Synopses & Reviews
This book explores how activists around the world have organized to fight for their economic and social rights and well-being, to end violence against women and militarism, to promote sexual and reproductive rights, and to protect bodily integrity in the face of the new biotechnologies. Seeing the body as a fluid site of power and political contestation where specific cultural, social and economic realities and struggles are played out, Harcourt looks at body politics from the intimate and personal within self, family and community to the public at national and global levels and discourses.
Using narrative, interview, analysis and theory to bring out the importance of different facets of body politics, this accessible book translates feminist and development discourse into vitally relevant material for all those interested in human rights and social justice.
Synopsis
Practicing Feminist Political Ecologies explores the latest thinking on feminist political ecology. Included is a collective critique of the green economy,” an analysis of the post-Rio+20 UN conference debates, and a nuanced study of the impact that the current ecological and economic crisis will have on a diverse range of women and their communities. By including such well-known contributors as Dianne Rocheleau, Catherine Walsh, and Christa Wichterich, along with an upcoming generation of new activist scholars, it fills the gap in the literature on the relationship between the environment and gender.
This timely and important book launches the Zed Books Gender, Development and Environment series and puts feminist political ecology securely on the map, making it an important new contribution to environmental studies.
Synopsis
Body Politics in Development sets out to define body politics as a key political and mobilizing force for human rights in the last two decades. This passionate and engaging book reveals how once-tabooed issues, such as rape, gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive rights, have emerged into the public arena as critical grounds of contention and struggle.
Engaging in the latest feminist thinking and action, the book describes the struggles around body politics for people living in economic and socially vulnerable communities and covers a broad range of gender and development issues, including fundamentalism, sexualities and new technologies, from diverse viewpoints. The book's originality comes through the author's rich experience and engagement in feminist activism and global body politics and was winner of the 2010 FWSA Book Prize.
About the Author
Wendy Harcourt is a feminist researcher and activist working at the Society for International Development in Rome, Italy, as senior advisor and chief editor of the quarterly journal Development.
Table of Contents
Figures | Acknowledgements
Introduction: are we ‘green’ yet? And the violence of asking
such a question
Wendy Harcourt and Ingrid L. Nelson
SECTION ONE Positioning feminist political ecology
1 A situated view of feminist political ecology from my networks,
roots and territories
Dianne Rocheleau
2 Contesting green growth, connecting care, commons and
enough
Christa Wichterich
3 Life, nature and gender otherwise: feminist reflections and
provocations from the Andes
Catherine Walsh
SECTION TWO Rethinking feminist political ecology
4 Feminist political ecology and the (un)making of ‘heroes’:
encounters in Mozambique
Ingrid L. Nelson
5 Hegemonic waters and rethinking natures otherwise
Leila M. Harris
6 Challenging the romance with resilience: communities, scale
and climate change
Andrea J. Nightingale
SECTION THREE Living feminist political ecology
7 A new spelling of sustainability: engaging feminist-environmental
justice theory and practice
Giovanna Di Chiro
8 The slips and slides of trying to live feminist political ecology
Wendy Harcourt
9 Knowledge about, knowledge with: dilemmas of researching
lives, nature and genders otherwise
Larissa Barbosa da Costa, Rosalba Icaza and Angélica María
Ocampo Talero
10 World-wise otherwise stories for our endtimes: conversations
on queer ecologies
Wendy Harcourt, Sacha Knox and Tara Tabassi
Contributors
Index