WEGO-ITN publications 2018-2022

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS AND OUTPUTS

ESR-publications-and-outputs.pdf

×

 

You can find the full list of WEGO-ITN articles in journals here (pdfs).

To see the full list of WEGO-ITN’s conference presentations, click on the respective years: 2019 – 2020 – 2021 – 2022

WEGO-ITN books can be seen here.

Forthcoming 2022-2023

2022

Books

2022-Book-Feminist-Methodologies.pdf

×
Articles

Padmanabhan, M., Dinkelaker, S., Hoffmann, M., Laksmana, D., Maimunah, S., Rudakova, E., Still, E., Trotier, F., (2022), ‘Principles of Critical Development Studies: A Minifesto‘. Asien

Videos

Irene Leonardelli, Eunice Wangari, Nick Bourguignon, Siti Maimunah, Marlene Becerra, ‘Unheard voices: feminist political ecology and the invisibilized stories of social change‘, 2022

Multimedia

Elmhirst, R., Owen, A., Ekowati, D., Hoover, E. and Maimunah, S. (2019-2022), Extracting Us-website.

Interviews

Siti Maimunah, ‘Tubuh Tanah Air’, Inside Indonesia, 16 April 2022

2021

Books

Daniela Allocca, Nicola Capone, Gaia Del Giudice, Nina Ferrante, Ilenia Iengo, Giuseppe Orlandini, Roberto Sciarelli, Daniele Valisen (2021), “TRAME – Pratiche e saperi per un’ecologia politica situata“, Tame Edizione.

Articles

2021-Journal-Practices-of-Care-in-Times-of-COVID-19.pdf

×

Covid-in-Rural-India-Algeria-and-Morocco.pdf

×

Lyla Mehta, Wendy Harcourt (2021) “Beyond limits and scarcity: Feminist and decolonial contributions to degrowth“, Political Geography, 102411

Wendy Harcourt, Irene Leonardelli, Enid Still,  Anna Voss, “Degrowth and Feminist Political Ecology and Decoloniality: Some reflections by the Wellbeing Ecology Gender and cOmmunities (WEGO) innovation training network“, DEVISSUES, vol. 23, n. 2, November 2021.

Siti Maimunah “Krisis Tidak Direspon dengan Pemulihan Tapi Diperdagangkan”, Siej.or.id, November 2021, (in Indonesian).

Elia Apostolopoulou & Panagiota Kotsila (2021) “Community gardening in Hellinikon as a resistance struggle against neoliberal urbanism: spatial autogestion and the right to the city in post-crisis Athens”, Greece, Urban Geography. (Aknowledgment)

Marlene Gómez Becerra and Esteban Gómez Becerra (2021) “Resistencia a la pandemia en el contexto del estrés hídrico en la Ciudad de México”, Ecología Política #62. Cuadernos de debate internacional

Glynn T, Maimunah S. “Unearthing conscious intent in women’s everyday resistance to mining in Indonesia”. Ethnography. August 2021. doi:10.1177/14661381211039372

Siti Maimunah; Sarah Agustiorini (2021), ‘Durian und die Kolonialität der Macht (Teil I)‘, Südostasien

Siti Maimunah; Sarah Agustiorini (2021), ‘Durian und die Kolonialität der Macht (Teil II)‘, Südostasien

Ankita Shrestha (2021), ‘When honesty is not the best policy: the ethical dilemma of sharing research findings‘, Undisciplined Environment.

Wendy Harcourt, Irene Leonardelli, Enid Still and Anna Voss (2021), ‘Degrowth and Feminist Political Ecology and Decoloniality: Reflections from the WEGO network‘, Undisciplined Environment

Eunice Wangari, (2021), ‘Gender and climate change adaptation responses in Kenya“, Institute of Development Studies.

Enid Still (2021), ‘Gunda, Babe and Val Plumwood: on Communicative Status, Ethical Relations with the More-than-human and Being Food‘, Undisciplined Environment

Interviews

Siti Maimunah for Mongabay Indonesia, “COP26 Tengah Berlangsung, Bagaimana Langkah Indonesia?“, November 2021. (In Indonesian)

Siti Maimunah for IndoProgress TV, “Wawancara IndoProgress: Krisis Iklim di Indonesia”, November 2021. (In Indonesian). Wawancara IndoProgress: Krisis Iklim di Indonesia – YouTube, Wawancara IndoProgress: Krisis Iklim di Indonesia – IndoProgress | Podcast on Spotify, Sejarah Perubahan Iklim adalah Sejarah Sistem Kapitalis – IndoPROGRESS

Siti Maimunah, Salsabilla Khoirunnisa, “‘Kita Butuh Perubahan Sistem, Bukan Perubahan Iklim’ – Project Multatuli, projectmultatuli.org, November 2021.

