Feminist Ethics Research Articles

An invitation to bring animals into feminist and queer sociology

AbstractThis paper presents an invitation to feminist and queer sociology to engage more frequently, enthusiastically, and deeply with animals. Feminist and queer sociology that attend to animals and animality stand to develop better knowledge for animals and animal studies and for women, queers, and feminist and queer sociology. Sociologists working from feminist and queer perspectives are also particularly well‐positioned within the discipline of sociology to contribute to and take advantage of the insights of the field of feminist animal studies. After a brief review of what feminist animal studies is, I proceed through three steps to elaborate the imperative for feminist and queer sociology to consider animals. First, I show how feminist animal studies as a theoretical perspective engages with issues that are core to feminist and queer sociology. Second, I center intersectional feminism and lay out how incorporating species can and does enhance our understanding of intersectional processes. Third, I present an ethical call, grounded in the traditions of feminist ethics and ecofeminism, to attend to species in feminist and queer sociology.

Emergency department crowding: An examination of older adults and vulnerability.

Emergency departments in many nations worldwide have been struggling for many years with crowding and the subsequent provision of care in hallways and other unconventional spaces. While this issue has been investigated and analyzed from multiple perspectives, the ethical dimensions of the place of emergency department care have been underexamined. Specifically, the impacts of the place of care on patients and their caregivers have not been robustly explored in the literature. In this article, a feminist ethics and human geography framing is utilized to argue that care provision in open and unconventional spaces in the emergency department can be unethical, as vulnerability can be amplified by the place of care for patients and their caregivers. The situational and pathogenic vulnerability of patients can be heightened by the place of the emergency department and by the constraints to healthcare providers' capacity to promote patient comfort, privacy, communication, and autonomy in this setting. The arrangements of care in the emergency department are of particular concern for older adults given the potential increased risks for vulnerability in this population. As such, hallway healthcare can reflect the normalized inequities of structural ageism. Recommendations are provided to address this complicated ethical issue, including making visible the moral experiences of patients and their caregivers, as well as those of healthcare providers in the emergency department, advocating for a systems-level accounting for the needs of older adults in the emergency department and more broadly in healthcare, as well as highlighting the need for further research to examine how to foster autonomy and care in the emergency department to reduce the risk for vulnerabilities.

From bare life and necropolitics to a feminist care ethic: ageism in the COVID-19 pandemic and future directions.

This perspective paper begins with discussing how COVID-19 magnified the pre-pandemic 'bare life' conditions which exposed older people's lives to risks and indignities in the health and social care system. Then, by using the concept of Necropolitics, the life and death decisions, based on age as a proxy measure for population health during the pandemic, are discussed. This discussion includes examples of 'exceptional' practices that were implemented in the UK during the first wave, including 'Do Not Resuscitate' orders, unsafe hospital discharges, not transferring to hospitals, and denying access to treatment for older people. It then goes on to renew the call for a feminist care ethic to be central to the ways in which our future health and social care systems are configured. Arguing for the need to politically reframe ageing, health and social care provision towards a radical alternative system that rethinks care relations and addresses inequality.

Towards attentive, playful arts-based methodology with children

This paper shares methodological insights from our research which sought to centre children in the production of knowledge during the 2020 global pandemic to consider how this can inform research with children beyond the crisis. Drawing on our longitudinal participatory arts-based research with 30 children aged 9–12 during 2020–22, the paper illustrates our response to the shifting research landscape which included navigating social restrictions to develop child-centred ways of working with socially distanced arts-based methods and technologies. The paper sets out key principles focused on foregrounding children’s ways of knowing and attentive seeing which underpinned our reframing of the research encounter from one in which adults are intent on extracting children’s ready-made thoughts to a space in which knowledge generation is recognised as a process of co-construction and engagement with children. Central to this process is our commitment to feminist care ethics and the application of principles from early childhood research and pedagogy which prioritise attentiveness to younger children’s rhythms and pace. Our aim, in setting out an approach which makes a space for playfulness with older children, is to elaborate the potential of slower, attentive methods and to offer a methodological framework to address to wider questions about what arts-based methods do.

