Feminist Political Ecology Perspective Research Articles

Waste picking in the age of COVID-19: an environmental justice perspective

All over the world, waste and its disposal are becoming a more prominent issue, as landfills swell up and growing evidence points to its contribution to climate change and environmental degradation. In the developing world, waste pickers sort through solid waste and sell it to vendors, who will recycle the product into something consumable. The work they do is vital to climate change mitigation, as well as urban cleanliness. In a way, waste pickers, especially in India, are vehicles of environmental justice, but they are often discriminated against and subjected to inhumane working conditions. In this environment, the pandemic hit, making waste pickers’ already precarious life even worse. This paper attempts to fill the gap in the academic literature by compiling a systemized literature review of the impacts of COVID-19 on waste-pickers’ lives using an environmental justice perspective. The review also uses a Feminist Political Ecology perspective to illuminate the double jeopardy that female waste pickers face in the era of COVID-19, which academia often ignores. Ultimately, this paper shows that COVID-19 exacerbated the preexisting injustices that the waste picker community face and created an immense burden on women. This paper will show that it is important to notice the differentiation between female and male waste picker challenges, especially at the crux of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper has important policy implications as well as research considerations for both environmental justice and feminist political ecology scholars.

Rethinking the Ecofeminist Discourse: View from the Western Ghats, India

Literature on Ecofeminism in the West is based largely on ideological terms. In India and the Global South, the ecofeminist discourse needs to be understood somewhat differently. One needs to analyze the ecofeminist discourse in the context of the growing protests against environmental destruction and the privatization of the Commons. In this paper I propose to analyse the Appiko Chaluvali (movement) of the Uttara Kannada district of the Western Ghats of India that took place in the early 1980s. The movement was led by the local communities to protect the forests on which the spice garden economy of the region depends. Even at present times, the women of the region have tried to forge a sisterhood across lines of caste, class and ethnicity to come together to solve their problems and to take initiatives such as creating seed collectives and cultivating kitchen gardens thus subverting the dominant betelnut economy. It is in this context that one would like to critically analyse the discourse on ecofeminism. The attempt would be to rethink the discourse on ecofeminism from a feminist political ecology perspective and to propose a context specific variant of the Global South.

Assessing local government's response to black women's vulnerability and adaptation to the impacts of floods in the context of intersectionality: The case of eThekwini metropolitan municipality, South Africa

AbstractThis article assesses how adaptation governance within the eThekwini (Durban) metropolitan municipality, KwaZulu‐Natal Province of South Africa, addresses the vulnerability and adaptation of black African women to flood impacts within the municipality. The article argues that there is an intersectional lens through which black local women's experiences of vulnerability to the impact of climate change disasters need to be understood and addressed. Qualitative research methodologies were employed to collect data through semi‐structured interviews and focus group discussions with local black African women from four areas in Durban who have experienced frequent floods over the past years. Personnel from eThekwini municipality's Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department and Disaster Management Department were also interviewed. The feminist political ecology perspective was used to unpack the nuances in power relations that engendered black African women's vulnerability and adaptation to flood impacts within the municipality. The study's findings revealed that the overall vulnerability experiences of black African women in Durban are shaped by factors relating to the lack of an ‘intentionally gendered’ approach to adaptation governance in the municipality. Adopting an intentional approach to adaptation governance is essential to inform policies responding to local black Africans' vulnerability and adaptation experiences within the study's context.

The Intersectionality of Colonialism and Gǐkũyũ Land Tenure Systems: A Feminist Political Ecology Perspective

The Agĩkũyũ in Kenya revered land as a spiritual gift from God in which communities and nature were inextricably linked to preserve sacred ecosystems and biodiversity. However, the intersectionality with colonialism and the expansion of capitalism propelled by the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885, changed the landscape tragically. In 1893, it was affirmed that the ownership of land was by occupational rights and unoccupied land belonged to the colonial state and white settlers. In 1895, Kenya became part of the British East Africa Protectorate and the Crown Land Ordinance of 1902 made Kenya a British Colony, in which by 1915, the Kenyan land became under the British Empire. Many locations especially in Gǐkũyũ areas experienced devastating displacement, landlessness and human adaptations in new ecological conditions, control and resources use in the agricultural pastoral communities. These problems led to political consciousness and in 1954 under the Swynnerton Plan, the Gǐkũyũ land tenure system became the basis for land reforms until 1970s. This paper extends the literature on colonialism and land ownership mainly centering on Africans reacting to the British imperialism and histories of underdevelopment by addressing the intersectionality of colonialism and the dynamic of gendered responses to colonialism at intra-household level, and as the base of history, political and economic systems influencing women, health, and ecology. The focus is on Gĩkũyũ families within the contexts of colonial and post- colonial policies of land consolidation, adjudication and land registration to private ownership of property. The land confiscated by the Europeans, deeply affected the Gǐkũyũ ethnic group, and it was their grievances over land that eventually became Kenya’s most controversial political project leading to the conflict between British, and the Mau Mau movement, and finally to independence in 1963. I use a feminist political ecology, which is inclusive to indigenous knowledge and spirituality in order to capture the understanding of and the experiences of communities responding to global processes of political, economic and ecological changes.