Conference papers

Becerra, M., (2021) ‘Violencias y Desigualdades en El Trabajo Delhogar Remunerado: El Testimonio de Mi Abuela‘, Conferencia Interamericana de Seguridad Social

Videos

Marlene Gómez, Dian Ekowati, Enid Still, Anna Katharina Voss, John Akerman, “Lecture by Prof. Katherine Gibson on Feminist Political Ecology“, 22 Mar 2021.

Marlene Gómez, Dian Ekowati, Enid Still, Anna Katharina Voss, John Akerman, “Situated knowledges. What does Feminist Political Ecology mean to us?“, 22 Mar 2021.

Marlene Gómez, Dian Ekowati, Enid Still, Anna Katharina Voss, John Akerman, “Who cares? Debating multiple feminist perspectives on care“, 22 Mar 2021.

Marlene Gómez, Dian Ekowati, Enid Still, Anna Katharina Voss, John Akerman, “What is our research about? Presenting WEGO-ITN’s PhD projects“, 22 Mar 2021.

Andrea Nightingale, Karin Hueck, “6 Common Mistakes in Writing Academic Journal Articles“, 4 May 2021.

Andrea Nightingale, Karin Hueck, “7 Tips for Writing Academic Journal Articles“, 4 May 2021.

Feminist Political Ecology Dialogues on Rethinking Food 1-2 July 2021: https://www.digital.uni- passau.de/en/stories/2021/wego-itn-fpe-dialogues/ 

Podcasts

Karin Hueck, “The Feminist Political Ecology Podcast“, Spotify, Soundcloud, 2021  

 

Multimedia

Enid Still, Irene Leonardelli, Arianna Tozzi, Sneha Malani, “Troubling Waterscapes“, online exhibition.

2020

Books

Dupuis, C., Harcourt, W., and Gaybor Tobar, J (ongoing, ed.), Feminist methodologies – experience, and reflection in the series ‘Gender, Development and Social Change’, London: Palgrave.

Maimunah, S.‘Doing’ PhD research in the Global South: ethicalities of care, reciprocity and reflexivity, by Maimunah, S., Still, E., and Milora, C. (UEA) first draft research ethics sponsored by EADI.

Resurrección, B. P., & Elmhirst, R. (2020). Negotiating Gender Expertise in Environment and Development: Voices from Feminist Political Ecology (p. 272). Taylor & Francis. Available December 21, 2020: https://www.routledge.com/Negotiating-Gender-Expertise-inEnvironment-and-Development-Voices-from/Resurreccion-Elmhirst/p/book/9780815386124

By Routledge
Chapters in books

Nightingale, A. and Harcourt, W. , ‘Gender, nature, body’ for the Handbook on Critical Agrarian Studies.

Padmanabhan, M. , Affects affecting feminist family fieldwork – staying collaboration troubled in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In: Harcourt, W. ed. Feminist methodologies – experience, and reflection in the series ‘Gender, Development and Social Change’.

Sato, C. and Tufour, T.. Migrant women’s labour: sustaining livelihoods through diverse economic practices in Accra, Ghana. In: Gibson-Graham, J. K. and Dombroski, K. eds. The Handbook of Diverse Economies. Cheltenham: Elgar Publishing.

Articles

2020-Journal-Reflecting-on-the-ethics-of-PhD-research-in-the-Global-South.pdf

×

Kotsila, P., Hörschelmann, K., Anguelovski, I., Sekulova, F., Lazova, Y., ‘Clashing temporalities of care and support as key determinants of transformatory and justice potentials in urban gardens’, Cities.

Elmhirst, R. (2020) Dimensions of Political Ecology Annual Conference, February 2020. University of Kentucky, USA. Opening address on Beyond Handbook Tyrannies: disciplining the practice of Feminist Political Ecology.

Yousefpour, R., Nakamura, N., & Matsumura, N. (2020). Forest Management Approaches for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: a Comparison Between Germany and Japan. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 39(6), 635-653.

Maimunah, S., Uriep, M. (2020) “Business as usual” im Kohle-Revier“,  Südostasien, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/soa.2020.1.11407

Südostasien

Siti Maimunah and Sarah Agustiorini (2020), ‘From the commons to extractivism and back: The story of Mahakam River in Indonesia‘, Hypothesis

Enid Still, Sandeep Kumar, Irene Leonardelli and Arianna Tozzi (2020), ‘A pandemic of blindness: uneven experiences of rural communities under COVID-19 lockdown in India‘, Undisciplined Environment.