Self-efficacy and well-being of female teacher educators for early childhood care and education during COVID-19

In light of the devastating effects of COVID-19 on early childhood care and education (ECCE), with this study we aimed at illuminating the self-efficacy and well-being of ECCE teacher educators, from the perspective of 9 participants in 7 higher education institutions (HEIs) across 5 South African provinces. The study, conducted by 2 ECCE teacher educators, was informed by the feminist ethics of care, combined with Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, to understand self-efficacy, and Seligman’s PERMA (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishments) theory of well-being. Semi-structured, online interviews using Microsoft Teams was used to produce the data. The findings reveal aspects that compromised self-efficacy and well-being, as well as aspects that energised them. All the participants reported that their institutions were under-prepared for the pandemic. They recognised that they lacked work-life balance and were at risk of burnout. Despite this, their resilience enabled them to develop a deeper interest and stronger commitment to their work, largely because of the support they had received from their colleagues. From the findings of the study we recognise that strong self-efficacy sustained teacher educators’ professional practice despite the pandemic affecting their well-being in a negative way. In the context of building forward better and differently, this study points to the importance of developing responsive well-being programmes for staff in higher education institutions and communities of practice that are responsive to the needs of female teacher educators.

Critical data studies with Latin America: Theorizing beyond data colonialism

The article aims to theorize about critical data studies with Latin America beyond the framework of data colonialism, arguing that the long history of social thought in the region can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the datafication. It discusses views around dependence, oppressions, and liberation, debating how Latin American authors can be useful for current critical data studies, in a more nuanced and complex vision. It presents the theoretical contributions of Lelia Gonzalez, dependency theorists and Enrique Dussel. Dependency theorists criticize evolutionary frameworks of development and can contribute to discussions around data sovereignty and overexploitation of labor. Gonzalez contributes to a complex vision of Amefrica Ladina, articulating multiple forms of oppression. Enrique Dussel presents a theory of technology considering totality and proposes an ethics of liberation that can be related to alternatives toward data justice and data commons. All theoretical frameworks contribute to thinking about datafication with Latin America not as an isolated phenomenon, but in relation to other countries in the world, and as an analytical key for the construction of alternatives. All perspectives are related to current debates on critical data studies and can make an important contribution to the construction of critical theories about data that consider Latin America also as a site of knowledge production.

“I Really Wanted to Further My Education but That Wasn’t Possible”: Out of School Experiences of Youth with Disabilities in Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa

ABSTRACT Leaving school prematurely can have lifelong repercussions, and further entrench inequity and cycles of poverty faced by youth with disabilities on the African continent. This manuscript shares the experiences of youth with disabilities in Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa who left education sooner than desired. It highlights the barriers leading to these educational inequalities, and facilitators that created necessary access and support systems. Method: This was a participatory research study with youth with disabilities implemented in three sites, namely, Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa. This sample size for this paper was a total of 41 participants, which included males and females between 14–35 years of age, who self-identified as having a motor, communication, vision, and/or hearing impairment. Seven focus groups across the three sites were held. Results: Our analysis identified three key themes related to educational experiences: social environment, physical environment, and managing health challenges. Conclusion: The interdependence of relationships and support facilitated participation and inclusion in the education systems. We have framed recommendations using a feminist ethics of care, as it relates to attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness, and integrity.

The Rise of Particulars: AI and the Ethics of Care

Machine learning (ML) trains itself by discovering patterns of correlations that can be applied to new inputs. That is a very powerful form of generalization, but it is also very different from the sort of generalization that the west has valorized as the highest form of truth, such as universal laws in some of the sciences, or ethical principles and frameworks in moral reasoning. Machine learning’s generalizations synthesize the general and the particular in a new way, creating a multidimensional model that often retains more of the complex differentiating patterns it has uncovered in the training process than the human mind can grasp. Particulars speak louder in these models than they do in traditional generalizing frameworks. This creates an odd analogy with recent movements in moral philosophy, particularly the feminist ethics of care which rejects the application of general moral frameworks in favor of caring responses to the particular needs and interests of those affected by a moral decision. This paper suggests that our current wide-spread and justified worries about ML’s inexplicability—primarily arising from its reliance on staggeringly complex patterns of particulars—may be preparing our culture more broadly for a valorizing of particulars as at least as determinative as generalizations, and that this might help further advance the importance of particulars in ideas such as those put forward by the ethics of care.

