Research on the status and experience of women in academia in the last 30 years has challenged conventional explanations of persistent gender inequality, bringing into sharp focus the cumulative impact of small scale, often unintentional differences in recognition and response: the patterns of 'post-civil rights era' dis­crimination made famous by the 1999 report on the status of women in the MIT School of Science. I argue that feminist standpoint theory is a useful resource for understanding how this sea change in (...) understanding gender inequity was realized. At the same time, close attention to activist research on workplace environment issues suggests ways in which our understanding of standpoint theory can fruitfully be refined. I focus on the implications of two sets of distinctions: between types of epistemic injustice (and correlative advantage) that may affect marginalized knowers; and between the resources of situated knowledge and those of a critical standpoint on knowledge production. (shrink)

In this essay, I will argue that contemporary ecofeminist discourse, while potentially adequate to deal with the issue of animals, is now inadequate because it fails to give consistent conceptual place to the domination of animals as a significant aspect of the domination of nature. I will examine six answers ecofeminists could give for not including animals explicitly in ecofeminist analyses and show how a persistent patriarchal ideology regarding animals as instruments has kept the experience of animals from being fully (...) incorporated within ecofeminism.2. (shrink)

The practicability of the comprehensive FSR concept is problematic. Contemporary FSR must be positioned at the point of overlap between the positivist and constructivist paradigms, which are both grounded in a continual identification with the rational-empirical consciousness, in thinking -being.Spirituality, defined as the process in which one systematically trains the receptivity to gain regular access to transcendental consciousness, emphasizes the experience of just being, of consciousness-as-such. It is an experiential spirituality, which is not based on dogmas, but on do-it-yourself techniques (...) to break the continuous spell of the rational-empirical consciousness. Such a spirituality facilitates the cultivation of societally and environmentally friendly behavior. Sustainability can be defined as the integrative 'emergent property' of experiential spirituality and rational morality based on negotiated agreements.In addition to the outward-oriented approaches of the positivist and constructivist paradigms, an inward-oriented approach, focusing on consciousness development, is recommended. Language-mediated interaction must be supported by consciousness-mediated interaction. (shrink)

Attention is drawn to the threat posed by climate change to symbolically laden places, landscapes and landmarks, and suggested that, insofar as some of those sites are treated as sacred by certain populations, their disturbance may be especially problematic. Special consideration is given to the significance glacial retreat for local, nearby populations, and its importance from the point of view of climate justice and ethics is discussed. The potential value of iconic sites from the perspective of engagement and action on (...) climate change is considered. It is concluded that climate impacts on symbolically charged places in the landscape should be of significant concern, as well as interest, for policy and decision-making. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between ecofeminism, food, and the philosophy of place. Using as example my own neighborhood in a racially integrated area of Philadelphia with a thriving local foods movement that nonetheless is nearly exclusively white and in which women are the invisible majority of purchasers, farmers, and preparers, the article examines what ecofeminism contributes to the discussion of racial, gendered, classed discrepancies regarding who does and does not participate in practices of locavorism and the local foods movement (...) more broadly. Ecofeminism, it is argued here, with its focus on the ways that race, class, gender, and place are ontologically entangled, helps to highlight the ways identity and society are made and re-made through our encounters with food. (shrink)

In this essay, I will argue that contemporary ecofeminist discourse, while potentially adequate to deal with the issue of animals, is now inadequate because it fails to give consistent conceptual place to the domination of animals as a significant aspect of the domination of nature. I will examine six answers ecofeminists could give for not including animals explicitly in ecofeminist analyses and show how a persistent patriarchal ideology regarding animals as instruments has kept the experience of animals from being fully (...) incorporated within ecofeminism. (shrink)

This essay proposes several guiding parameters for ecofeminism's development as a moral theory. I argue that these provide necessary directives and contexts for ecofeminist analyses and social/ecological projects. In the past these have been very diverse and occasionally contradictory. Most important to the core of ecofeminism's vitality are close links between theory and political activism. I show how these originated in ecofeminism's history and advocate a continued participatory and activist focus in the future.