Gustavo García-López, Irene Leonardelli and Emanuele Fantini (2020), ‘Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: From extractivism to commoning‘, Undisciplined Environment

Conference/Workshop papers

Voss, A. K., Harcourt, W., and de Nooijer, R , ‘Relations of care: ethical food production in Flevoland, The Netherlands and Tuscia, Italy’, paper to be presented at the Sixth Annual Conference of the World-Ecology Research Network, Bonn, Germany, 28-30 July 2020.

Maimunah, Siti (2020) Co presenter with Tracy Glynn (University of New Brunswick Canada) at European Association of Social Anthropologis (EASA) Conference, Lisboa 2020, “No One Can Say the Karonsi’e Dongi Were Not Here”: A Photovoice Study of Gendered Resistance to Mining in Indonesia, 22-26 July 2020. https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easa2020/paper/53165

Wendy Harcourt, Irene Leonardelli, Enid Still and Anna Voss (2021), ‘Degrowth and Feminist Political Ecology and Decoloniality: Some reflections by the Wellbeing Ecology Gender and cOmmunities (WEGO) innovation training network’.

Videos

Iengo, Ilenia (2020) Presentation of the Rural feminism collective “tutte giù per terra” for the Radio Iafue Perlaterra broadcast. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=374882170519780&ref=watch_permalink

Kotsila, Panagiota (2020) Què es l’ecofeminisme? (in Spanish). Interview @ Diari de Barcelona.

Maimunah, Siti (2020) A presenter at Webinar of Business and Technology Institute of Ahmad Dahlan Jakarta: Fishersfolk and Farmer in COVID-19 Situation, Who Care? 16 May 2020. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=292906565205431&ref=watch_permalink

Maimunah, Siti (2020) Participating in the Women Movement 2020 to Demand Justice for Women Raped in 1998 by reading a poem, in the minutes: 8.16 – 9. 42, 16 May 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qekFKjXiHY

Maimunah, Siti (2020) Co-reading a poem at Resister dialogue Cultural Night to celebrate Human Women Right Defender in South East Asia, 29 November 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhzQaLa0tds

Nakamura, Nanako (2020), ‘Multispecies commoning in aging rural Japan. A postcapitalist feminist political ecology’s perspective’, ‘Postcapitalist Feminist Approaches to Commons and Commoning in Rural India and Japan‘, Presentation at CERN online conference LiViAnA, November 2020.

Voss, Anna Katharina (2020) ‘Relations of Care. Ethics and Food Production in Europe’ by Rosa de Nooijer, Wendy Harcourt and myself presented at the Degrowth Vienna and Future For All conferences 2020.

Mainunah, Siti (2020), ‘Climate Controversies in SEA: Gender and Struggles over Coal in Indonesia‘, Stiftung Asienhaus.

Multimedia

Elmhirst, R., Owen, A., Ekowati, D., Hoover, E. and Maimunah, S. (2019-202s), Extracting Us-website.

Maimunah, S., Ekowati, D., Hoover, E., Owen. A. and Elmhirst, R. (2021), ‘Extracting Us – Extraction: Tracing the Veins’, Pollen PERC -Massey University.

Alice Owen, (2020), ‘Extracting Us’ Exhibition and Conversation Launches Online

Interviews

Iengo, Ilenia (2020) Interviewed Simona Lanzoni from Pangea Onlus and Stefania Prandi journalist, together with Anna Voss on the issue of violence against women in rural contexts for the radio programme Tutte giù per terra, part of the Radio Iafue Perlaterra broadcast: https://iafue.perlaterra.net/cassetta-attrezzi/tutte-giu-perterra-la-rubrica-delle-donne-contadine-3/

Iengo, Ilenia (2020) Interviewed Stefania Barca on the Care Income Campaign for the Non una di Meno radio programme. https://www.mixcloud.com/NAPOLINUDM/le-scappate-di-casa-31-maggio-6a-puntata/

2018-2019

Articles

Clement, F., Harcourt, W., Joshi, D., and Sato, C. 2019, ‘Feminist political ecologies of the commons and commoning’, International Journal of the Commons,vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 1–15, https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/articles/10.18352/ijc.972/.