The ethics liberation and punitive power in peripheral countries

The research addressed Enrique Dussel's Ethics of Liberation in the era of globalization and social exclusion, using it as a framework for ethical considerations in a decolonial critique of the Eurocentric and North American standards that underpinned the domination of peripheral countries by central countries, including in criminological knowledge. Therefore, we explored decolonial knowledge, correlating it with critical criminology, resulting in the proposal of a decolonial criminology. The theoretical contributions, in conjunction with the Ethics of Liberation, were employed to foster a critical awareness of the use of punitive power as a means of maintaining the colonial matrix of domination and exploitation, especially within the field of criminology. In conclusion, we also presented the contribution of the Ethics of Liberation to a new configuration of punitive power, now employed in favor of vulnerable groups with the aim of eliminating or reducing their victimization within the current world system. However, it is crucial to note that the same Ethics of Liberation demands that the use of punitive power must not lead to new victims of exclusion or domination..

Katharine Conway’s Ethics of Intimacy

ABSTRACT This essay explores debates among Fabian socialists over the meaning of ‘free love’ taking as its starting point a conflict that arose between Katharine St John Conway and William De Mattos in 1892. Conway’s encounter with De Mattos, it argues, contributed to the development of her understanding of love and its place in Fabian politics. The narratives that Conway wrote in the aftermath of this conflict, including the narrative of her own marriage, attempt to define a feminist ethics of intimacy that manifest socialist principles. The essay claims that Conway expands ideas about love to encompass new ways of thinking about the relationship between individual freedom and communal obligations.

Towards a Feminist Research Ethics of Care: Reflections, Lessons, and Methodological Considerations for Doing Research During a Pandemic

Conducting feminist research during the global COVID-19 pandemic has evoked a renewed interest in the concept of care within our research team. The purpose of this paper is to provide concrete examples of how feminist ethics of care changed the initial and ongoing design of a community-engaged research project in Ontario, Canada. Drawing from examples and lessons learned, we focus on various adjustments to our methodological decision-making that intentionally honoured and prioritized our responsibilities to community partners, research participants, broader communities impacted by research, and the research team. By illustrating the methodological and ethical implications of these decisions, we argue that attending to these responsibilities prioritized both feminist research ethics and feminist ethics of care. As a result, we propose moving towards a conceptualization of a feminist research ethics of care, and discuss the value of this concept for researchers studying social justice.

Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography of the Undersea?

This article relies on an ethnography of commercial divers that involves the author’s training, certification, and activity underwater to propose an ecofeminist analysis of the undersea (furthermore with the undersea). It presents how feminist environmental theory engages with the ethnographic method of immersion and how underwater fieldwork grounded in feminist theory contributes, in turn, to reflections on the role of embodiment in the production of ethnographic knowledge. This article emphasizes the role of experiencing risky situations (gender-based violence and life-threatening situations) in the research process to address the reproduction of masculinity that is part of the commercial diving training supported by the profession’s equipment and technologies. By doing so, the article unveils how participating in underwater activities as part of fieldwork raises issues for feminist ethics, especially regarding multispecies relationality. Overcoming these ethical limits and reconciling ecofeminism and ethnography in the study of underwater ecologies can, as the article concludes, rely on creative methods.

Questioning Freedom: A Transnational Feminist Critique of the Representation of Muslim Women in I am Malala?

