Queering Ecofeminism Special Issue of Green Theory and Praxis

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 1997

New Perspectives on Environmental Justice, 2020

Although many ecofeminists acknowledge heterosexism as a problem, a systematic exploration of the potential intersections of ecofeminist and queer theories has yet to be made. By interrogating social constructions of the "natural," the various uses of Christianity as a logic of domination, and the rhetoric of colonialism, this essay finds those theoretical intersections and argues for the importance of developing a queer ecofeminism. Progressive activists and scholars frequently lament the disunity of the political left in the United States. Often characterized as a "circular firing squad," the left or progressive movement has been known for its intellectual debates and hostilities, which have served to polarize many groups that could be working in coalition: labor activists, environmentalists, civil rights activists, feminists, animal rights activists, indigenous rights activists, and gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender (G/L/B/T) activists. Meanwhile, it is observed, the conservative right in the United States has lost no time in recognizing the connections among these various liberatory movements and has launched a campaign (most recently articulated in the "Contract with America") to ensure their collective annihilation. As a result, it seems the future of progressive organizing may well depend on how effectively scholars and activists can recognize and articulate our many bases for coalition. In theory and in practice, ecofeminism has already contributed much to this effort. At the root of ecofeminism is the understanding that the many systems of oppression are mutually reinforcing. Building on the socialist feminist insight that racism, classism, and sexism are interconnected, ecofeminists recognized additional similarities between those forms of human oppression and the oppressive structures of speciesism and naturism. An early impetus for the ecofeminist movement was the realization that the liberation of women-the aim of all branches of feminism-cannot be fully effected without the liberation of nature; and conversely, the liberation of nature so ardently desired by environmentalists will not be fully effected without the liberation of women: conceptual, symbolic, empirical, and historical linkages between women and nature as they are constructed in Western culture require feminists and environmentalists to address these liberatory efforts together if we are to be successful (Warren 1991). To date, ecofeminist theory has blossomed, exploring the connections among many issues: racism, environmental degradation, economics, electoral politics, animal liberation, reproductive politics, biotechnology, bioregionalism, spirituality, holistic health practices, sustainable agriculture, and others. Ecofeminist activists have worked in the environmental justice movement, the Green movement, the anti-toxics movement, the women's spirituality movement, the animal liberation movement, and the movement for economic justice. To continue and build on these efforts toward coalition, I would like to explore in this essay the connection between ecofeminism and queer theory. "We have to examine how racism, heterosexism, classism, ageism, and sexism are all related to naturism," writes ecofeminist author Ellen O'Loughlin (1993 , 148). Chaia Heller elaborates: "Love of nature is a process of becoming aware of and unlearning ideologies of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism so that we may cease to reduce our idea of nature to a dark, heterosexual, 'beautiful' mother" (1993, 231). But as Catriona Sandilands astutely comments, "It is not enough simply to add 'heterosexism' to the long list of dominations that shape our relations to nature, to pretend that we can just'add queers and stir' " (1994, 21). Unfortunately, it is exactly this approach

Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love, 2015

"Ecosexuality" collects the writings of thirty leaders in the emerging ecosexual movement, which highlights the relationship between sex, ecology, sustainability, and activism. Jennifer's essay traces a trajectory in the evolution of academic discourse from ecofeminism to ecosexuality via queer theory. Ecofeminism evolved out of a desire to connect ecocriticism and feminist theory. The intent was to explore how feminism could focus on gender as a way to access aspects of ecology not addressed in conventional environmentalism, including woman-centered interpretations of nature and poor womens' perspectives on access to natural resources. In a similar fashion, queer theory intended to create a space of discourse about gender and sexuality beyond conventional binaries while maintaining an open space for sex-positive cultures and their interpretation of sexual and erotic expressions as beneficial to human health. Ecosexuality is a natural point of convergence for these two lines of thought, since it grows out of a love for the natural world that extends beyond binaries and beyond gender. Reed places ecosexuality within the context of these parallel movements. She affirms sexuality as a central organizing principle of planetary and human life.

