Feminist political ecology

Feminist political ecology is a feminist perspective on political ecology, drawing on theories from Marxism, post-structuralism, feminist geography, ecofeminism and cultural ecology. Feminist political ecology uses feminist intersectional frameworks to explore ecological and political issues. Specific areas which feminist political ecology focuses on are development, landscape, resource use, agrarian reconstruction and rural-urban transformation (Hovorka 2006: 209). Feminist political ecologists argue that gender is a crucial variable in constituting access to, control over, and knowledge of natural resources.

Feminist political ecology combines three gendered areas: knowledge, environmental rights, and grassroots activism. Gendered knowledge encompasses the maintenance of healthy environments at home, work, and/or in regional ecosystems. Gendered environmental rights include property, resources, space, and legality. Gendered environmental politics and grassroots activism emphasizes the surge in women's involvement in collective struggles over their natural resources. ^[1]

Mainstream environmental policies are designed on gender-neutral assumptions, ignoring women's knowledge systems in resource management. Hearn and Hein (2015) point out that this blindness stems from the traditional decision-making framework's binary opposition between "scientific knowledge" and "local experience," leading to the systematic marginalization of women's practical wisdom. ^[2] Mollett (2017) further criticized the developmentalist discourse for simplifying women as passive victims of environmental crises, rather than subjects with political agency. This narrative conceals structural power inequalities. ^[3] From a postcolonial perspective, it is revealed that the gender blindness in policies is essentially a continuation of colonial logic, which devalues non-Western ecological knowledge as "irrational". ^[4]

Research

Reconstruction of economies, environments, and cultures at a global and local level (Mitchell, 2000) has made the study of the relationship between environments, gender, and development more important. Feminist political ecology rejects gender differences in environmental impact as rooted in biology. Rather, it argues that these differences stem from social constructs of gender, which vary depending on culture, class, race, and geographical location, and change over time between individuals and societies. A key moment in the development of this approach was the publication of Feminist Political Ecology, edited by Dianne Rocheleau et al. at Clark University in 1996. The book not only demonstrated gendered underpinnings in environment and labor patterns but also illustrated particular negative effects of environmental problems in women specifically (Rocheleau et al. 1996). In contrast, these concerns were largely absent in the better-known political ecology volume Liberation Ecologies, which was published in the same year and also developed at Clark (Peet & Watts, 1996).

Feminist political ecology considers itself core to the understanding of environmental injustice. It challenges the preference for macro-scale solutions in traditional ecological research. Resurrección (2024) proposes the concept of climate coloniality, emphasizing that the bodies of women in the Global South bear multiple exploitations from industrial pollution to reproductive health risks. ^[5] This exploitation is not only material but also cognitive. For example, quantitative models in disaster research often ignore gendered bodily experiences. ^[6]

In a study on the Rural Federation of Zambrana-Chacuey (a peasant federation) and an international nongovernmental organization (ENDA-Caribe) in the Dominican Republic, Dianne Rocheleau examines social forestry within the region. The study illustrates that though women are involved in the forestry industry, previous research (summary numbers, "regional maps of forestry-as-usual" (Rocheleau, 1995: 460) did not represent the "different publics (differentiated by gender, class, locality, and occupation) within the Federation (p. 460)."

The ecological resistance of indigenous women in Latin America has created a unique political epistemology. The action of physically occupying oil fields not only challenges the material consequences of resource exploitation but also deconstructs the linear narrative of developmentalism by juxtaposing gender violence and ecological violence. ^[7] This practice reveals the colonial roots of the dichotomy between nature and culture, but is misinterpreted by international environmental organizations as pre-modern nostalgia, ^[4] exposing the cognitive fracture of cross-scale alliances. ^[8]

Rocheleau's study draws upon post-structuralism to "expand our respective partial and situated knowledges through a politics of science that go beyond identity to affinities then work from affinities to coalitions" (p. 459). In other words, the study does not assume that the identity of a person defines them but instead focuses on "affinities" (defined as "based on affiliations, and shared views of interests, subject to change over time"). The purpose of this was to "address women within the context in which they had organized and affiliated themselves" (p. 461). The purpose of the study was to include women in the general study of the area in a way that gave justice to the "ecological and social contexts that sustain their lives" (p. 461), instead of separating them from the context, rendering them invisible.