Elmhirst, R. 2018 ‘Ecologías políticas feministas: perspectivas situadas y abordajes emergentes [Feminist Political Ecologies – Situated Perspectives, Emerging Engagements] Ecologia Politica,No.54. Special Issue on Ecofeminism (“Ecofeminismos”), https://www.ecologiapolitica.info/?p=10162.

Nightingale, A. J., Lenaerts, L., Shrestha, A., Lama ‘Tsumpa’, P.N., Ojha, H.R. 2019, ‘The material politics of citizenship: struggles over resources, authority, and belonging, in the new Federal Republic of Nepal’. In:The special issue on Social and Political Transformation in Nepal, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies,vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 886-902, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00856401.2019.1639111.

Gerber, J.F. 2020, ‘Degrowth and critical agrarian studies’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol 47, issue 2, pp 235-264, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2019.1695601

Akbulut, B., Demaria, F. Gerber, J.F., Martinez-Alier, J. 2019, ‘Theoretical and political journeys between environmental justice and degrowth: what potential for an alliance?’ Ecological Economics.

Harcourt W. ‘Feminist political ecology practices of worlding: art, commoning and the politics of hope in the classroom’, International Journal of the Commons,vol. 13, no 1: 153–174, https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/articles/10.18352/ijc.929/.

Sato, C., Alarcon, J. M.S. 2019, ‘Toward a postcapitalist feminist political ecology’s approach to the commons and commoning’, International Journal of the Commons,vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 36-61,https://www.thecommonsjournal.org/articles/10.18352/ijc.933/.

Leonardelli, I. (2019), ‘Between drought and monsoon: the embodied hardship of seasonal work in Maharashtra’s sugar cane plantations‘, Entitle Blog. Alice Owen, Anna Voss, Constance Dupuis and Nick Bourguignon, (2019), ‘Summer School Bolsena: Notes from a Feminist Writing Retreat’, Undisciplined Environment

Books

Baudhardt, C. and Harcourt, W. (eds.) 2019, Feminist Political Ecology and the Economics of Care. In Search of Economic Alternatives.Routledge, London. ISBN: 9781138123663.

towards a political economy of degrowth

Chertkovskaya, E., Paulsson, A. and Barca, S. (eds.) 2019, Towards a Political Economy of Regrowth. Rowman & Littlefield International. ISBN: 9781786608956

Nightingale, A.J. (ed.) 2019, Environment and Sustainability in a Globalising World. Routledge.  ISBN 9780765646446

Harcourt, W. and Nelson, I.R. (eds.) 2015, Practising Feminist Political Ecologies: Moving Beyond the ‘Green Economy. Zed Books ISBN 9781783600885

Book reviews

Gómez Becerra, M., Bauhardt, C. and Harcourt, W. (eds.) 2019 Feminist political ecology and the economics of care. In:Search of economic alternatives. Oxon/New York: Routledge, 2019. – 298 pp., ISBN: 978-1138123663. Germany: Published in the intern bulletin of the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, https://www.gender.hu-berlin.de/de/publikationen/gender-bulletin-broschueren/bulletin-info/info-59/bulletin-59-finale-gesamtdatei-deckblatt.pdf,pp.74-79.

Papers presented in conferences

Mehta, L. 2019, ‘Keynote speaker: Climate change, uncertainty and the city: challenges and opportunities for transdisciplinary co-production and transformation’, paper presented at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, 17 October 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnIpPts-gs.

Dupuis, C., and Harcourt, W. 2019, ‘Care and the commons in troubling times: confronting whiteness’,paper presented at the European Conference on Politics and Gender, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 4-6 July 2019.

Mehta, L. 2019, ‘: Keynote speaker: The Political Ecology of climate change, uncertainty and transformation in marginal environments’, paper presented at the Political Ecology in Asia conference, Bangkok, Thailand, 11 October 2019, https://www.csds-chula.org/announcement/2019/9/25/full-agenda-political-ecology-in-asia-plural-knowledge-and-contested-development-in-a-more-than-human-world-bangkok-10-11-october-2019.

Sato, C. and Bergeron, S. 2019, ‘Rethinking the socio-ecological relations of care and commoning: engaging Feminist Political Ecology and Feminist Global Political Economy approaches to social reproduction’, paper presented at the European Conference of Politics and Gender, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 4-6 July 2019.

Still, E. 2019, ‘Beyond networks and chains, towards webs of relation: food, belonging and care in the city’, paper presented at the RC21 Delhi: Informal networks, urban coalitions and governance in South Asia, New Delhi, India, 18-22 September 2019.