Do Muslim women need freedom? has remained a contentious question in gender equality discourses since 9/11. In this ongoing debate, the usage of personal narratives of Muslim women plays a critical role in popularising the perception that Muslim women are denied their right to freedom in Islamic societies. Approaching these narratives with the idea of freedom configured in secular liberal tradition impedes the critical responsiveness to the variants of freedom that govern the lives of Muslim women. As a corrective to this long-held critical bias, this research contends that any attempt to settle this controversy needs to be attentive to the questions that must precede the readings of such narratives: What is freedom? Is it an essentialist idea? What practices harm Muslim women? What type of freedom do Muslim women need? This paper responds to these questions by situating them in its reading of I Am Malala to destabilize the mainstream readings of the text, which view the oppression of Muslim women as rooted in religion. Informed by the transnational feminist understanding of freedom as postulated by Serene J. Kahder in Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic(2019), an anti-essentialist reading of this narrative rejects the representation of traditional forms of selfhood of Muslim women as marginalized compared to the dominant construction of individualized selfhood of Malala. Khader’s idea of freedom negates the liberal feminist’s approach to the value of independence individualism as a necessary precondition for freedom supports this paper to argue against the representation of Muslim women as oppressed in I am Malala.

AQUEOUS POSTHUMAN FEMINISM IN PAOLO BACIGALUPI'S THE WATER KNIFE

Climate fiction has intractably delved into the ecological dismay about the imminent disastrous repercussions of anthropogenic climate change. The posthuman propensities of these texts actualized by the depiction of imaginative worlds digressing from manifest conditions subvert anthropocentric standpoints and point out nonhuman agencies. Detailed analysis of climate fictions by employing feminist posthumanist figurations foregrounding a feminist ethic of difference, mutuality and care can bring to light their potential to offer imaginative realms outside the fallacies of human supremacy. The present work endeavours a watery incursion into Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife and attempts to view it through posthumanist feminist aqueous imagery put forward by the cultural theorist Astrida Neimanis. It also explores how water in the novel engenders a fresh imaginative space through its diversified techniques.

Rearranging care while cycling under the Covid-19 pandemic in Quito, Ecuador

In spring 2020, the municipal government in Quito, Ecuador added cycling lanes as a healthy urban mobility option due to the spike of deaths at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. This infrastructural intervention emerged from the state’s humanitarian care approach, also known as a ‘mobility fix’. Cycling lanes became an important mobility option for vulnerable social groups who continued to move around and became a manner that the government conferred public health solutions upon the individual. Therefore, as the city responded to daily urban mobility needs through cycling interventions, female cyclists used cycling infrastructures to move around. In an effort to understand these experiences, this article uses a feminist ethics framework to make sense of the spatial arrangement of non-traditional care-giving and care-receiving relations, between government and a group of friends. Drawing on mobile participatory research with ten female cyclists that focuses on their spatial practices, it finds that cycling lanes, along with municipal care campaigns, produced new minor caring acts, like kindness. Even as small caring acts emerged, female participants reported vulnerabilities, including the reproduction of toxic masculinity and dominance of automobility. The article finds that cycling infrastructures alone are incapable of protecting cyclists if larger socio-cultural dilemmas, such as gendered violence, go unaddressed within planning interventions. Ultimately, these findings contribute to debates within cycling geographic literature by expanding on care debates in cycling literature beyond an individual and household relation.

Decolonizing bodies and the ethics of care: On the significance of embodied vulnerability as the future of cultural studies

In the contemporary moment, systemic failures – from climate change to pandemics to political repression – have created embodied vulnerabilities worldwide. I argue here that the increasing precaritization of individual bodies is an index of the political formations that create and condition vulnerabilities among certain populations. Recognizing this, analyses of the conditions of embodied vulnerability are crucial to cultural studies in that they contribute to understanding and challenging neocolonial and patriarchal power and injustice. Feminist materialism and theories of post- and neo-colonialism reveal the processes of embodiment as complex modes of epistemic violence. To reorient cultural studies theoretically and methodologically, I propose the feminist ethics of care as a working framework for mapping, challenging, and changing the processes of materialization at work in unjust and asymmetric embodied vulnerabilities.