The symbolic resistance of the ecological movement faces the risk of being co-opted by mainstream discourse. Although the gesture of tree hugging in the Chipko movement constitutes a symbolic protest against commodification, ^[9] it is simplified to a cultural landscape at the policy level, avoiding the underlying land rights struggle. ^[10] This depoliticization process highlights the fundamental contradiction of liberal environmentalism, romanticizing Southern practices as primitive wisdom but denying their political-economic significance.

In a Botswana study on urban poultry agriculture, Alice J. Hovorka (2006) examines the implications of fast-paced urbanization on social and ecological relations in a feminist political ecology framework. Men and women are both involved and affected by development issues, so therefore "gender is an integral part of a key element of agrarian change and rural-urban transformation" (Hovorka 2006:209). Before urbanization took off, socially constructed gender roles played a huge part in gendered experiences of the landscape. Gender determined the different roles, responsibilities and access to resources. It is important to note that although Botswana women gained the right to vote in 1966, they remain excluded from political power. Gender issues are rarely raised in this country where "powerful conventions restrict women's domain to the household and women's autonomy under male guardianship" (p211). With urbanization, land use is becoming more accessible to Botswana women. But studies have revealed that "women's access to social status and productive resources remains limited compared to men's" (p213). Traditional gender roles affect women's economic situation, their access to resources and land, their education, and their labor market.

The neoliberal economic system shifts the cost of ecological restoration to women in households through individualization strategies, forming an oppressive closed loop of poverty, unpaid care labor, and environmental risks. ^[11] This structure is particularly evident in the agricultural sector. Women in Africa preserve biodiversity through seed banks, but are regarded as informal practitioners by national policies. ^[12] In South Asia, tourism shapes women as providers of green services, but deprives them of their right to make resource decisions. ^[13] This triple oppression reveals the collusion mechanism between capitalism and patriarchy.

The essence of ecological resistance of the African Seed Bank is the struggle against the cognitive paradigm. The traditional seed exchange system constitutes an implicit critique of agricultural industrialization, but its knowledge system is regarded as a development obstacle by the national promotion mechanism. ^[14] This exclusion reflects the cognitive hegemony of the modern agricultural paradigm, which degrades local knowledge to the "other" of the modernization process. ^[15]

Alice Beban expands on these concepts in her research on land tenure in Cambodia, which applies a gender lens. Her study is related to the Cambodian Constitution and Land Law of 2001 which increased private land ownership under land titles. ^[16] This means that those land owners without formal titles lack land rights and risk loss of land. Women are more vulnerable to insecurity in this situation. ^[17] Men are more likely to be land owners, and if women are in abusive relationships, they have limited choices as men own the land they rely on. ^[18] Similar to the Botswana case, women have less political power in this situation.

In 2009 Feminist Political Ecology took a new analytical turn with the publication of Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice: Women write Political Ecology edited by Ariel Salleh. See analysis by Bonnie Kime Scott, 'Righting the Neoliberal Ecology Debt' in the Australian Women's Book Review volume 22.1 (2010).

Interdisciplinary perspective

Environmental justice research must incorporate an intersectional analysis of race, class, and gender. Spronk (2020) revealed that the water crisis in American black communities is essentially the superposition of institutionalized racism and gender division of labor. ^[19] Women bear the responsibility of family health care, but are excluded from governance decisions. This intersectional oppression is further complicated in immigrant labor groups, forming a multi-dimensional deprivation structure. ^[20]

Practical examples

• Feminist political ecology includes the study of how water access and gender are related, particularly in developing countries. Gender mainstreaming encourages the convergence of women's issues and gender equality with natural resource protection and development projects. ^[21] Feminist political ecology seeks to question and inform understanding regarding how gender, and other social labels and classifiers, influence how people relate to and interact with the natural environment, including how people have access to water. ^[22]
• Feminist political ecology includes the study of differences in farm resources between men and women in rural areas, in which women have less access to agricultural products and are more reliant on men to farm. ^[23]
• The gender-neutral assumption of traditional vulnerability models conceals the structural shaping of survival opportunities by cultural norms. Watkins (2018) demonstrated that male-centrism in disaster response design directly leads to gender-based mortality differences. ^[19] The concept of "embodied vulnerability" proposed by Lusambili et al. (2024) emphasizes the need to incorporate the physical mobility restrictions of pregnant women and cultural taboos into the risk assessment framework, rather than relying on technological determinism. ^[24]

Policy critique

The fragmented design of the SDGs exposes the deep flaws of instrumental rational governance. ^[25] pointed out that the disconnection between Goal 5 (gender equality) and environmental goals makes clean energy projects ignore the energy needs in the field of household reproduction. This paradox stems from liberal pluralism simplifying complex social ecological relationships into quantifiable indicators, ^[26] ultimately reproducing rather than dissolving structural injustice.

