ecofeminism

Ecofeminism As Politics: nature, Marx and the postmodern Ariel Salleh Zed Books March, 1998 Paperback ISBN: 1856494004

"In the search for sustainable futures, this book is written to destabilize eurocentric political discourses that construct humanity as separate from nature. That in turn, means interrogating conventional Marxist class analysis, focusing instead on a grouping that Ariel Salleh names "meta-industrial workers." These are housewives, peasants, indigenous peoples -- whose reproductive labors minimize risk and hold complex living systems together. Here ecofeminism is a politics embedded in specific skills and values-an "embodied materialism." At the psychological level, it is a politics energized by the painful contradictory identity of being both a human subject and a natural resource. This materialist epistemology silences old criticisms of ecofeminism as essentialist. Ecofeminism as a meta-industrial perspective, integrates our thinking about ecological, social justice, feminist, and indigenous concerns. This common denominator politics has been inspired by the author's experience as both activist and sociologist of knowledge. The text travels laterally through topics such as globalization and Green ideologies, gendered science and gene tech, aboriginal land rights, the population debate, critical reflections on neo-liberalism and on Marx's theory of value. Not surprisingly the book has found a home in environmental studies, history and philosophy of science, ethics, politics, sociology, cultural and women's studies. Social movement researchers will find it gives a broad brush history of a major grassroots resurgence." Source, and for more information:
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/twine/ecofem/ariel.html

Ariel Salleh (Australia) was a founding member of the Greens in Sydney, Australia in 1985 and is a long time activist in biodiversity conservation and water politics. An Associate Professor of Social Ecology at the University of Western Sydney, she serves on the Australian Federal Government's Gene Technology Ethics Committee and Environment & Society Research Committee of the International Sociological Association. She is currently on a fellowship at the Women's Studies Research Center, Amherst, USA. Salleh is author of "Ecofeminism as Politics: nature, Marx and the postmodern" (London: Zed Books, & New York: St Martins, 1997) and many journal articles bringing a critical gender lens to mainstream eco-political thought. See also "ecofeminists at work" - http://www.arielsalleh.net.

Ariel Salleh is among many other things, an international advisor to Women and Life on Earth:

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