A discussion of gender, ethnicity, and intersectionality, at the Serb Business Association forum.

Qualitative transdisciplinary research has contributed to the development of a dynamic scientific area that is best suited to analyze real-life data from real people. To determine how ethnicity and gender intersect to shape the social worlds of the participants in a Serb business discussion forum, I apply two theoretical orientations based on ethnomethodology: Conversation Analysis (CA) and membership categorization analysis (MCA). I analyze 15 videos with predominantly female Serb discussants. My findings from this project reveal a significant presence of stigma in the perceptions of Serb ethnicity in Croatia. I argue that due to patriarchal values as a type of cultural cache, Serb women experience demeaning gender categories in various areas of their lives. To improve this situation, it is suggested that there is a need for feminist ethics of care and a coalition with men.

Tracing sustainability meanings in Rosendal: interrogating an unjust urban sustainability discourse and introducing alternative perspectives

ABSTRACT Sustainability is a much debated concept, often criticised as ill-defined. While some argue it is time to leave sustainability behind, others defend the concept's potential to initiate change. In this article we depart from the potential of sustainability, while being aware that the term is often appropriated by discourses reproducing status quo and keeping existing injustices in place. We do so by studying the urban sustainability discourse reproducing certain types of sustainabilities in Rosendal, a developing urban district in Uppsala, Sweden. Guided by the “What's the problem represented to be” approach we analyse written and visual material, produced by Uppsala municipality and developers. Through the policy analysis we identify four intertwined meanings of sustainability: Everyone is included, It's all about aesthetics, Closeness to nature and Sustainability is easy. Together, these meanings shape the Sustainability in Rosendal discourse, which we argue does little to overcome existing injustices. We point towards the silences involved in the discourse and hold that the failure to question the growth-dependent economic system within which Rosendal is being developed, results in insignificant changes as opposed to just transformation. By building upon the notion of just sustainabilities, we outline a set of alternative perspectives, departing from coupling a pluralist understanding of justice with a feminist ethics of care, to open up for more emancipatory and transformative urban sustainability discourses.

Xenosociology: Meeting the Predator in the Theory of Val Plumwood

Plumwood as a famous eco feminist, Delveaux (2001) had influenced the analyses inside the ecological ethic and deep ecology, and formed specific approach in ecological disputes, defined as ecosophy (Warren, 1996), involving ecological approach as inherent to human, especially female nature. Female attributes are celebrated, since they can influence the development of feminist ethic, as care ethic, global care ethic (Adam, 2004). This form of ethic influenced development of animal ethic, or Xeno Ethic in her works. Disputes around the position of female identity, (especially inherent to an educated professor such as herself), are caused by her encounter with the crocodile in Cacadu national park; after she was assured that she can use canoe in that area, safely. Val Plumwood, with her book Meeting the predator, had influenced the changes in discussions about animal ethics, transpecism, and the importance of human body and environment, that involves different forms of organisms, from predators to dangerous and exotic plants, that can also be seen as xeno organism threatening the life.

‘Caring’ Through Translation: A Dialogue on Ethics and Inclusivity in Cross-Language Research

Cross-language research involving translation is prevalent in the social sciences yet under-discussed in terms of its ethical impact on participants or the translator her/himself. This paper applies a feminist ethics of ‘care’ to the topic of translation in cross-cultural, cross-language research. We argue for the importance of emotional intelligence and awareness of emotional labor involved in meaningful, ethical translation between the researcher, translator, and participants. The paper itself is a reflexive conversation between a translator and researcher following six months of data collection involving over 120 interviews and 10 work-life histories. We discuss the opportunities and limitations for more emotionally evolved translation in cross-cultural research, discussing specific strategies for caring about, taking care of, caregiving and care receiving through translation. Applying the ‘caring through translation’ framework promotes deeper collaboration and relationality between researchers, translators, and participants, grounded in feminist ideals of equitable, ethical knowledge production.