Ecofeminism revisited: critical insights on contemporary environmental governance

Echoing other articles in this special issue, this article re-evaluates a collection of feminist works that fell out of fashion as a consequence of academic feminism embracing poststructuralist and postmodernist trends. In line with fellow contributors, the article critically reflects upon the unsympathetic reading of feminisms considered to be essentialising and universalistic, in order to re-evaluate, in my case, ecofeminism. As an introduction, I reflect on my own perhaps unfair rejection of ecofeminism as a doctoral researcher and early career academic who, in critiquing 1990s international environmental governance, sought to problematise the essentialist premise on which it appeared to be based. The article thereafter challenges this well-rehearsed critique by carefully revisiting a sample of ecofeminist work produced between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. In an effort to avoid wholesale abandonment of the wealth of feminist theory often labelled as second wave, or the rendering of feminisms of the past as redundant as feminist theory changes over time, this article re-reads the work of ecofeminists, such as Starhawk, Susan Griffin and Vandana Shiva, to demonstrate their contemporary relevance. In so doing, the article argues that a contemporary re-reading of ecofeminism offers insights allowing for a radical rethinking of contemporary environmental governance.

In Need for More Tailored Feminist Stories in a Time of Crisis

The chapter follows other attempts to explain the gender backlash within many of current societies. Revisiting some theoretical frames under circulation, and taking Romania as a lived case study, the author argues for the existence of two detached storytelling trends within feminism, which contribute to a crisis of communication, not of content. Academic feminism delivers sophisticated explanatory stories about the gender fatigues aspects, while activist feminism bets on more black and white, confrontational stories and practices. This communication crisis could be accountable for the gender backlash. It is not what feminists say, but how they say it that contributes to the impasse. Today there is a need for more inclusive feminist public stories targeting a wide-ranging society, adaptable to the new realities. Maybe, the author claims, with improved feminist storytellers, the activist feminism of the 21st century could be stronger and cool not only for feminists.

Nordic Academic Feminism and Whiteness as Epistemic Habit

This chapter is a contribution to ongoing discussions about Nordic academic feminism. It asks why and how this field continues to assume and reproduce whiteness as its naturalised point of departure and orientation and for forming a Nordic feminist “we.” It is largely conceptual, and I draw on a lived archive of 15 years of participant observation in ”Nordic” academic feminism as it has taken shape at conferences, in network and research meetings, and in classrooms and public debates. Building on the work of Sara Ahmed, Sirma Bilge, Lena Sawyer, Marta Cuesta and Diana Mulinari, I propose that whiteness can be understood as an epistemic habit of and within Nordic academic feminism. To that end, the chapter sketches a framework for understanding how whiteness is habitually and epistemically reproduced in broader logics of narration about the field, in forms of assembly and in responses to critiques of racism. Thus, whiteness is not simply a question of over-representation of white bodies, it is also about the orientations and comfort of white bodies, and about how some critiques and stories become understood as “ours” and others not.

Anglicisma gender tulkošana un adaptācija kā kritiskās domāšanas impulss literatūras un kultūras studijās

Nowadays, gender and sexuality have become the object of global interdisciplinary research, and, searching the common grounds for the description of the issue, a brand-new theoretical category of “gender” is being developed in the frames of the Anglophone feminist theoretical discussion. The category acquires its meaning in the frames of the “sex – gender” opposition and is meant as the distinction between a human’s biological self (sex) and the socially constructed conceptions about social roles and functions. Introducing the theoretical concept of “gender” into the international communication outside the Anglophone linguistic space, new theoretical, methodological, translation and adaptation problems have been revealed, especially in the languages, where the category of the grammatical gender is strongly related to the lexical and grammar field and the creation of the “sex – gender” opposition seems to be controversial. “Gender” in the nowadays English language functions as a poly-semantic category – the notions of “sex” and “gender” are used interchangeably or as partial synonyms. Various terminological solutions are being found for the recreation of the category in other languages, taking into consideration the field and contextual meaning. Translating European gender equality political documents into Latvian, the notion “dzimums” is mostly used. Various terms – “dzimums”, “dzimte”, “dzimumsocialitāte”, “dženders” – are used interpreting the works of feminism theoreticians. The mass media do not often translate the term, using the variants “dženders” or “genders”, often in the pejorative meaning, connecting it to some type of genderism ideology, foreign to the Latvian mentality and traditional culture. The aim of the article is to offer an insight into the theoretical discussions about the search for “gender” terminological equivalence outside the Anglophone linguistic space that flourished in the Western academic feminism in the 1980s and 1990s. The article is devoted to the most characteristic problematic cases related to the adaptation of the notion into the vocabulary of the Latvian humanities and social sciences and mass media.

On Black Women, “In Defense of Transracialism,” and Imperial Harm

This essay is a response to the events surrounding Hypatia's publication of “In Defense of Transracialism.” It does not take up the question of “transracialism” itself, but rather attempts to shed light both on what some black women may have experienced following from the publication of the article and on how we might understand this experience as harm. It also suggests one way for feminist journals to reduce the likelihood of similar harms occurring in the future. I begin by describing a discussion that occurred in my classroom that bears some resemblance to the much larger debate that emerged around Hypatia. Next, I elaborate a concept of imperial harm. I then address how this concept comes to be relevant to the experience of black women within the discipline of philosophy in general, before briefly describing how academic feminism (including feminist philosophy) has served as a particular site of imperial harm for black women. Finally, touching on the idea of expressive harm, I conclude with an appeal for the adoption of more feminist publication ethics.

BODY PRACTICES OF WOMEN IN THE LIGHT OF FEMINIST DEBATES

The paper provides an analysis of the structuralist and phenomenological traditions in interpretation of female body practices. The structuralist intellectual tradition bases its methodology on concepts from social anthropology and philosophy that see the body as ‘ordered’ by social institutions. Structuralist approaches within academic feminism are focused on critical study of the social regulation of female bodies with respect to reproduction and sexualisation (health and beauty practices). The author focuses on the dominant physical ideal of femininity and the means for body pedagogics that have been constructed by patriarchal authority. In contrast to theories of the ordered body, the phenomenological tradition is focused on the “lived” body, embodied experience, and the personal motivation and values attached to body practices. This tradition has been influenced by a variety of schools of thought including philosophical anthropology, phenomenology and action theories in sociology. Within academic feminism, there are at least three phenomenologically oriented strategies of interpretation of female body practices. The first one is centred around women’s individual situation and bodily socialization; the second one studies interrelation between body practices and the sense of the self; and the third one postulates the potential of body practices to destabilize the dominant ideals of femininity and thus provides a theoretical basis for feminist activism. The phenomenological tradition primarily analyses the motivational, symbolic and value-based components of body practices as they interact with women’s corporeality and sense of self. In general, both structuralist and phenomenological traditions complement each other by focusing on different levels of analysis of female embodiment.