Climate Weirding and Queering Nature: Getting Beyond  the Anthropocene

Bauman, Whitney A.

doi:10.3390/rel6020742

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…However, it has been argued that this erosion, rather than eroding the distinction, centralises the role of humans and simultaneously absorbs nature into culture (Crist, 2013). This anthropocentrism only perpetuates the idea that humans can manage (natural) environments and, as a result, is not dissimilar to the logic that arguably led to environmental crises in the first place (Crist, 2013; Bauman, 2015).…”

Section: Ecofeminism: Insights and Inroadsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecofeminism revisited: critical insights on contemporary environmental governance

Foster

2021

Feminist Theory

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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.

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Section: Ecofeminism: Insights and Inroadsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecofeminism revisited: critical insights on contemporary environmental governance

Foster

2021

Feminist Theory

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“…This notion provided an impetus, to scholarly and militant milieus alike, to go beyond a binary categorization and deconstruct the notion of gender in order to avoid confining criticism to the opposition between men-women on the one hand and gays-lesbians on the other. In the realm of ecological critics, "queer" has nonetheless added to the multiplicity of voices, be they human or not, from the Global South or not, that are stuck and are victims, in a non-normative and anti-essentialist manner, of what is often referred to as the Anthropocene (Bauman 2015;Tola 2018). We shall see to what extent the term "queer" does this when it appears in the field of ecological discourses we have observed and analyzed, especially regarding seemingly essentialist and constructivist stances.…”

Section: Theoretical Considerations: the Entanglement Between Gender ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Sacred Nature Gendered or Queer? Insights from a Study on Eco-Spiritual Activism in Switzerland

Becci

Grandjean

2021

Religions

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Among eco-spiritual activists in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, gendered notions such as “Mother Earth” or gendered “nature spirits” are ubiquitous. Drawing on an in-depth ethnographic study of this milieu (2015–2020), this article presents some of the ways in which these activists articulate gender issues with reference to nature. The authors discuss the centrality of the notion of the self and ask what outputs emerge from linking environmental with spiritual action. We demonstrate that activists in three milieus—the New Age and holistic milieu, the transition network, and neo-shamanism—handle this link differently and thereby give birth to a variety of emic perspectives upon the nature/culture divide, as well as upon gender—ranging from essentialist and organicist views to queer approaches. The authors also present more recent observations on the increasing visibility of women and feminists as key public speakers. They conclude with the importance of contextualizing imaginaries that circulate as universalistic and planetary and of relating them to individuals’ gendered selves and their social, political, and economic capital.

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“…Similarly, Mercer reflects on the etymology of witnessing (martyria) as "both accompaniment and acknowledgment" as the practice that "can produce the possibility of change" (Mercer 2017, p. 288). Lastly, Keller aims to reclaim eschatological hope from the strictures of "a nature-transcending and patriarchal God" (Keller 2015, p. 11) and insists on the not-yet-known possibilities that arise from relating with others, which she calls "apophatic entanglement" (Keller 2014, p. 7; see also Bauman 2015).…”

Section: Eschatology Nowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planting the Seeds of the Future: Eschatological Environmentalism in the Time of the Anthropocene

Bocci

2019

Religions

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Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this essay examines how the local Jehovah’s Witnesses’ response to the current ecological crisis on the Galápagos Islands has produced a distinct form of religious environmentalism. Specifically, I argue that the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ vision of the ultimate future informs action rather than despair—contrary to what is often assumed about millenarian beliefs. This essay joins voices in Christian feminist and eco-theology interested in reclaiming eschatology for its imaginative valence. Yet, unlike invocations for hope that lack consideration of their viability, my ethnographic approach contributes to this literature with a view of the practical reverberations of eschatology. Further, current discussions about ecological unraveling, often couched around the concept of the Anthropocene, have reinforced expert-driven, techno-scientific measures that exclude other forms of knowledge production and practical interventions. If such worries continue to motivate a paradigm of conservation that exclude locals, my essay shows how the local Jehovah’s Witnesses promote a valuable alternative form of environmentalism, on the Galápagos and elsewhere.

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Climate Weirding and Queering Nature: Getting Beyond the Anthropocene

Cited by 15 publications

References 13 publications

Ecofeminism revisited: critical insights on contemporary environmental governance

Ecofeminism revisited: critical insights on contemporary environmental governance

Is Sacred Nature Gendered or Queer? Insights from a Study on Eco-Spiritual Activism in Switzerland

Planting the Seeds of the Future: Eschatological Environmentalism in the Time of the Anthropocene

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