making connections, on the one hand, between the earth and the entire forms of life on it, and on the other hand, between the patriarchal exploitation of nature and women’s domination. This paper, too, attempts establishing many connections: between the poet’s use of the male generic language and the oppression of nature and women; between the female’s invisibility in the poem and women’s domination in the Western patriarchal culture; and between Frost’s fame as a poet and his advocacy (through his poetry) for the androcentric worldviews of the patriarchal American society of his time. The findings of this research reveal that “The Most of It” contains strata of male-centric, speciesist worldviews and, consequently, stress the need for more research into Frost’s oeuvre using ecofeminist theory.