Student: Marlene Guzman
Graduation date: May 2019
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved:
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Summary
My concentration explores the ways in which environmental movements are gendered and how this framing shapes grassroots efforts. Rootes (1999) states that environmental movements emerged to mobilize against new infrastructure developments such as roads, airports, high speed railways and waste treatment facilities. On the other hand, Guha (2000) argues that environmental movements emerged to protect against the degradation of cherished habitats and protest destructive technological practices. While he explores environmental movements in the context of global environmental history, I am particularly interested in exploring grassroots activism aimed at protesting against new infrastructure as well as the degradation of cherished habitats. Grassroots activism is typically made up of people who inhabit the areas of concern, it is often community and identity based (Rainey and Johnson 2009). Both men’s and women’s involvements in this form of activism can be influenced by their gender roles. Yet the manifestation of gender in environmental activism varies dramatically across different activist movement. As a result there is no single description of the role gender plays in shaping environmental activism (Gaard 2011, Agarwal 1992, 2001 Davion 1994). I wish to address how the nuance of gender identity in society shapes men’s and women’s engagement in environmental activism.
My aim is to focus on the intersections between gendered dynamics, socio-economic status as well as the political power structures across a global scale. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2013) argue that “gender builds on biological sex, but it exaggerates biological difference.” Language plays a role in this exaggeration, as Sunderland (2004) states, “language use shapes rather than reflects gender.” The gendered use of language is perpetuated by institutions such as the media, churches and political discourse as well as many social and verbal interactions. Gendered use of language can reinforce existing social power dynamics (Gal 1995); however, it can also be used as leverage in various forms of resistance.Women’s roles as mothers and laborers and their overall shared identity shapes their activist message (Bedolla 2005, Pardo 1990, Turner 1997), ultimately enabling women to mobilize community members.
The Chipko Movement is an environmental movement that occurred in the village of Reni in the Garhwal mountains Himalayan Range in India. In this movement men, women and children resisted against logging practices by acting as physical barriers. Peasants were mostly involved because they sought to protect the resources the forest provided for their agricultural and households needs (Guha and Martinez- Alier 1997). However, in many media outlets most of the attention was solely drawn to women’s involvement in this resistance movement, while men’s roles were not as heavily depicted. This is an interesting case study because it provides us with a direct example of the ways in which gender can be used as a leverage to strengthen and draw attention to activism. The key actors in this example are the women in the villages, whom are described to have resisted, Vandana Shiva who paints these depictions of these women in the media, as well as the Indian government who initiated these zoning practices (Salman et. al 2008). Guha (1989) criticizes Vandana Shiva and her work on this movement by arguing that she generalizes women’s experiences in this village, specifically through her use of Hindu cosmology. Instead Guha argues that this form of resistance was an already existent traditional form of peasant resistance and was not just one instance of gendered activism.
My second case study is in Ogoniland, Nigeria, where a campaign was organized to boycott the Shell oil company and the Nigerian dictator. In the 1970s Nigeria’s economic system was transformed when Shell and other international oil companies began to extract Nigeria’s oil resources. In an effort to fight back against this exploitation, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) was founded and under that the Federation of Ogoni Women’s Associations organized one of the largest demonstrations against oil companies in history. The major actors in this example are oil companies who are exposing the Ogoni people to health risks. The Nigerian Dictator who has allowed these companies to make use of this land as well as the male oil workers and the Ogoni women who have resisted against the companies practices. This example highlights different forms of gendered activism, allowing me to examine the role gender plays in shaping the way these individuals organized and engaged in environmental movements (Turner 1997).
My last example is Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA), a group established in 1985 in response to environmental injustices. MELA worked to construct an environmental movement rooted in values of connectedness, community and family. MELA organized after Gloría Molina, who became the California state assembly women in 1982, choose to inform Juana Beatrice Gutiérrez of the governor’s commission plan to build a state prison in her neighborhood. Juana Beatrice Gutiérrez, who was an active member of her community, took this knowledge to her community and urged individuals to mobilize. With the help of Father John Moretta from the Resurrection Church, Juana was able to organize meetings at various parishes, specifically Santa Isabel, Dolores Mission, and Talpa Church; at these meeting countless Latinas came to get involved in the movement. In this example environmental activism both manipulated the boundaries of “motherhood” and political engagement. The women involved were not all necessarily mothers, rather what united them was their shared interest in protecting their community. They used the title of Mothers to mobilize whole families and in turn the whole community. They also used this term as form of leverage because it evoked sentiments of sympathy and compassion as well as allowed them to garner a lot of attention from policy makers. Overall these women established a holistic movement that helped to legitimize the residents’ concerns about the proposed construction of a prison (Bedolla 2005, Pardo 1990).
