Ekofeminisme: Perempuan, Alam, Perlawanan atas Kuasa Patriarki dan Pembangunan Dunia (Wangari Maathai dan Green Belt Movement 1990-2004)

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melakukan studi mendalam mengenai Wangari Maathai dan Green Belt Movement dalam mengatasi krisis lingkung dan diskrimnasi perempuan di Kenya. Secara umum, penelitian ini ingin menjawab pertanyaan mengenai “bagaimana ekofeminisme Green Belt Movement menyelesaikan persoalan lingkungan dan perempuan di Kenya?”. Untuk menguji permasalahan, peneliti melakukan penelitian dengan menggunakan metode historis yang mencakup empat langkah penelitian. Langkah-langkah penelitian diantaranya yaitu pengumpulan sumber tertulis melalui studi literatur (heuristik), kritik sumber, interpretasi atau analisis sumber dan historiografi. Peneliti juga menggunakan konsep untuk menyederhanakan analisis, diantaranya konsep ekologi, ekofeminisme, patriarki, three legged stool. Sebuah rasionalisasi untuk studi ekofeminisme ini, karena banyak perspektif tentang klaim yang dibuat oleh pemerintah atau gerakan itu sendiri. Analisis ekofeminisme muncul dalam bentuk pertanggungjawaban atas analisis perempuan dan alam sebagai kedua objek perjuangan yang dilakukan oleh Maathai, disamping itu ekofeminisme muncul digunakan sebagai alat perjuangan yang tidak memfokuskan pada perjuangan perempuan terhadap alam saja, melainkan berfokus juga pada permasalahan penindasan atas hak perempuan melalui perjuangan perempuan dan alam

‘Information and Inspiration’: Wangari Maathai, the Green Belt Movement and Eco-Children's Literature

Starting with seven seedlings in 1977, Wangari Maathai had, by the time of her death in 2011, become a legendary figure in the Green Belt Movement which, in its simplest terms, understands tree planting as fundamental to civic education, political advocacy, community empowerment, economic sustainability and global biodiversity. Taking Maathai's epic stature into consideration, this paper will examine how five picturebook biographies negotiate various eco-pedagogical strategies to encourage environmental awareness in children. Moreover, this paper will not only explore the verbal and visual rhetoric of tree planting but also examine how contemporary children's literature seeks to represent the third world to the first by engaging and promoting issues related to eco-literacy, indigeneity, women's rights and environmental justice.

Seeds of Light, Flowers of Power, Fruits of Change

Ecowomanism focuses on the relationships between humans and nature through a spiritualized lens. Three core principles of ecowomanism are Livingkind (all living things are of a type), Aliveness (life pervades all creation, visible and invisible), and Luminosity (all living things are filled with light and spirit). Ecowomanism makes a unique, spiritually infused, ecological activist praxis possible. Three notable exemplars of this praxis are Sister Chan Khong (who established Sweet Potato Farm in France as part of her mindfulness-based peace activism), Kiran Bedi (who elevated the dignity of prisoners through her beautification of Tihar Jail/Ashram in India), and Wangari Maathai (who conscientized members of the Kenyan military by helping them to see the value of protecting the natural environment and planting trees as part of the Green Belt Movement).

Ecofeminism as a way of resolving some environmental issues

Women and nature are connected in many different ways: with their biological status, reproductive role, discrimination. That is why ecofeminism stands for one of the main theoretical, philosophical and even practical ways of resolving the environmental problems. The representatives of this thinking find that changing positions and behaviors by leaving the patriarchal approach to everything - to the women and to the nature, can stop the degradation of the environment. Demographic significance of the women?s role, in context of environmental changes, was represented by some feminist movements, as Chipko movement in India, Green Belt movement in Kenya, Love Canal in State of New York, etc. In this paper, the author gives a short overview of connections between women and nature, and proposes some new solutions.

Maathai, Wangari M.

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940–2011) was an environmentalist and human rights activist, internationally recognized as the founder of Green Belt Movement in Kenya. She was also the first black woman and first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.