Ecological feminism is a feminism which attempts to unite the demands of the women's movement with those of the ecological movement. Ecofeminists often appeal to "ecology" in support of their claims, particularly claims about the importance of feminism to environmentalism. What is missing from the literature is any sustained attempt to show respects in which ecological feminism and the science of ecology are engaged in complementary, mutually supportive projects. In this paper we attempt to do that by showing ten important (...) similarities which establish the need for and benefits of on-going dialogue between ecofeminists and ecosystem ecologists. (shrink)

In this essay we make visible the contribution of women even and especially when women cannot be added to mainstream, non-feminist accounts of peace. We argue that if feminism is taken seriously, then most philosophical discussions of peace must be updated, expanded and reconceived in ways which centralize feminist insights into the interrelationships among women, nature, peace, and war. We do so by discussing six ways that feminist scholarship informs mainstream philosophical discussions of peace.

The feminist conception of discourse offered below differs from classical discourse ethics. Arguing that inequalities of power are even more conspicuous in global than in local contexts, I note that a global discourse community seems to be emerging among feminists, and I explore the role played by small communities in feminism's attempts to reconcile a commitment to open discussion, on the one hand, with a recognition of the realities of power inequalities, on the other.

Northern researchers and service providers espousing modernist theories of development in order to understand and aid countries and peoples of the South ignore their own non-universal starting points of knowledge and their own vested interests. Universal ethics are rejected in favor of situated ethics, while a modified empowerment development model for aiding women in the South based on poststructuralism requires building a bridge identity politics to promote participatory democracy and challenge Northern power knowledges.

In her recent Counter-Reply to my views, Evelyn Pluhar defends her use of literature on nutrition and restates her argument for moral vegetarianism. In his Vegan Ideal article, Gary Varner claims that the nutrition literature does not show sufficient differences among women, men, and children to warrant concern about discrimination. In this response I show how Professor Pluhar continues to draw fallacious inferences: she begs the question on equality, avoids the main issue in my ethical arguments, argues from irrelevancies, misquotes (...) her sources, equivocates on context, confuses safety with morality, appeals to fear, confuses correlation with cause, fails to evaluate scientific studies, draws hasty conclusions from insufficient data, ignores a large amount of data which would call her views into question, does not follow good scientific or moral argumentation, objectionably exceeds the limits of her expertise, and resorts to scapegoating. I also argue that Professor Varner fails to make his case because he offers virtually no evidence from scientific studies on nutrition, relies on outdated and fallacious sources, makes unsupported claims, ignores evidence that would contravene his claims, draws hasty conclusions based on weakly supported hypotheses rather than facts, employs a double standard, appeals to ignorance, does not evaluate arguments from his sources, and makes anad hominem attack on a respected nutritionist when his focus should be on evaluating the evidence and arguments from the scientific studies themselves. Neither Varner nor Pluhar have responded sufficiently to the real issue in my arguments, that of discrimination and bias in the vegan ideal. (shrink)