The secret and gendered lives of the underground

The underground—for decades the invisible ‘other’ of landscape and terrain in geography—has emerged in political ecology literature as the source of ‘stuff’, or material things, resources and commodities that are not deemed intrinsically valuable until extracted. As a corrective, this paper offers a feminist political ecology perspective that brings subaltern women’s voices to the forefront, and argues that the underground is co-constituted as a gendered space by gendered humans. As evidence, I take the readers on a journey into the belly of a coalmine where humans labour, and bring out women’s voices that narrate their experiences and imaginations to create the underground as a space teeming with social life. These alternative and gendered narratives reinstate the diverse, complex, and secret lives of this netherworld, draw attention to the politics of imagining space, and potentially shift geographers’ focus to interpreting the underground as a gendered social space.

“Now the Forest Is Over”: Transforming the Commons and Remaking Gender in Cambodia's Uplands

Communal lands and natural resources in rural Cambodia have transformed over the past 30 years as the country attempts to transition from conflict to liberal democracy and integrates into global agricultural value chains. We find that gender relations are changing as a result of land privatization and the ensuing social and ecological crises of production and reproduction. The forest has become a space for the articulation of new masculinities modulated through class and racialised power, while women are increasingly relegated to the private space of the home and village, negotiating expectations that they perform care, farming and food provisioning work while juggling household debt. We ground our argument in a large sample of qualitative interviews conducted between 2016 and 2020 in the upland provinces of Kampong Thom, Kratie and Ratanakiri that provide narrative accounts of the transformation of common forest and grazing lands, logging livelihoods and food provisioning practices. Using a feminist political ecology perspective, we highlight the contradictory processes of enclosure of the commons, which operate simultaneously as sites of violence, resistance, adaptation and continuity.

More than a roof; challenges for older women renters in British Columbia, Canada

ABSTRACT The growing issue of housing affordability is an increasing challenge worldwide as the financialization of housing markets undermines housing as a basic human right. One of the most vulnerable segments of the population affected by rising housing costs are older, low-income, females. Drawing on qualitative interviews with older women, we explore lived experiences of housing insecurity using a feminist political ecology perspective. Our findings reveal substantial challenges as well as creative solutions being employed by these women to stay in place. We conclude that more targeted and age- and gender-inclusive housing policies, programs, supports and services are critically needed.

From the Margins of the Spice Garden Economy: Agroforestry and Gendered Practices in the Western Ghats, Karnataka

The present coronavirus pandemic has created havoc in lives and livelihoods of people across the world. In just a few months, the world as we knew it has irretrievably changed. If one were to trace the roots of the crisis, it would lead one to the shift from sustainable farming systems to market-based systems that have increased agricultural productivity but have led to the breakdown of humanity’s relationship with nature. In the Malnad (up-ghat) region of the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, known for its diversified spice garden agroforestry practices, a similar change can be observed. Over the last decade, there has been an increasing conversion of paddy land and forest encroachments for cultivation of areca, leading to a change in the biodiversity of the region. The changes in the land use patterns and the destruction of the environment caused by infrastructure projects are among some of the important reasons that have resulted in increasing drought-like situations in an area known to be the wettest region of the Western Ghats and resulting in epidemics endemic to the region. However, in the shadow of the areca-spice garden economy of this region, there is a lesser known but growing economy—the home garden agroforestry. The gendered practices of the home gardens, run mainly by the women of the community, provide the vital everyday inputs for the household. Though high in terms of use value, the home gardens are low in terms of exchange value. It is in the context of mapping the cultural and developmental contours of this region that one tries to understand the gendered practices of the local communities that are a beacon of hope in times of a pandemic. In this article, one attempts to examine the marginal though crucial initiatives of women of this district to preserve the biodiversity of the region and provide for food in the kitchens. Finally, it attempts to connect the dots between gender, environment and development and argues for the adoption of a critical feminist political ecology perspective to analyse the gendered agroforestry practices.