Shrestha, A. 2019, ‘Nation without government: how is governing achieved in Nepal?’, paper presented at the sixth annual Governance at the Edge of the State Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 28-30 August 2019.

Bulletin

Sarah Agustio & Siti Maimunah, ‘Antara Kampret, Karst, Karbon dan Politik Gang’, Article on Mongabay

Siti Maimunah, ‘Menjaga Komuning, Praktik Kelola Air Komunal di Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat’, Article on Mongabay

 

Final Report: Diálogos Transatlânticos

This is the final report based on the series of talks and events which happened on November 4th, Ecología Política Feminista y Ciudades Visibles: Diálogos Transatlânticos.

La Ecología Política Feminista se sustenta intelectual y metodológicamente en un enfoque de abajo hacia arriba para explorar y comprometerse con problemas socio-ambientales de carácter global pero también inherentemente local, prestando atención a las voces y reclamos de grupos y subjetividades tradicionalmente subrepresentados, marginados y oprimidos (por ejemplo mujeres, personas racializadas, inmigrantes o LGBTIQ).

Al mismo tiempo se propone un cambio de mirada desde un enfoque centrado en el ser humano a uno que va más allá de lo humano. Empleando conceptos como interseccionalidad y encarnación, la EPF plantea una mirada renovada sobre cómo las socionaturalezas y los metabolismos se forman a través de relaciones de poder que penetran en el cuerpo, la comunidad y la ciudad de múltiples formas interconectadas y que involucran a grupos situados de manera diferente. La EPF nos invita a ampliar nuestra comprensión prestando atención a las experiencias cotidianas cargadas de significado a través de un lente interseccional y le da la bienvenida a la conexión de la teoría y la praxis a través de puentes entre la academia, los gobiernos, las instituciones de formulación de políticas y las organizaciones de activistas.

Con el fin de debatir en torno a este concepto y aportar a su construcción colectiva, WEGO-ITN organizó varios diálogos, tanto virtuales como presenciales.

Los Diálogos recogidos en esta publicación tuvieron lugar el 4 de noviembre de 2021 en formato híbrido. Varios y varias participantes se encontraron de manera presencial en Barcelona y se sumaron participantes de diversos países de América Latina en formato virtual.

Relatoria_CiudadesVivibles-1.pdf

×

FPE Dialogues Italy: a six-episode radio show

Introduction 

In the summer of 2020, half a year into the pandemic, a group of women coming from different political experiences and life paths working and living in Italy decided to come together as a rural feminism collective called Tutte Giù Per Terra and learn autonomoulsy how to organize, host and record several radio episodes. Anna Katharina Voss, Ilenia Iengo, Irene Leonardelli are PhD students and Stefania Barca mentor in the WEGO-ITN project, Miriam Corongiu is a farmer, Maddalena Cualbu a shepherd and Katya Madio a teacher. We gathered weekly to discuss topics, news, share experiences in order to build a collective knowledge upon which we planned our episodes. 

Radio shows were again very popular since the beginning of the pandemic, which reduced the spaces to encounter and discuss in person, but allowed for new and old methods of dissemination and organising to bloom. We sought the opportunity to participate in a radio channel called Radio iafue per la terra, an information and dissemination project run by Alleanza sociale per la sovranità alimentare, an Italian movement bringing together farmers and farm workers for food sovereignty. 

Picture: Irene Leonardelli

This is how we started the FPE dialogues in Italy, shaping them around 6 radio episodes, where the collective Tutte Giù Per Terra aimed to create a space for encounters of different grassroots experiences that engage with agroecology, women and LGBTQIA+ self-determination in rural areas, ecofeminist struggles against environmental contamination and neoliberal processes in the rural world and alliances across rural and urban feminisms. We intended to reach a public of alternative agricultural networks, undergraduate and graduate students and activists engaged in Political Ecology and transfeminism across the country.

We propose below the recording of these six radio episodes (all in Italian) with a short summary in English indicating the speakers and the main topics discussed. With this experience we grew collectively from the internal discussions, preparation and organisation, and we acquired editorial and hosting skills for radio shows. We aimed to share and amplify knowledge in the fields of feminism and agriculture/rurality in Italy, especially regarding alternative agricultural practices and political networks working on commons, depatriarchization of practices and environmental violence.

Yet the FPE Dialogues in Italy did not only involve online conversations through the different radio episodes. At the end of September 2021, some of us physically met in Naples to learn more about each other’s work and strengthen our collaboration. In particular, Ilenia, Irene and Stefania spent an afternoon with Miriam Corongiu at her Orto Conviviale, the farming project that she manages just outside of Naples, where she also lives. As activists and researchers in the Land of Fires (La Terra dei Fuochi), Ilenia, Stefania and Miriam have known each other and worked together for a long time. Instead, Irene, who is from the North of Italy and currently lives in the Netherlands, met Miriam for the first time. 