: Feminist standpoint theory remains highly controversial: it is widely advocated, used to guide research and justify its results, and yet is also vigorously denounced. This essay argues that three such sites of controversy reveal the value of engaging with standpoint theory as a way of reflecting on and debating some of the most anxiety-producing issues in contemporary Western intellectual and political life. Engaging with standpoint theory enables a socially relevant philosophy of science.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 7.2 (2002) 12-26 [Access article in PDF] Karen Warren's Ecofeminism Trish Glazebrook Karen Warren's Ecofeminism Ecofeminism has conceptual beginnings in the French tradition of feminist theory. In 1952, Simone de Beauvoir pointed out that in the logic of patriarchy, both women and nature appear as other (de Beauvoir 1952, 114). In 1974, Luce Irigaray diagnosed philosophically a phallic logic of the Same that precludes representation (...) of woman's alterity, so that it subjects women to man's domination (Irigaray 1974). In the same year, Françoise d'Eaubonne coined the term, "l'eco-féminisme," to point to the necessity for women to bring about ecological revolution, and used the slogan, "Feminism or death [Le féminisme ou la mort]" (d'Eaubonne 1974, 221), to argue that the phallic order is the source of a double threat to human being: overpopulation, and the depletion of resources. Exploitation of female reproductive power has caused an excess of births, and hence overpopulation; while an excess of production has exploited natural resources to the point of their destruction. Though "feminism or death" was a battle cry, it was also a warning that human being cannot survive patriarchy's ecological consequences.In North America, the alliance between feminism and ecology likewise began in 1974, when Sandra Marburg and Lisa Watson hosted a conference at Berkeley entitled "Women and the Environment." The following [End Page 12] year, Rosemary Radford Ruether pointed out that "Women must see that there can be no liberation for them and no solution to ecologi- cal crisis within a society whose fundamental model of relationships continues to be one of domination" (Ruether 1975, 204). She called for a unification of feminist and ecological interests in the vision of a society transformed from values of possession, conquest, and accumulation to reciprocity, harmony, and mutual interdependence. In 1991, Karen Warren edited an issue of Hypatia devoted entirely to ecofeminism, which was later expanded and republished under the title Ecological Feminist Philosophies. This anthology was ground-breaking, because in it Warren consolidated a collection of diverse voices, not into an ecofeminist platform as such, but into a vision of the lay of the land, as it were, with respect to ecofeminism.Although Warren has been writing as an ecofeminist since 1987, it was not until 2000 that she published a sustained treatment in her own voice: Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters. This book is the culmination of her thinking for over a decade. Her perspective, very much in the spirit of d' Eaubonne and Ruether, is as political, social, and practical as it is philosophical, and constitutes a research program that extends beyond the walls of the Academy in its challenge to the social order. The book can be used to answer some of the criticisms that ecofeminism has received. I will use Warren's work to address in particular the validity of the foundational ecofeminist assumption that environmental issues are feminist issues; the charge against feminism in general that it reflects only the needs of white, middle-class, Western women; the claim, especially in reference to spirituality, that ecofeminism reinscribes gender essentialism; and the challenge ecofeminism offers to traditional philosophy, including how such an inclusivist movement can respond to the history of philosophy without simply reproducing its exclusionary politics. Feminism and Environmentalism Ecofeminists insist that feminism and environmentalism are inherently connected, but it is not always clear what the nature of that connection is. In general, ecofeminist work applies feminist analyses to environmental issues, so the claim is not so much that feminist worries are environmentally grounded, as that environmental issues warrant feminist analysis. Carolyn Merchant's (1980) analysis of the history of science, for example, [End Page 13] uncovers misogyny at the heart of the modern conquest of nature. Yet the ideology of Man's (sic) dominion over nature is not new with Bacon, and is evident in Christian teachings concerning the expulsion from the Garden of Eden at Genesis 3,17-24. Adam is sent from the garden with instructions to till the ground and... (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to deepen into a theoretical account on the role of behavioral settings and relational affordative space and how this perspective can be used to reconceptualize various human cognitive developmental trajectories and conditions. In the course of this theoretical work, we want to contribute in rethinking developmental trajectories based on the role of behavioral settings and relational affordances from an embodied perspective. Behavioral settings emerge from joint actions in conjunction with the affordances available. These affordances (...) will have multiple levels and kinds of meanings for the organism which is why we need to distinguish between the general affordances for a form of life and the particular affordances for particular agents that are generated through sensorimotor interactions. We propose to apply this theoretical frame in different developmental conditions, taking as a leading example the Autistic Spectrum, extending it to other lived experiences of other groups marginalized by “normative behavioral settings” – and the ensuing ethical concerns. (shrink)

Engages and extends the feminist philosopher Lorraine Code's groundbreaking work on epistemology and ethics.