Mining and women in northwest Mexico: a feminist political ecology approach to impacts on rural livelihoods

Women’s participation in large-scale mining (LSM) has been increasing in Mexico and worldwide; however, few comprehensive studies exist on the socioeconomic effects of mining on women depending on the specific roles they play in this activity. The objective of this study was to analyze, from a feminist political ecology perspective, the effects of mining on women in a rural community in Sonora State, in arid northwest Mexico, a region with important participation of LSM in the country. For this purpose, we developed a mixed methods approach combining literature review on gender and LSM, semistructured in-depth interviews, and analysis of secondary government data. Most literature on women and mining treats them conceptually as a homogeneous social group or focuses on only one role women play in mining. We address this gap by identifying several roles women can play in their interactions with the mining sector and then analyzing and comparing the effects of mining associated with these distinctive roles. In doing so, we unravel the gendered complexities of mining and highlight the socioecological contradictions embedded in these dynamics for individual women who are faced with significant trade-offs. Mining can provide economic and professional opportunities for women of varying educational and socioeconomic levels in otherwise impoverished and landless rural households. At the same time, women are unable to, as one interviewee phrased it, “break the glass ceiling even if using a miner’s helmet,” especially in managerial positions. Extraction of natural resources in the community is accompanied by the extraction of social capital and personal lives of miners. We give voice to the social–ecological contradictions lived by women in these multiple roles and offer potential insights both for addressing gender-based inequities in mining and for avenues toward collective action and empowerment.

Payments for environmental services, gendered livelihoods and forest management in Vietnam: a feminist political ecology perspective

Economic approaches to combat environmental degradation and deforestation have resulted in development initiatives such as the Payment for Environmental Services program (PES). This study deals with the effects of PES on women's livelihoods in Thuong Lo commune, Central Vietnam. Employing a feminist political ecology perspective and adopting a qualitative approach, we analyze the gendered roles, responsibilities and effects of PES on local livelihoods. We found that the women in our study portrayed different preferences and knowledge in relation to PES, forest management and livelihoods. Women are often excluded in PES projects due to a range of various socio-cultural factors.Keywords: Payments for Environmental Services; forest management; gender; women's empowerment; livelihoods; Central Vietnam; Co Tu people

Beyond wishful thinking: a FPE perspective on commoning, care, and the promise of co-housing

Co-housing has re-emerged in affluent cities as a model of dwelling that aims to reduce ecological impact and increase social welfare. Although it is the subject of growing academic interest, there are significant gaps in knowledge and a tendency toward wishful thinking about its promise that is not supported by evidence. We examine co-housing from a feminist political ecology perspective with the aim of contributing to an improved research agenda, not just on co-housing but commoning more widely. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork conducted at co-housing projects in the Netherlands and the UK, we cast new light on how to assess the impact of sharing practices at the level of the collectivized household. Our findings support the claim that commons thinking is not really commons if it takes the work of social reproduction (caring labour) for granted or overlooks differences between people along the lines of gender, class, race/ethnicity, age and ability. We argue that greater attention to difference entails a new set of questions and criteria, and that these are necessary for assessing the extent to which co-housing projects enable the ‘inclusive commoning’ that their proponents rather wishfully envisage.

Masculinities and hydropower in India: A feminist political ecology perspective

Mainstreaming gender in water governance through “how to do gender” toolkits has long been a development focus. It has been widely argued that such toolkits simplify the complex, nuanced realities of inequalities by gender in relation to water and fail to pay attention to the fact that the proposed users of such gender-water toolkits, i.e. mostly male water sector professionals, lack the skills, motivation and/or incentives to apply these toolkits in their everyday work. We adopt a feminist political ecology lens to analyse some of the barriers to reduce social inequalities in the management of global commons such as international rivers. Our findings highlight the leap of faith made in the belief that gender toolkits, as they exist, will filter through layers of a predominantly masculine institutional culture to enable change in ground realities of complex inequalities by gender. Analysing the everyday workings of two hydropower development organisations in India, we show how organisational structures demonstrate a blatant culture of masculinity. These two organisations, like many others, are sites where hierarchies and inequalities based on gender are produced, performed and reproduced. This performance of masculinity promotes and rewards a culture of technical pride in re-shaping nature, abiding by and maintaining hierarchy and demonstrating physical strength and emotional hardiness. In such a setting, paying attention to vulnerabilities, inequalities and disparities are incompatible objectives.