We walked around the farm admiring the plants and trees that Miriam (together with her husband and daughter) is growing. We sat together and listened to Miriam’s experience about what it means to be a woman farmer in the Land of Fires. We discussed the strength of her work as a political project. We shared experiences and stories of other women farmers involved in agroecological projects in different places where we have lived and worked (India, north of Italy, Spain, Romania). We talked about the struggles and the joys that come from farming a land with attention to preserving traditional seeds and trees and learning from traditional practices, taking care of the soil, the water and cherishing the harvest each season. Miriam’s Orto Conviviale represents a place of resistance and struggle in the midst of a land that keeps burning. It is also a place of conviviality and sharing where local women meet to buy fruit and vegetables but also to sit together and discuss, share experiences, do politics.

Picture: Irene Leonardelli

Learning from Miriam’s project while being there in person, enjoying the delicious food she prepared with all her harvest, was incredibly inspiring to reflect on what it means to actually practice feminist political ecology and on the importance of farming collaborations blurring the binaries between research and activism and urban and rural socio-ecological spaces. We hope that the FPE Dialogues in Italy, and all the conversations we fostered through and beyond the radio programmes, will continue to flourish in this direction….

Watch – and listen to – the full episodes here:

Episode 1 – An introduction to rural and peasant feminisms

Episode 2 – A dialogue on feminism and care for the territory with Comunità rurale diffusa

Episode 3 – A dialogue on patriarchal violence in agriculture with Simona Lanzoni and Stefania Prandi

Episode 4 – A dialogue on the restanza movement in Irpinia with Maria Laura Amendola

Episode 5 – A dialogue on farmers protests in India with Irene Leonardelli and Arianna Tozzi

Episode 6 – A dialogue on the 8M feminist strike and territorial resistances

New open-access book by WEGO-team: “Feminist Methodologies”

We are happy to announce the publication of the new (and completely open-access) book “Feminist Methodologies”, a collaborative work by WEGO-ITN’s coordinator Wendy Harcourt, our early-stage researcher Constance Dupuis, and colleagues Karijn van den Berg and Jacqueline Gaybor. The book, edited by Palgrave Macmillan, is part of the Gender, Development and Social Change series and gives insights into feminist methodologies both in theory and practice.

Since its launch, on February 5th, the book has found a – very – warm welcome among academics, students and feminist theorists, with more than 11,000 downloads in less that 48 hours.

“It is so exciting that Feminist Methodologies has had 11K downloads in such a short time! It shows there is an audience hungry for valuable tools  for navigating feminist theory and practice in creative ways. Digital feminist spaces are expanding in ways I could have hardly imagined when we first began the book at a wonderful retreat on the shores of Lago di Bolsena”, said prof. Harcourt.

The project, as highlighted by prof. Harcourt, began in 2019 at Bolsena, Italy, as part as a feminist scholar writing retreat. Participants were from feminist circles at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and the Well-being, Ecology, Gender and cOmmunity – Innovation Training Network (WEGO-ITN). Between writing sessions and discussion groups on ethnography, intersectionality, slow scholarship and intimacy, participants used the retreat as an opportunity to connect with the more than human: by going for walks, enjoying the blue waters of the lake, eating, drawing and sketching.

Emerging from a rich collective learning process, the collection offers in-depth reflections on how feminists shape research questions, understand positionality, share research results beyond academe and produce feminist intersectional knowledges. This book reveals how the authors navigate theory and practice, candidly exploring the difficulty of producing knowledge on the edge of academia and activism. From different points of view, places and disciplinary positions, artistic and creative experiments and collaborations, the book provides a multi-layered analysis. This book will be a valuable resource and asset to early career researchers and interdisciplinary feminist students who can learn more about the doing of feminist research from realistic, accessible, and practical methodological tools and knowledge.

“Feminist Methodologies”

You can download the book here.

We are also excited to hear more from readers. Have you read it yet? Then drop us a message – or just tweet about it!

 

 

New article: “Durian und die Kolonialität der Macht”

This article was originally published in Südostasien: Zeitschrift für Politik, Kultur, Dialog, in German. You can read the full text here.