Community development, or the socio-economic transformation of local communities, has been a significant focus of organizational ethics. Such community development programmes—whether led by state, civil society, or businesses—are animated by modernization and have involved, I argue, the production of a new moral order. As part of which, communities were imagined in particular ways, historically. Drawing on a periodization of history of philanthropy of the Tata Group (India’s leading multinational conglomerate) from the 1860s onwards, I outline the four stages involved in (...) the production of this new moral order—each with a distinct formulation of community—as part of India’s development. The shifts in imaginaries of community, I conclude, were justified and legitimized by the elites as part of the wider nation-building efforts. (shrink)

Enactive cognitive science combines questions in epistemology, ontology, and ethics by conceiving of bodies as open-ended and mutually transforming through activity. While enaction is not a theory of ethics, it can contribute to its foundations. We present a schematization of enactive ideas that underlie traditional distinctions between Being, Knowing, and Doing. Ethics in this scheme begins in the relation between knowing and becoming. Critical of dichotomous thinking, we approach the questions of alterity and ethical reality. Alterity is relevant to the (...) enactive approach, but not in the radical sense of transcendental arguments. We propose difference, instead, as a more generative concept. Following Simondon, we see norms and values manifest in webs of past and future acts together with their potentialities for becoming. We propose a transindividual concept of moral attunement that includes ethical know-how and consciousness raising. Through generative difference and attunement to configurations of becoming, enaction underpins an ethics of participation linking virtue ethics and ethics of care. (shrink)

Agency and representation are viewed as preconditions for democratic action. The dominant understanding of agency and representation is defined in terms of certain capacities and abilities that are considered to constitute the basis of personhood. The article will put into question this understanding and the assumptions that underpin it and argue that it rests on a mistaken conception of human animality – one that reduces the self to an autonomous and disembodied rational mind. The article will also suggest that it (...) is problematic because it marginalizes more than human forms of life – as well as those of us who are differently human – and excludes their points of view from the political processes of world making. In contrast, I will put forward an understanding of agency and representation that is attuned to the relational dimensions of all life on earth. By paying attention to the semiotic propensities that all forms of life share – which entails considering nonlinguistic forms of communication – this article responds to the need for more radically democratic ways of listening, giving voice, and caring for the earth’s beings and the relations that form the conditions for life to flourish. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article seeks to “contaminate” an ethics of care with three different but interrelated theoretical interventions: the expansion of the care ethic beyond interpersonal relations, ecofeminism, and feminist political theory. This makes care theoretically resilient: durable enough to have grounded meaning but flexible enough for situational application. This also makes care a primary concept capable of subsuming some aspects of the traditional ethical theories of deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. This holds vast implications for journalists as they seek new (...) ways to delineate and articulate their service to democracy in an ever-changing mediascape. Furthermore, this ethic of care engenders media literacy and enables an active public to critically question media content and influence. This theoretical explication is thus not an abstract exercise but intentionally focused to aid the difficult work of worldmaking. (shrink)

In this piece, I extend a transformative power account to the conservation of dark (and starry) night skies. More specifically, I argue that the transformative power that dark nights bear warrants their conservation and is best understood in terms of the important intellectual, cultural, aesthetic, and (psycho-physiologically) restorative effects that they afford. This gives us a pressing set of reasons to combat the growing, global phenomenon of light pollution. To do so, I argue, we ought to preserve the few remaining (...) dark refuges that we have left (what I term wildness regions) and synergistically re-wild (i.e. re-darken) urban and suburban environments. Synergistic re-darkening, I propose, can be achieved by (i) establishing interpretive (educational) ‘dark zones’, (ii) implementing bioluminescent lighting technologies, and (iii) strategically employing lighting design. Finally, and in order to enact a degree of epistemic justice, I argue that we ought to implement multi-cultural ‘co-learning’ initiatives, which promote education pertaining to both Western, scientific and indigenous, North American astronomies. (shrink)

