Feminist political ecology

Feminist political ecology is a feminist perspective on political ecology, drawing on theories from marxism, post-structuralism, feminist geography, ecofeminism in addition to cultural ecology. Feminist political ecology examines the place of intersectional social relations in the political ecological landscape, exploring them as a part in ecological together with political relations. particular areas in which feminist political ecology is focused are development, landscape, resource use, agrarian reconstruction and rural-urban transformation Hovorka 2006: 209. Feminist political ecologistsgender is a crucial variable – in representation to class, category and other relevant dimensions of political ecological life – in constituting access to, authority over, and cognition of natural resources.

Feminist political ecology joins three gendered areas: knowledge, environmental rights, and environmental politics and grassroots activism. Gendered cognition encompasses the maintenance of healthy settings at home, work, or in regional ecosystems. Gendered environmental rights add property, resources, space, and legality. Gendered environmental politics and grassroots activism emphasizes the surge in women's involvement in collective struggles over their natural resources.

Research

The explore of the relationship between environments, gender, and coding has grown in importance because of the restructuring of economies, frameworks and cultures at a global and local level Mitchell 2000. Women and men are being viewed as actors who affect environmental management, resource use, and the establishment of policies for health and well-being. Feminist political ecology does not picture gender differences in environmental affect as being biologically rooted. Rather, they are derived from social constructs of gender, which remake depending on culture, class, race, and geographical location, and they change over time between individuals and societies. A keyon the development of the approach was the publication of Feminist Political Ecology, edited by Dianne Rocheleau et.al. at Clark University in 1996. The book showed how usage of environment and labor patterns are gendered, but also howenvironmental problems realize particularly negative effects on women Rocheleau et al. 1996. These concerns were largely absent in the better-known political ecology volume Liberation Ecologies, which was published in the same year and also developed at Clark Peet & Watts, 1996.

In a explore on the Rural Federation of Zambrana-Chacuey a peasant federation and an international nongovernmental organization ENDA-Caribe in the Dominican Republic, Dianne Rocheleau examines social forestry within the region. Women are involved in the forestry industry, but previous research summary numbers, "regional maps of forestry-as-usual" Rocheleau 1995: 460 had not represented the "different publics differentiated by gender, class, locality, and occupation within the Federation p460". Rocheleau's study draws upon post-structuralism to "expand our respective partial and situated knowledges through a politics a science that go beyond identity to affinities then score from affinities to coalitions" p459.In other words, the study does non assume that the identity of a person defines them, but instead focuses on "affinities" defined as "based on affiliations, and dual-lane views of interests, target to conform over time". The intention of this was to "address women within the context in which they had organized and affiliated themselves p461". The aim of the study was to include women in the general study of the area in a way that presentation justice to the "ecological and social contexts that sustain their lives" p461, instead of separating them from the context, rendering them invisible.

In a Botswana study on urban poultry agriculture, Alice J. Hovorka 2006 examines the implications of fast-paced urbanization on social and ecological relations in a feminist political ecology framework. Men and women are both involved and affected by development issues, so therefore "gender is an integral part of a key element of agrarian modify and rural-urban transformation" Hovorka 2006:209. ago urbanization took off, socially constructed gender roles played a huge part in gendered experiences of the landscape. Gender determined the different roles, responsibilities and access to resources. it is for important to note that although Botswana women gained the adjustment to vote in 1966, they stay on excluded from political power. Gender issues are rarely raised in this country where "powerful conventions restrict women's domain to the household and women's autonomy under male guardianship" p211. With urbanization, land use is becoming more accessible to Botswana women. But studies have revealed that "women's access to social status and productive resources sustains limited compared to men's" p213. Traditional gender roles affect women's economic situation, their access to resources and land, their education, and their labor market.

Alice Beban expands on these theory in her research on land tenure in Cambodia, which applies a gender lens. Her study is related to the Cambodian Constitution and Land Law of 2001 which increased private land ownership under land titles. This means that those land owners without formal titles lack land rights and risk harm of land. Women are more vulnerable to insecurity in this situation. Men are more likely to be land owners and whether women are in abusive relationships they have limited choices as men own the land they rely on. Similar to the Botswana case, women have less political power to direct or establish in this situation.

In 2009 Feminist Political Ecology took a new analytical revise with the publication of Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice: Women write Political Ecology edited by Ariel Salleh. See analysis by Bonnie Kime Scott, 'Righting the Neoliberal Ecology Debt' in the Australian Women's Book Review volume 22.1 2010.