Die Kulturen Südostasiens beeinflusst sie seit Jahrtausenden, doch in der westlichen Welt kennt man sie erst seit rund 600 Jahren: Die Durian-Frucht. Die in Südostasien und Südasien mit spezieller Verehrung bedachte ‚Königsfrucht’ wurde in der Kolonialzeit zum Objekt der Phantasien westlicher Forscher*innen und Abenteurer*innen. Ihre Aufzeichnungen zeigen, wie der ‚ferne Osten’ seinerzeit als gefährliches, wildes und primitives Gebiet wahrgenommen wurde, welches bezwungen, gezähmt und modernisiert werden musste. Der außergewöhnliche Reichtum seiner Natur machte den ‚fernen Osten’ zur kolonialen Frontlinie in einem Kampf, dessen Ziel die Unterwerfung von Natur und Kultur darstellte.

Zwar endete die Kolonialherrschaft Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Doch der Traum von der Modernität verschwand nicht aus den ehemaligen Kolonien. Die neuen Nationalstaaten setzten die westliche Betrachtungsweise und Praxis fort, in der Fortschritt in Form von Wirtschaftswachstum gemessen wurde. Der peruanische Soziologe Anibal Quijano bezeichnete die Tatsache, dass auch nach dem Verschwinden der Bürokratie der Besatzer eine koloniale Logik das Regierungshandeln prägt, als „Kolonialität der Macht“.

Entsprechend René Descartes Leitspruch „Cogito, ergo sum“, stellt sich der Mensch als denkendes und sprechendes Wesen ins Zentrum der Schöpfung und verneint alle anderen Wesen, die nicht denken und nicht sprechen. Dieser Artikel versucht, die Kolonialität der Macht in Indonesien am Beispiel der Durian aufzuzeigen und damit einen Ansatz der Dekolonisierung anzubieten, der zu einem sozialen und ökologischen Handeln führen kann, das auf Gerechtigkeit basiert.

You can read the full text here.

New article: “Practices of Care in Times of COVID-19”

Our researchers Marlene Gómez Becerra and Eunice Muneri-Wangari published a paper on “Frontiers in Human Dynamics”: Practices of Care in Times of COVID-19. They also explained how this publication came into being:

“We saw in this health crisis the ideal scenario for rethinking and listening to other forms of life and to recognize diverse practices of care that can work as a vehicle of social change. Questioning these practices motivated us to write this paper”

 

Abstract:

We argue that the COVID-19 virus has been a trigger for emerging practices of care by being an actor with agency that transforms the everyday life of subjects by placing them under uncertainty. Therefore, this paper aims to show how practices of care emerged or were maintained as vulnerable groups were confronted by restrictions to movement and uncertainties following the outbreak of COVID-19. We demonstrate this using two case studies of the Maasai pastoral community in Narok, Kenya and the community kitchens in the city of Berlin, Germany. Thus, we seek to show how practices of care for, care about, and care with are carried out by the members of these communities during pandemic times. Granted that care remains highly contentious in feminist literature, this paper contributes to a growing body of literature on care in Feminist Political Ecology by broadening the conceptualization of care. The research builds on a typology of care relations based on practices of distribution, exchange, and reciprocity. This allows us to show when care is exercised in a unidirectional and hierarchical way and when in a multidirectional way reinforcing social bonds of responsibility and collective care that transcends the socio-nature boundaries.

The article is Open Access and you can read the full paper here.

New article: ‘Beyond limits and scarcity: Feminist and decolonial contributions to degrowth’

WEGO-ITN partner Prof. Dr. Lyla Mehta and WEGO-ITN coordinator, Prof. Dr. Wendy Harcourt, have released a new article in Political Geography, which is now available in open access.

Read the first paragraphs below and find the full text here.

We welcome this opportunity to participate in this important dialogue between political ecology and degrowth. We bring to this debate two issues: (1) perspectives on limits and scarcity, and (2) the histories and knowledges of feminist political ecology and decolonial feminism as a way of enriching degrowth’s political grammar and strategies.

Robbins and Gómez-Baggethun, citing Mehta’s The Limits to Scarcity (2010), both refer to the political ecology take on scarcity as a ‘construct that is allied with elite power, not emancipatory process’. It is important to note that Mehta and her collaborators draw not just on political ecology but also on non-equilibrium ecology, heterodox economics, political philosophy and anthropology to question scarcity’s taken-for-granted nature. Scarcity rarely takes place due to the natural order of things. It is the result of exclusion and unequal gender, social and power relations that legitimize skewed access to, and control over, finite and limited resources. As such, scarcity is a relational concept connected to market forces of demand and supply. This does not mean that scarcity is merely a social construct or only the result of power and politics. As argued in Mehta (2010), there are biophysical realities concerning falling groundwater levels, melting ice caps and declining soil fertility, and these biophysical limits need to be acknowledged. However, biophysical limits should not be used to deploy universal and blanket notions of scarcity that deny how women and men (especially the poorest and powerless among them) in specific localities perceive and experience scarcity. So-called limits and thresholds will always be perceived and experienced differently by different actors (cf. Luks, 2010). This means we need to discursively unpack what is meant by scarcity.