This article is a preliminary attempt to map EU research policy from a feminist perspective hitherto absent. The framing and management of national and international research policy have reflected the priorities of an entrenched masculinist scientific elite. Despite the critical role of quantified data in policy analysis and formation, international research labour force statistics remain ungendered. Feminist approaches have been integral to the third wave of epistemological criticism of science this century, claiming that systematic knowledge of the natural, as well (...) as the social world, is socially shaped and thus could be reshaped in ways friendlier to the diversity of women. Such criticism has generated opposition on the part of the scientific elite. The state funding of research is shrinking, while industrial research expands. Women's place within this restructuring research labour market may even be deteriorating, yet feminism still addresses its demands to a retreating science/state relation. Sustained pressure from women's studies researchers and women natural scientists and engineers for a fairer share of the research pie has, in the light of the Amsterdam Treaty, led to Europe introducing gender into research policy. The policy dimension of 'Quality of Life' to enhance 'trust', offers possibilities for feminist intervention. Changing the gender and ethnic composition of the research labour force so that it more adequately reflects the diversity of Europeans enhances Quality of Life. Trust requires that we build on the diverse experiences of European countries in strengthening democratic participation in socially shaping science and technology. (shrink)

In this article, the impact of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions on the sociology of science is evaluated. The main argument is that a questionable construction of Kuhn’s work heralded the constructivist revolution that ultimately contributed to the division between sociology of science and sociology of scientific knowledge. A reorientation of sociology of science that combines institutional and constructivist perspectives is advocated.

Studying women farmers who are equal to men in their formal status, this article explores the extent to which women's entry into a male occupation challenges the existing gender system. Our analysis shows that young women farmers represent a change toward a new work role for women in farming. They have become similar to men farmers in many important aspects of farming such as vocational training, technological know-how, and union membership; however, important aspects of the existing gender system are being (...) preserved. Young women farmers still have the main responsibility for domestic work; their income from farming is less important for the household than their husband's; and, compared to men farmers, their farm income is less. There is no indication that young women farmers challenge the masculinist way of farming. (shrink)

This article offers the concept of `global modernity' (in the singular) as a way to understand the contemporary world. It suggests that the concept helps overcome the teleology implicit in a term such as globalization, while it also recognizes global difference and conflict, which are as much characteristics of the contemporary world as tendencies toward unity and homogenization. These differences, and the appearance of `alternative' or `multiple' modernities, it suggests, are expressions, and articulations, of the contradictions of modernity which are (...) now universalized across, as well as within, societies. If we are to speak of alternative or multiple modernities, which presently valorize the persistence of traditions and `civilizational' legacies, we need to recognize that the very language of alternatives and multiplicity is enabled historically by the presupposition of a common modernity shaped by a globalizing capitalism. (shrink)

This paper seeks to bring a time perspective to the discourses of globalization and development. It first connects prominent recent gender-neutral discourses of globalization with highly gendered analyses of development, bringing together institutional—structural analyses with contextual and experiential data. It places alongside each other ‘First World’ perspectives and analyses of the changing conditions of people in the ‘developing’ world who are at the receiving end of globalized markets, and the international politics of aid. To date, neither of these fields of (...) expertise has made explicit the underpinning time politics of globalization. Naturalized as status quo and global norm these temporal relations form the deep structure of globalization and its neo-colonialist agenda. The paper uses feminist epistemology to explicate the taken-for-granted time politics of globalization and time-based ontology to render visible the gender politics of globalization. The combined conceptual force makes connections where few exist at present, maps complex processes and traces naturalized relations. It offers not a new or better theory of… but an approach to globalization that makes transparent hitherto opaque relations of power and it identifies openings for change, resistance and alternative political practice. (shrink)