Overall I aim to explore the role gender plays in shaping environmental activist movements, particularly grassroots activism.
Bibliography
Agarwal, Bina. 2001. “A Challenge for Ecofeminism: Gender, Greening and Community Forestry in India.” Women & Environments International 52/53: 12–15.
Agarwal, Bina. 1992. “The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India.” Feminist Studies 18(1): 119–59.
Davion, Victoria. 1994. “Is Ecofeminism Feminist?” In Ecological Feminism, ed. Karin J. Warren, 8–28. New York: Routledge
Eckert, Penelope., and McConnell-Ginet, Sally. Language and Gender. Second ed. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Gal, Susan. “Language, gender, and power.” Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self (1995): 170-182.
Gaard, Greta. 2011. “Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-Placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism.” Feminist Formations 23 (2): 26–53.1994.
García Bedolla, Lisa.2005.Fluid Borders Latino Power, Identity, and Politics in Los Angeles. Berkeley: U of California,Print.
Guha, Ramachandra. 2000. Environmentalism: A Global History. 1 edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Guha, Ramachandra., and Martínez Alier, Juan. Varieties of Environmentalism : Essays North and South. London: Earthscan Publications, 1997.
Pardo, Mary. 1990. “Mexican American Women Grassroots Community Activists: ‘Mothers of East Los Angeles.’” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 11 (1): 1–7.
Rainey, Shirley A., and Glenn S. Johnson. “Grassroots Activism: An Exploration of Women of Color’s Role in the Environmental Justice Movement.” Race, Gender & Class 16, no. 3/4 (2009): 144-73..
Rootes, Chris. Environmental Movements : Local, National, and Global. Environmental Politics ; v. 8, No. 1. London: Frank Cass, 1999.
Salman, Aneel, and Nuzhat Iqbal. 2007. “Ecofeminist Movements—from the North to the South [with Comments].” The Pakistan Development Review 46 (4): 853–64.
Sunderland, Jane. Gendered Discourses. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Turner, Teria E. 1997. “Oil Workers and Oil Communities in Africa: Nigerian Women and Grassroots Environmentalism.” Labour, Capital & Society 30 (1): 67–89.
Questions
Descriptive: How is grassroots activism gendered? How does gender affect activism differently depending on the socio-economic status of the activists and their opposition? In what sorts of situations does this gendered framing occur? What are the feminist discourses that are used in grassroots movements? What are the distinctions between these discourses (such as ecofeminism, feminist environmentalism)?
Explanatory: Why has grassroots activism been a form of resistance aimed at protesting new infrastructure as well as the degradation of cherished habitats? How are feminist discourses (such as ecofeminism, feminist environmentalism) employed to justify/critique these grassroots movements?
Evaluative: What are the costs and benefits of invoking gender in grassroots movements ? How might feminist discourses help or hinder the objectives of the activists? What are the intersections between gendered dynamics, socio-economic status as well as political power structures across a global scale? What role do decision makers play in shaping these gendered forms of activism?
Instrumental: How does gendered grassroots activism advance or impede a cause? How could some of the costs potentially evoked from misrepresentations of gendered grassroots activism be avoided?
Concentration courses
- ENVS 499 (Independent Study, 4 Credits) Fall 2017, Fall 2018. Before and after my study abroad trip to Senegal.
- SOAN 214 (Social Change, 4 Credits). This course will allow me to more closely examine social transitions, by specifically looking at crises that are caused by institutional forces and cultural formations. I will also learn more about migration, market forces, environmental forces, allowing my analysis of these movements to be more comprehensive.
- RHMS 321 (Argument and Social Justice, 4 Credits) To explore the ways different forms of political engagement, in this case arguing, serves to structure ecological activism. This class will enable me to see how discourse shapes ecological activism.
- ENVS 350 Environmental theory (Independent Study, 4 Credits) Fall 2019. To gain a better understanding of the theories I would like to ground my concentration in.
- RHMS-332 (Rhetoric of Gender in Relationships, 4 Credits) Fall 2017. This will allow me to explore how gendered identities and relationships are constructed in daily interactions. I will learn more about the role rhetoric plays in gender and interactions.
- GEND-231( Genders and Sexualities in Global Perspective, 4 Credits) Spring 2017. To understand how gender has been socially, culturally and historically constructed at different points in time and in different places.
Arts and humanities courses
- HIST 261 (Global Environmental History, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- PHIL 215 (Philosophy and the Environment, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.