Feminist Perspectives on the Environment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonalini  Sapra
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Environmental Studies ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Feminist Political Ecology ◽  
Development Organization ◽  
Policy Domain ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
Environment And Development ◽  
Feminist Environmentalism

The field of gender and environmental studies deals with the ways that gender roles shape the access to and management of resources. From being dominated by old debates on whether the earth is our mother goddess or whether women are inherently closer to nature than men, gender and environmental studies has evolved into a largely activist-informed and materially-focused discipline. Feminist perspectives are now being articulated in a variety of wide-ranging themes and issues such as environmental justice, global climate change, population debates, disasters, water, and militarization. The main feminist perspectives for studying women and the environment can be divided into two “umbrella” groups: the “ecofeminist” camp and the “materialist” camp. The ecofeminist group argues that there is an “innate” connection between domination of nature and the oppression of women and that there exists a system of patriarchy in human society that leads to the domination of the “Other.” The materialist camp rejects this claim. It makes use of two approaches, feminist environmentalism and Feminist Political Ecology (FPE), to contend that women’s oppression is rooted in structural and material inequalities. Some of these feminist perspectives, including ecofeminism and feminist environmentalism, are applied by the field of Gender, Environment, and Development (GED) to the environmental policy domain. Three transnational environmental organizations doing GED work are GenderCC—Women for Climate Justice, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), and Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN).

Explicating Environmental Patriarchy: An Examination Through Gender and Environment Perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-157
Author(s):  
Anjali Dalal
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Environmental Planning ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Sustainable Growth ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Western World ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Feminist Political Ecology ◽  
Feminist Perspectives

Much has been written about the relationship between women, nature and development, a relationship where women’s work, like nature, is often undervalued, in terms of acknowledging the interdependence of women and nature in preservation of environment to foster sustainable growth. Women are perceived as prominent actors in domestic chores as well as contributors to environmental rehabilitation and conservation. However, in comparison to men, their work and knowledge have often been undervalued in both environmental planning and domestic resource management. The existence of environmental patriarchy is, thereby, located at three dimensions; first, women’s exclusion from resource ownership and management; second, women’s exclusion from deliberation of indigenous knowledge; and third, gendered power relationship in society. This article explores the region-specific concerns of women built into theoretical feminist perspectives of the Western world in contrast to the Third World countries, dealt within a theoretical perspective of ecofeminism and feminist environmentalism. However, both the models leave some major theoretical questions unanswered, finally concluded in a perspective as proposed by feminist political ecology. The idea behind doing this is to take account of the various ways of conceptualizing feminist ecological theories so as to emphasize greater role of women in environmental planning and decision-making processes. By simultaneously analysing some environmental movements, it was found that women’s activism was not only sustainable but confronted other social issues and patriarchy in private domain.

scholarly journals Legitimating power: Solar energy rollout, sustainability metrics and transition politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110249
Author(s):  
Siddharth Sareen
Keyword(s):  
Solar Energy ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Solar Irradiation ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Sustainability Metrics ◽  
Energy Transitions

Increasing recognition of the irrefutable urgency to address the global climate challenge is driving mitigation efforts to decarbonise. Countries are setting targets, technological innovation is making renewable energy sources competitive and fossil fuel actors are leveraging their incumbent privilege and political reach to modulate energy transitions. As techno-economic competitiveness is rapidly reconfigured in favour of sources such as solar energy, governance puzzles dominate the research frontier. Who makes key decisions about decarbonisation based on what metrics, and how are consequent benefits and burdens allocated? This article takes its point of departure in ambitious sustainability metrics for solar rollout that Portugal embraced in the late 2010s. This southwestern European country leads on hydro and wind power, and recently emerged from austerity politics after the 2008–2015 recession. Despite Europe’s best solar irradiation, its big solar push only kicked off in late 2018. In explaining how this arose and unfolded until mid-2020 and why, the article investigates what key issues ambitious rapid decarbonisation plans must address to enhance social equity. It combines attention to accountability and legitimacy to offer an analytical framework geared at generating actionable knowledge to advance an accountable energy transition. Drawing on empirical study of the contingencies that determine the implementation of sustainability metrics, the article traces how discrete acts legitimate specific trajectories of territorialisation by solar photovoltaics through discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic and financial practices. Combining empirics and perspectives from political ecology and energy geographies, it probes the politics of just energy transitions to more low-carbon and equitable societal futures.

scholarly journals Restricting spatial lives? The gendered implications of conservation in Cambodia’s protected wetlands

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Perry ◽  
Josephine Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Feminist Political Ecology ◽  
Geographic Thought ◽  
Legal Geography ◽  
Environmental Interactions ◽  
Tonle Sap ◽  
Gendered Roles

Environmental conservation through the creation of protected areas is recognised as a key tactic in the fight against degrading ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the implications of protected area regimes on both places and people is an important part of the protection agenda. In this context and in this paper, we build on the work of feminist legal geographers and feminist political ecologists to enhance our understanding of the constitution of localised socio-legal-environmental interactions in and around protected areas. Our approach looks to developments in feminist and legal geographic thought to examine the interactions between identities, law and the environment in a Ramsar protected wetland on the Tonle Sap, Cambodia. We bring together legal geography perspectives regarding the spatiality of law with insights from feminist political ecology examining gendered roles and exclusions. We found that conservation areas interact in complex ways with local pre-existing norms prescribing female weakness and vulnerability which, ultimately, restrict women’s spatial lives.