This article examines the precepts of natural law feminism, and in exploring the writings of two Canadian feminists, Maureen McTeer and Louise Vandelac, examines how natural law feminism is deployed in debates about how to theorize reproduction. I contend that the natural law perspective obscures many issues worthy of feminist inquiry, and, perhaps more critically, eschews a discourse that emphasizes reproductive freedom in favour of one which has at its centre a largely unproblematized view of reproduction that follows a biologically (...) driven script of conception, gestation, childbirth and mothering as inherently and necessarily connected. I argue that this stance is particularly evident in natural law feminist analyses of ecology and the regulation of new reproductive and genetic technologies. In both these areas, natural law feminism poses the central problem as one in which feminists must zealously protect the natural association between women and reproduction; in so doing, natural law feminists gloss over the nature of this association. I suggest a reframing of the focus of debates on reproduction from what is natural and what is socially constructed to how we demarcate the two. (shrink)

In this article, I focus on the work of the South Asian Network for Gender Transformation to show how it goes beyond the current turn to the Global South in much contemporary transnational feminisms. It does so in two ways. One, as evident in the name, it defines a regional imaginary, which is place-based and informed by the long history of interactions in the area beyond the colonial, postcolonial, and recent global forces, as well as in conversation with discourses and (...) practices from the North. Second, its praxis connects activists across borders in a process of mutual learning that acknowledges power inequalities and draws upon local as well as transnational feminist theories and methodologies to enable sustainable collaborations for social and gender justice in the region. Thus, rather than reproducing the North/south binaries with its attendant erasures SANGAT seeks to go beyond them to develop place-based yet connected ‘solidarities of epistemologies’ and praxis. (shrink)

The ecofeminist cosmologies of Indian scientist Vandana Shiva and Catholic theologian Ivone Gebara are examined. At the centre of each author’s discourse is their feminist epistemology that occasion a new way of knowing, incorporating each thinker’s social locations as nexus for authority. For Shiva, the feminine principle of Prakriti, or the awareness of nature as a living, interdependent force, is realized through the inclusion of women as sources of expertise and knowledge. Gebara rejects classical theology and philosophy as androcentric, anthropocentric, (...) and hierarchical. Instead Gebara envisions a revised epistemology of inclusivity with emphasis on multiplicity and unity initiated by an ecofeminist Trinitarian cosmology. Taken together Shiva and Gebara provide an epistemology that privileges the paradox of unity through diversity and difference as a solution to society’s current ecological crises. (shrink)

Recess is often a topic overlooked in pedagogical theory due to its presumed simplicity. The essence of recess connects with play as a physical counterpart to a well-rounded education. In this article we explore the relationship play has with recess and well-being and explore its pragmatikos (systematic usefulness) as regards schooling in lieu of deep ecological frameworks of systems (wholism) theory and systemic, nonlinear dynamics. We argue that recess in its current conceptualisation—in contradistinction to work or study—is a counterfeit to (...) metaphysical play based on the writings of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy who sheds light on its spiritual premise. By bringing to the forefront metaphysical Ideas of play we encounter similitudes between the Platonic doctrine of ēdūcere and anamnesis with Buddhist phenomenology, especially regarding the practice of Mindfulness (sati); both extol a “recollection” as opposed to a “memorisation” which arguably occupies much of Westernised curriculum. Finally, in traditional, premodern education, emphasis was placed on Spirit and heartfelt intuition, a remembrance of who we are, our Buddha-nature or Christhood, not on cerebral ratiocination whose mental operation, according to Plato, was tenebrous and illusory. Our aspiration is not an education that includes mindfulness, rather, a mindfulness-based education. (shrink)

This article examines the Nasa peoples’ resistance praxis known as “Desalambrar”. Through the analysis of Nasayuwe language, textile art, and ritual dance, the article looks at the idea of ontological continuum at the heart of this praxis, exploring how this concept provides the Nasa with a philosophical standpoint for what they have called “the liberation of Mother Earth”. The article then examines how this idea challenges the Eurocentric divide between Man and Nature/Woman and what it can possibly mean for women, (...) gender, feminism, and the environment. (shrink)

The idea that there exists a natural relationship between intellectual freedom, legitimate political authority and enjoyment of a dignified life was central to the European Enlightenment and to the...