Intersections of gender and water: comparative approaches to everyday gendered negotiations of water access in underserved areas of Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa

A large and growing body of literature suggests that women and men often have differentiated relationships to water access, uses, knowledges, governance, and experiences. From a feminist political ecology perspective, these relationships can be mediated by gendered labour practices (within the household, at the community level, or within the workplace), socio-cultural expectations (e.g. related to notions of masculinity and femininity), as well as intersectional differences (e.g. race, income, and so forth). While these relationships are complex, multiple, and vary by context, it is frequently argued that due to responsibility for domestic provision or other pathways, women may be particularly affected if water quality or access is compromised. This paper reports on a statistical evaluation of a 478 household survey conducted in underserved areas of Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa in early 2012. Interrogating our survey results in the light of the ideas of gender differentiated access, uses, knowledges, governance, and experiences of water, we open up considerations related to the context of each of our study sites, and also invite possible revisions and new directions for these debates. In particular, we are interested in the instances where differences among male and female respondents were less pronounced than expected. Highlighting these unexpected results we find it helpful to draw attention to methods – in particular we argue that a binary male–female approach is not that meaningful for the analysis, and instead, gender analysis requires some attention to intersectional differences (e.g. homeownership, employment, or age). We also make the case for the importance of combining qualitative and quantitative work to understand these relationships, as well as opening up what might be learned by more adequately exploring the resonances and tensions between these approaches.

Gender and environmental struggles: voices from Adivasi Garo community in Bangladesh

Based on an ethnographic field investigation conducted on the matrilineal–matrilocal Garo community of Bangladesh, this article provides a historical account of local environmental struggles to draw attention to the interconnections between gender, environment and sustainable resource management. From a feminist political ecology perspective, the article argues that interacting with traditional culture, forest ecology and changing processes of centric resource governance, gender remains a salient variable in environmental issues. Local contexts of gender dynamics help configuring local people's mode of participation in environmental struggles as well as being the consequence of those struggles. Findings suggest that Garo women and men have sustained gender specific roles and interests through their struggles to ensure control over forest lands and tree resources. Furthermore, they have developed a class-based relationship with forest ecology which must be acknowledged in forest policies.

The No. 1 Ladies' Poultry Farm: A feminist political ecology of urban agriculture in Botswana*

The research draws on a feminist political ecology perspective to demonstrate that agrarian restructuring and rural–urban transformation in Botswana offers women opportunities to renegotiate their marginalised positionality within the commercial urban agricultural sector in Greater Gaborone. Men and women participate in equal numbers, and both perceive of this sector as offering them new and accessible avenues for economic and social advancement. Although there is continuity of women's social and economic disadvantage relative to men from rural to urban contexts, women are actively making claims on land and capitalising on their traditional roles and responsibilities associated with poultry production. This negotiation of continuity and change in gendered positionality reflects and indeed suggests positive changes for women in urban Botswana, pointing specifically to the transformatory potential of urban agriculture despite existing constraints at the sectoral level. The research highlights the ways in which women are (re)defining their constraints, and seeking out alternative opportunities for empowerment and action. To this end gender remains an integral part of and key element to understanding agrarian restructuring and rural–urban transformation in Botswana. El No. 1 Granja de Aves de Damas: Una Ecología Política Feminista de Agricultura Urbana en Botswana. Esta investigación usa una perspectiva de ecología política feminista para demostrar que la reestructuración agraria y la transformación rural–urbano en Botswana ofrecen mujeres oportunidades para renegociar sus posiciones marginales adentro del sector de agricultura comercial en la ciudad de Gabarone. Los hombres y las mujeres participan en cifras iguales, y los dos perciben que este sector les ofrece avenidas nuevas y accesibles para avanzar económicamente y socialmente. Aunque hay continuidad de la desventaja económica y social de mujeres relativa a hombres desde el contexto rural a urbano, mujeres están activamente haciendo derechos de terreno y capitalizando en sus roles y responsabilidades tradicionales asociados con la producción de aves. Esta negociación de continuidad y cambio en sus posiciones de género reflejan y por supuesto sugieren cambios positivos para las mujeres en Botswana, específicamente indicando la potencial de transformación de agricultura urbana a pesar de las limitaciones existente en el sector. Esta investigación subraya las maneras en que mujeres están redefiniendo sus limitaciones y buscan oportunidades alternativos para apoderadamente y acción. En esta vía, género se queda un elemento significado y un parte integral de entender la reestructuración agraria y la transformación rural–urbano en Botswana.