 

New book: “Forces of Reproduction”

“In May 2011, Zé Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espirito Santo, nut collectors and members of the agroforestry project (Projeto Agro-Extractivista, PAE) of Praialta Piranheira in the Brazilian Amazon, were brutally murdered as a consequence of their engagement in protecting the forest from illegal logging and timber trafficking (Milanez, 2015). Making a living from a non-exploitative and regenerative relationship with the forest, and passionate about the defence of the rights of both Amazonia and its people, Maria and Zé Claudio’s deaths are among the number of earth defenders whose lives are being taken, year after year, for opposing the infinite expansion of global economic growth (Global Witness, 2017; Martínez-Alier, 2002). But their lives and labour belongto an even wider class, which Ariel Salleh (2010) has called the global meta-industrial labour class, made up of those less-than-humanized (racialized, feminized, dispossessed) subjects who reproduce humanity by taking care of the biophysical environment that makes life itself possible. I call them the forces of reproduction: they keep the world alive, yet their environmental agency goes largely unrecognized in mainstream narratives of that epoch of catastrophic earth-system changes that scientists have called the Anthropocene.”

This is how WEGO-ITN’s partner, Prof. Dr. Stefania Barca, begins her new book, “Forces of Reproduction“. She presented her publication today at an online seminar attended by 50 people, organised by Environmental Justice project.
“This book is a provocation. I want to challenge the so-called ‘master’s narrative’ on climate, the ‘green economy’ discourse, which is consistent with neoliberal practice and which sees nature as an investment opportunity”, said Prof. Barca at the seminar. “Zé Claudia and Maria are part of the non-hegemonic view. They are not victims of economic growth, they are agents of a counter-hegemonic power, in a ecofeminist sense.”

In the second part of the book, Prof. Barca also highlighted how the hegemonic view of the Anthropocene denied the possibility of existing different versions of modernity, by denying colonial relations, sex and gender relations, class relations and interspecies relations in their narratives.

You can see the whole seminar on Environmental Justice’s Youtube Channel.

New essay: “Creating regenerative spaces of learning and unlearning”

WEGO-ITN’s coordinator, Prof. Dr. Wendy Harcourt, has published a new essay in hegoa – Institute for International Cooperation and Development Studies. Read the introduction, in English, here and access the full version at Hegoa’s hariak, January 2021 edition, in Spanish and in Basque.

 

“My point of departure for this essay on feminist pedagogy, is to begin with my discomfort in (dis)locating gender as a universal category, the imposition of gender and development through colonial history and how the western understanding of knowledge fractures and makes invisible other forms of being in community. Those three points of departure indicate the troubling nature of writing about privilege of race, age, class and gender when I write about the depatricarchalisation of knowledge and how my knowledge is embedded and embodied in a historical westerncentric understandings of gender, bodies and oppression. And to complicate the authorial voice further, I am constantly challenged by my complicity in systems of privilege. The essay builds on collective learning from years of actions and conversations with feminists, scholar activists and students and engagement in inspiring texts, films, videos and art that have introduced me to otherwise knowledges.

I write as a white settler antiracist feminist Australian who has lived in Europe since the late 1980s as a feminist advocate and writer on gender and critical development studies, and who more recently, has been teaching in an international post graduate institute in The Netherlands for nearly a decade. My contribution over the years has been mostly in popular
rather than academic writing, though I have now done my apprenticeship in the cut throat world of academic journals. I continue to write from the personal and from the experiential rather than the theoretical, though I am inspired by theoretical texts. I see myself in conversation with theory because theory helps me to puzzle out what I see as contested or
difficult.

My way of writing is to tell stories that have generated discomfort for me and to share with the reader what that discomfort can do to productively decentre the white masculine heteronormative experience as the only subject of knowledge. In taking up this invitation to discuss the depatriarchalization of knowledge through emancipatory education, experience and experiments, I will tell three stories that suggest how I have engaged in pedagogical practices otherwise.”

Read the full text here, in Spanish and in Basque.