The purpose of this article is to explore Heidegger’s approach to how educa- tion and reflection endeavor, which have been experienced through a vast variety of both regional and universal approaches, should be experienced. Hence, I’ll start with explaining Heidegger’s problematics. “Why he takes all philosophical problems into one question?”, “What is the meaning of be- ing?”, and then I will explain what we should understand by education and reflection process. Heidegger links it to an exploration process, investigation of the (...) truth. He believes that the primary responsibility in this process lies on universities and rulers. The process should be centered on reflection and individuals should be reflecting by challenging their own and other individ- uals’ existence. This leads us to two concepts: Being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt- sein) and co-existence (being-with, Mitsein). The most remarkable ability of Dasein, as he calls, is the reflection, and it facilitates challenge. Through its capabilities, the individual (Dasein) will turn out to be self-conscious of its existence. Grounding on being-in-the-world and co-existence concepts, Das- ein can challenge the existence and starts exploring the being. This leads to reflection and questioning, which together form an educational and learning process. Education and learning are the two technical parts of exploring Da- sein’s existence. Due to scientific methods and methodological approaches of education, cultural, regional and local attributes are ignored. Heidegger believes that the individual coexists, which requires considering all the dif- ferences around it. Heidegger stresses the importance of reflection and says that the West has a flawed approach. Criticizing that flawed approach which is solely centered on the subject, Heidegger asserts an educational model which reckons many differences such as culture, challenge, etc. (shrink)

Food sovereignty asserts the right of peoples to define and organize their own agricultural and food systems so as to meet local needs and so as to secure access to land, water and seed. A commitment to gender equity has been embedded in the food sovereignty concept from its earliest articulations. Some might wonder why gender justice should figure so prominently in a food movement. In this paper I review and augment the arguments for making gender equity a central component (...) of food sovereignty. The most common argument is: if women constitute the majority of the world’s food producers, then agricultural policy is a women’s issue. And insofar as patriarchal social relations continue to dominate the globe, then changing agricultural policies will require explicit attention to gender injustice. I suggest that this is a good argument, but that an ecological feminist perspective can provide additional theoretical reasons for maintaining the centrality of gender justice in food sovereignty discourse. Moreover, ecological feminism can provide a robust theoretical framework that coheres a concept and movement with a wide set of concerns. My critique positions food sovereignty’s call to social justice as embedded in a truly radical re-thinking of dominant conceptual frameworks, and re-envisioning of political and ethical relations. (shrink)

An attempt is made in this article to explore and build knowledge on the corporate social responsibility performances for community development and sustainability in the context of Rourkela Steel Plant of Steel Authority of India in Odisha, particularly in the wake of Companies Act, section 135, 2013. The paper looks at the conduct of CSR transitional strategy if any for delivering a range of activities while the amount of money spent on CSR is a common indicator of performance. The case (...) is based on content analysis and narrative inquiry. In-depth, open-ended personal interview and focus group discussion were conducted with project participants, women leaders, youth, community stakeholders, NGO partners and officials. Hard data and field information on the impact of CSR initiatives were organised to validate the proposition. Findings indicate that brand building and creating far-reaching positive business impact of RSP-SAIL as a responsible corporate citizen were important outcomes. This paper sets up an analytical framework that defines transitional strategies at different levels of communities in terms of production, organisations, governance, institutions and culture of relationships, noting how best to guide corporate towards sustainable community development through its CSR policy. (shrink)