The technologically neutral discourse of the EU's Green New Deal conceals institutional exclusion. Karpinska and Śmiech (2023) ^[27] found that the energy poverty of elderly women in Eastern Europe is attributed to individual choices, rather than the access barriers of photovoltaic cooperatives. This cognitive distortion stems from neoliberalism reconstructing structural oppression as individual responsibility, ^[28] making policy design avoid the analysis of power relations.

Methodological innovation

Visualization technology is not only a research tool, but also a political practice of cognitive struggle. Dadey's (2022) ^[29] drone mapping project revealed that the systematic erasure of women's farming areas in the land registration system is essentially violence in the production of knowledge. The innovative significance of this approach lies in challenging the cognitive hegemony of state spatial governance, ^[30] and transforming "informal rights" into political facts that can be claimed.

The oral history method reconstructs the narratives of the marginalized and deconstructs the objectivity claim of mainstream discourse. The intergenerational stories of fisherwomen recorded by the oral history method reconstructs the narratives of the marginalized and deconstructs the objectivity claim of mainstream discourse. The intergenerational stories of fisherwomen recorded by Andrews et al. ^[31] reveal how coastal privatization destroys community livelihood networks, and this narrative constitutes a fundamental challenge to the developmentalist, progressive narrative. At the methodological level, the objective facade of quantitative data often conceals the value of women's ecological practices, ^[32] and narratives can restore the suppressed local ontology. ^[31] reveal how coastal privatization destroys community livelihood networks, and this narrative constitutes a fundamental challenge to the developmentalist progressive narrative. At the methodological level, the objective facade of quantitative data often conceals the value of women's ecological practices, ^[32] and narratives can restore the suppressed local ontology.

Technical politics

The application of climate technology often replicates existing gender power structures. George (2024) pointed out that the design of disaster warning apps is based on the assumption of male mobility, ignoring the digital access barriers of rural women. ^[33] This technology-neutral myth is further embodied in pregnancy health apps, and the cultural biases implicit in the interface design become a new exclusion mechanism. ^[34]

The application of blockchain in fair trade exposes the inherent contradictions of green capitalism. ^[35] The application of blockchain in fair trade exposes the inherent contradictions of green capitalism. Although technology can trace the ecological contributions of female producers, its data ownership structure perpetuates the cognitive deprivation of the North towards the South. ^[35] This ethical certification system converts local knowledge into commodities through data capture, ^[36] but fails to establish a fair mechanism for feedback of interests.

Theoretical reflection

The critique of the essentialist tendencies of ecofeminism drives the transformation of theoretical paradigms. ^[37] emphasizes that the romantic narrative of women as guardians of nature conceals class and racial differences, such as the exploitation of Dalit women's labor by high-caste environmentalists. This requires going beyond identity politics and building a liberation alliance across species and genders, anchoring ecological struggles in the reconstruction of power relations rather than essentialist attributions. ^[38]

See also

• Feminism portal

• Anarcha-feminism
• Ecofeminism
• Feminism and international relations theory
• Feminist anthropology
• Feminist criminology
• Feminist economics
• Feminist political theory
• Feminist technoscience
• Gender equality
• Material feminism
• Radical feminism
• Socialist feminism

References

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3. Mollett, S. (2017). "Environmental struggles are feminist struggles: Feminist political ecology as development critique". In Oberhauser, A.M. (ed.). Feminist Spaces. Routledge. pp. 155–187. ISBN   978-1-138-69328-5.{{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
4. Sempértegui, A. (2021). "Indigenous women's activism, ecofeminism, and extractivism: Partial connections in the Ecuadorian Amazon". Politics & Gender. 17 (1): 197–224. doi:10.1017/S1743923X20000296 (inactive 1 July 2025).
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38. Roudinesco, E. (2022). The Sovereign Self: Pitfalls of Identity Politics. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   978-1-5095-4583-2.{{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)

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