scholarly journals Demographic determinants of energy consumption in the European Union: Econometric analysis results

Stanovnistvo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Predrag Petrovic ◽  
Goran Nikolic ◽  
Ivana Ostojic
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Senior Citizens ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Human Society

Over the past several decades there has been a strong intensifying trend of human society impact on ecosystems, consumption of natural resources and global change. The environmental impact of the society is fully apparent and dominantly implemented through various greenhouse gases emissions (GHG), leading towards global climate change with considerably spread harmful effects. Global climate change includes the earth and ocean surface and atmospheric warming, but also melting of snow and ice, increase of sea levels and ocean acidity, as well as ever more common natural phenomena extremes (winds, various forms of rainfall/precipitation, extremely low or high temperatures, etc.). Scientists are well-familiarized with the fact that use of fossil fuels, such as oil derivatives and coal, is the main generator of harmful gases. In addition, possible substitutions for fossil fuels in the form of other energy sources are very limited, and it should be remembered that other energy sources also have certain adverse environmental effects. Bearing in mind climate change caused by products of fossil fuels combustion, as well as inevitable depletion of natural crude oil resources, management of growing global energy demand becomes one of the key goals and challenges of 21st century. If these reasons are coupled with obligations emanating from Kyoto Protocol, it is clear that attention of researches should be more than reasonably focused on the main determinants of energy consumption. This study is focused on illumination of key demographic and economic determinants of energy consumption in 28 EU member states in the period 1960- 2014. The results obtained demonstrate that population positively and quite strongly influence total energy consumption. An increase of population of 1% will result in an increase of energy consumption of 1.59% to 1.76%. Such relation most probably can be explained by the fact that demographic growth of the society aggravates and complicates planning processes of efficient energy consumption, diminishing the ability of society to be energy efficient. The population effect of persons aged 65 and above to energy consumption is also positive. An increase in share of this age group of 1% will result in an increase in energy consumption of approximately 0.43%. Positive elasticity coefficient should be understood as a proof that European societies with higher share of senior citizens consume more energy that societies with higher share of younger population, not necessarily as an argument that senior citizens use more energy than younger population. The explanation for such nature of a cause-andeffect relation could be that high share of senior citizens influences the structure of production and consumption, spatial distribution of population, transport infrastructure and social services provided. A significant influence on energy consumption in the EU is made by the level of economic development of countries, which is in accordance with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), suggesting a relation of inverted letter ?U?. The amount of income per capita needed to have the EKC expressed ranges between 54,183 and 81,552 dollars.

La lucha socioambiental de proyectos alternativos. El caso del cerdo pelón en Yucatán

2021 ◽  
pp. 74-79
Author(s):  
Edith Pereyra de la Rorsa ◽  
Francisco Iván Hernández Cuevas ◽  
Diana Estefanía Castillo Loeza ◽  
Mauricio Feliciano López Barreto ◽  
Javier Becerril García
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Yucatan Peninsula ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
Active Resistance ◽  
Feminist Political Ecology ◽  
Biocultural Heritage ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology ◽  
Positive Results

In the Mayan rural communities in the Yucatan peninsula alternative social projects have been implemented by different actors, which focus on the promotion and production of the local pork species known as cerdo pelón. This represents an alternative to the conventional industrialized pork breeding, mainly for profitability. Through a feminist political ecology lens, and an ethnographic methodology, findings reveal that these alternative projects have given way to an active resistance with positive results in the inclusion, in food security among participants and in the revaluation of traditional practices. The article recommends that social projects prioritize the inclusion of women and the promotion of local biocultural heritage.

Uphill Battle: Forest Rights and Restoration on Podu Landscapes in Keonjhar, Odisha

2022 ◽  
pp. 097317412110573
Author(s):  
Laura M. Valencia
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Forest Restoration ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Forest Policy ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Plantation Forest ◽  
Tree Plantation ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Forest Landscape Restoration ◽  
Forest Tenure

In response to the global climate emergency and biodiversity loss, environmental advocates promote ecological restoration of millions of hectares of the world’s degraded forest lands. Lands of high value to restoration are home to nearly 300 million people, including 12% of low- and middle-income country populations. In this article, I respond to calls for greater empirical investigation into the social impacts of forest landscape restoration. Through spatial and ethnographic analysis of forest restoration in Keonjhar, Odisha (India), I show that state-led afforestation efforts contradict a decade of forest tenure reform which sought to decentralize and decolonize forest governance. I explore how state-led efforts ignore (and inhibit) the continued protagonism of forest-dwelling communities in forest regeneration on their customary lands. Weaving accounts from 1992 onwards across six villages and 22 plantations, I characterize state strategies as an ‘uphill battle’: by systematically selecting shifting cultivation (podu) uplands for enclosure and tree plantation, forest agencies contribute to a lose-lose situation where neither forest restoration nor forest rights are realized. Investigating this process from colonial forest policy to the present, I leverage a critical political ecology perspective that supports calls for rights-based restoration.

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