The project Gender Perspective on Embedded Intelligent Systems – Application in Healthcare Technology financed by Vinnova is integrated into the research environment Embedded Intelligent Systems at Halmstad University. EIS is contributing to the regional Triple Helix innovation system Healthcare Technology by developing new technology for application within the health and care sector, and there is an outspoken need for a more articulated gender perspective within the research environment. The project is inspired by the Technoscientific gender research. It has a qualitative (...) and action research approach and is oriented toward development. In the project process the difference between epistemological cultures has been obvious. In the interaction between the researchers we realize that engineering and other technological sciences not only consider aspects of science to be separate from reality, but also seek positivistic proof in research, something not always possible in the more qualitative research of the social sciences. In the paper we discuss how to bridge and create understanding between sciences and different epistemological cultures. (shrink)

This article critically assesses the different ways of theoretically connecting feminism, capitalism, and ecology. I take the existing tradition of socialist ecofeminism as my starting point and outline two different ways that the connections among capitalism, the subordination of women, and the destruction of the environment have been made in this literature: materialist ecofeminism and Marxist ecofeminism. I will demonstrate the political and theoretical advantages of these positions in comparison to some of the earlier forms of theorizing the relationship between (...) women and nature, but I will also submit them to philosophical critique. I will show how the Marxist ecofeminist position needs to be both updated and revised in order to account for the different, sometimes contradictory mechanisms for the capitalization of nature that have become prominent today. I will underscore two developments in particular: the dominance of neoliberalism and the development of biotechnology. I will conclude by summing up the theoretical grounds on which a contemporary political alliance between feminist and ecological struggles against capitalism can be built. (shrink)

Corporate engagements with pressing environmental challenges focus on expanding the role of the market, seeking opportunities for growth and developing technologies to manage better environmental resources. Such approaches have proved ineffective. I suggest that a lack of meaningful response to ecological degradation and climate change is inevitable within a capitalist system underpinned by a logics of appropriation and an instrumental rationality that views the planet as a means to achieve economic ends. For ecofeminism, these logics are promulgated through sets of (...) hierarchical and interrelated dualisms which define the human in opposition to the realm of “nature”. This has led to the resilience of ecosystems, social reciprocity and care being unvalued or undervalued. An ecofeminist, care-sensitive ethics is proposed that focuses on the interconnections between human and nonhuman nature and on affective engagements with the living world. A practical morality is developed that sees the self not as atomized nor as self-optimizing, but as a self in relationship. Such an ethics is necessary to motivate action to contest capitalism’s binary thinking, evident within corporate environmentalism, which has re-made the web of life in ways that are not conducive to planetary flourishing. (shrink)

Feminist standpoint theory remains highly controversial: it is widely advocated, used to guide research and justify its results, and yet is also vigorously denounced. This essay argues that three such sites of controversy reveal the value of engaging with standpoint theory as a way of reflecting on and debating some of the most anxiety-producing issues in contemporary Western intellectual and political life. Engaging with standpoint theory enables a socially relevant philosophy of science.

Ecological feminism is a feminism which attempts to unite the demands of the women's movement with those of the ecological movement. Ecofeminists often appeal to “ecology” in support of their claims, particularly claims about the importance of feminism to environmentalism. What is missing from the literature is any sustained attempt to show respects in which ecological feminism and the science of ecology are engaged in complementary, mutually supportive projects. In this paper we attempt to do that by showing ten important (...) similarities which establish the need for and benefits of on-going dialogue between ecofeminists and ecosystem ecologists. (shrink)

In this essay, I trace a rhetorical affinity between feminist postmodern theory and an Enlightenment narrative of development. This affinity consists in the valorization of mobility and the repudiation of locatedness. Although feminists deploy this rhetoric in order to accommodate differences and to accustom readers to the instability that results from such accommodation, I show how this rhetoric works to justify Western colonial development and to efface women's very different experiences of mobility in the early twenty-first century.