Formulated in the 1980s and gaining prominence in the early 1990s, by the end of that decade ecofeminism was critiqued as essentialist and effectively discarded. Fearing their scholarship would be contaminated by association with the term "ecofeminism," feminists working on the intersections of feminism and environmentalism thought it better to rename their approach. Thirty years later, current developments in allegedly new fields such as animal studies and naturalized epistemology are "discovering" theoretical perspectives on interspecies relations and standpoint theory that were developed by feminists and ecofeminists decades ago. What have we lost by jettisoning these earlier feminist and ecofeminist bodies of knowledge? Are there features of ecofeminism that can helpfully be retrieved, restoring an intellectual and activist history, and enriching current theorizing and activisms? By examining the historical foundations of ecofeminism from the 1980s onward, this article uncovers the roots of the antifeminist backlash against ecofeminism in the 1990s, peeling back the layers of feminist and environmentalist resistance to ecofeminism's analyses of the connections among racism, sexism, classism, colonialism, speciesism, and the environment. Recuperating ecofeminist insights of the past thirty years provides feminist foundations for current liberatory theories and activisms.

This course brings environmental studies and critical race theory perspectives to bear on gender and sexuality studies, taking “eco-feminism” as an identity, an object of analysis, and as a methodological approach. While “Feminism” in practice need not be (though often is) gender-specific, as a political and academic practice it often carries racialized inflections towards its objects of its inquiry as well as its activism. The term, “eco”, from the Greek “oikos,” has multiple translations: “dwelling,” “household,” “home,” “family” and “hearth,” laying the foundation for examining the roles that gender and sexuality play in changing forms of kinship, citizenship, and (environmental) politics beyond and within the concept of the human. These different meanings of the “eco” in eco-nomy and eco-logy shape scholarly analyses as well as the lived experiences for those do not feel “at home” in a white hetero-normative structure. Additionally, folktales read and listened to at a young age can inform initial ideas of “normal” gendered, sexualized, and racialized social roles. In investigating the intersections and interconnections of gender and sexuality with race, ethnicity, and class, we will consider “eco’s” various forms and how humans come to think about the concept of “home.” An overarching question for this course revolves around whether, if, or when, one should separate environmental justice from social justice – and what the possibilities and limits are to fusing naturecultures (Haraway). The readings will cover classic social science approaches, current critical theory and philosophy, as well as less-often-read scholars whose voices often fall between the lines – or at the margins of – mainstream academic discourse. This is an attempt both to decolonize the syllabus as well as show how thoughts and bodies, as well as body politics become colonized. What does it mean to decolonize bodies through words? How can language create and maintain (earth) body politics? How has the concept of “home” – the “eco” continued to structure ideas about who and what bodies may chose to, or be let, to live? How do notions of “home” and what is “normal” gain their gendered, sexualized, racialized texture? What does it mean to “be at home in one’s own body?” When it comes to people’s choices about their bodies, it is crucial to understand how certain human and nonhuman bodies and lives matter, and how others do not. The fundamental anthropological divisions of “nature” and “culture” frame how we think about what it means to be human as well as what it means “to be free to choose” what we do with our bodies. Authors include Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. We will read these authors along with Donna Haraway and the Gender Nihilists, to name a few.

PhaenEx, 2016

What ever happened to ecofeminism? The answer is of course nothing, and everything. Even though ecofeminism may be sometimes (too closely) associated with a "hippier" time of Earth Mothers, green goddesses and "babes in the woods" (see Gaard "Misunderstanding"), ecofeminism constitutes a lively, contemporary practice and theory. This area of research and action continues to offer critical insights into the ways that sexism, heteronormativity, racism, colonialism, ableism, speciesism and environmental degradation all participate in interlocking logics of domination (see Adams and Gruen "Groundwork"). Indeed, as recognition of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other "Anthropocenic" power plays builds, ecofeminism may be more relevant than ever.

The Transition to Sustainable Living and Practice, 2009

Ethics and the Environment, 2011

The Geographical Journal, 2004

The Geographical Journal, 2004