The naturalistic turn in feminist theory: A Marxist-realist contribution

Abstract

After a time dominated by nature-phobia, a naturalistic turn is emerging within feminist theory. Welcoming this new theoretical embrace of nature and sympathising with its insistence that nature is not feminism's enemy, this article nevertheless points to some problematic features of this turn. Focusing on Elizabeth Grosz's postmodernist readings of Charles Darwin, I suggest that their emphasis of nature's dynamic, indeterminate and enabling qualities both implies a politically unmotivated glorification of the dynamic and unruly, and as such obscures the important fact that nature also works as a constraining factor on societies. I demonstrate, from the point of view of a Marxist-realist perspective, why an acknowledgement of nature's limiting force is crucial for the coherence of any theoretical account of the workings of social systems. The article also addresses the feminist imperative to transcend the dualism between nature and culture, and shows how the concept of emergence offers a solution to dilemmas that tend to appear in connection to such efforts of transcendence.

Why we keep separating the ‘inseparable’: Dialecticizing intersectionality

“…What in particular distinguishes realist dialectics from other kinds of dialectical philosophies is its pronounced standpoint that the reason why we need to think dialectically is because reality is dialectically structured, via different modes of unity-in-difference whereby things have both points of identity with one another and points of divergence. Such coincidence of difference and unity may be constellated in a variety of ways, ranging from the necessary tensions built into our existence to historically accumulated splits between things that are fundamentally unified, such as humanity's exploitative separation from the nature that sustains it (Gunnarsson, 2013(Gunnarsson, , 2014.…”

Natur, kärlek och den manliga maktens gränser

“…Frågan om naturens samhällsteoretiska relevans är särskilt angelägen för feministisk teori, med tanke på den starka naturfobi som behärskar fältet i dag (Gunnarsson 2013(Gunnarsson , 2014. Det feministiska tabut mot naturen beror delvis på det starka inflytande som poststrukturalismen utövat på feministisk teori, men på ett mer allmänt plan också på det faktum att patriarkala könsrelationer i regel legitimeras med hänvisning till en naturlig ontologisk ordning.…”

Critical Realism, Gender and Feminism: Exchanges, Challenges, Synergies

“…As Griffith's article illustrates, queer theorists tend to see the existence of both intersex and trans persons as evidence of the indeterminacy of biological sex. Critical realists, instead, have sought to retain the notion of a structuring biological foundation, interpreting the diversity of gender expressions not as something that undermines structuredness but as something that demonstrates that (relative) structuredness can co-exist with (relative) variety and irregularity (Hull 2006;Gunnarsson 2013Gunnarsson , 2014.…”