Ecofeminism as Politics in times of crisis

In 2017, Ariel Salleh published the second edition of her book Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern (Zed Books, 2017). In her outstanding engagement with multiple oppressions within the capitalist global economy, Salleh convincingly argues that patriarchal oppression is inextricably internally related to the destruction of nature in capitalism’s relentless search for accumulating ever higher levels of surplus value. In this blog post, I will provide an overview of the main arguments of the book as well as offer some critical reflections.

When outlining Salleh’s ecofeminism, one way of proceeding is clarifying what it is not. First, it is different from liberal feminism and its focus on equality between men and women in currently existing social and power relationships. As Salleh points out, ‘for too many equality feminists, the link between their own emancipated urban affluence and unequal appropriation of global resources goes unexamined’ (P.155). While inequality between men and women is criticised by liberal feminists, they overlook broader dynamics of oppression and exploitation between, for example, industrialised and developing countries.

Equally, Salleh is critical of poststructural feminism. While she appreciates the contribution of deconstructing dominant discourses, she is sceptical of reducing politics to discourse. ‘Ironically, the pluralism that results from these emancipations becomes neoliberalism by default, because once the moment of destabilisation has passed and discourse effects are exposed, the postmodern exercise has little further to add’ (P.258). Thus, poststructural feminism demobilises. It does not provide the basis for resistance.

Salleh also clearly distinguishes ecofeminism from Marxist understandings of exploitation in capitalism. As she points out, ‘Marx’s vision of human dominion over the natural world spoke a linear notion of progress – an idea reinforced by his contemporary Darwin’s evolutionary schema’ (P.109). The dualism between human beings and nature, identified as underpinning the destructive implications of capitalism for the environment, is also visible in historical materialist analyses, she argues.

By contrast, Salleh highlights the distinctive experience of women anchoring ecofeminism in women’s different sex. ‘What is undeniably given’, she argues, ‘is the fact that women and men do have existentially different relationships to nature because they have different kinds of body organs’ (P.147). It is on the basis of this fundamental distinction that Salleh perceives strong commonalities and ultimately unity of women from around the world regardless of their ethnicity or class. ‘Sisters North and South have more in common than many think, and that commonality increases as globalisation expands’ (P.141).

This is not an essentialist argument in that Salleh does not claim that women’s outlook and behaviour is automatically different from men due to their different sex. Rather, the argument is that women’s relationship to nature and human beings alike is shaped by their bodily capacity of giving birth to new life and related caring tasks. ‘Biology can inscribe cognitive structures just as much as discourse does’ (P.147). These capacities and experiences are fundamentally different from male experiences and, hence, sustain different activities and ways of approaching crisis. ‘Women are organically and discursively implicated in life-affirming activities, and they develop gender-specific knowledges grounded in that material base. The result is that women across cultures have begun to express insights that are quite removed from most men’s approaches to global crisis – whether these be corporate greenwash, ecological ethics or socialism’ (P.240).

A number of authors acknowledge that the appropriation of women’s unpaid labour in the household and the expropriation of natural resources are both part of capital’s wider social relations in ensuring ongoing accumulation of surplus value. Jason Moore, for example, points out that capitalism relies equally on unpaid female labour as well as on securing constantly new ‘cheap natures’ (see Capitalism in theWeb of Life: Jason Moore on the exploitation of nature). Nevertheless, while he adds up these forms of capitalist exploitation, Salleh’s ecofeminism is able to understand their inextricable internal relation. ‘Global crisis is the outcome of a capitalist patriarchal system that treats both women and nature as “resources”’ (P.209).

Salleh’s work is highly important in the way it furthers our understanding of how capitalist accumulation is not only sustained through exploitation and the extraction of surplus value in the workplace, but equally dependent on the internally related patriarchal oppression of women and relentless destruction of nature. My only concern is the difficulty of identifying an agent of resistance in ecofeminism. She talks about ‘women’s unique agency in an era of ecological crisis’ (P.20), but does not translate this insight into current struggles against capitalist exploitation and the wider landscape of social movements involved in these struggles. Perhaps, we need to understand ecofeminism more as a way of struggle rather than specific agency?

Interestingly, in a report on the international conference The Future is Public: Democratic Ownership of the Economy, organised by the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam on 4 and 5 December 2019, ecofeminism is specifically referred to as a lense, which ‘recognises the equality and interdependence of human beings and the ecosystems we inhabit’ (7 Steps to build a Democratic Economy). It allows us, the report states, to think about re-orienting our economic system, including ‘the deprivatisation of care-based services; new training for public servants that emphasises the quality of relationships rather than market efficiency; and the reorientation of investment away from socially and ecologically destructive industries towards forms of caring labour which are inherently low-carbon, as well as being of immense social use’ (7 Steps to build a Democratic Economy). In short, this is a clear example of how ecofeminism as a way of struggle and way of creating new forms of living is already influencing concrete policy proposals.  

Hence, ecofeminism has an important role to play in resisting exploitation and developing paths towards alternative, post-capitalist futures due to the ways it comprehends the internal relations between different forms of oppression. ‘Ecofeminist politics is a feminism in as much as it offers an uncompromising critique of capitalist patriarchal culture from a womanist perspective; it is a socialism because it honours the wretched of the earth; it is an ecology because it reintegrates humanity with nature; it is a postcolonial discourse because it focuses on deconstructing Eurocentric domination’ (PP.282-3).

As scientists point out, it has been capital’s relentless encroachment into nature, which is ultimately responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic (see Guardian, 27 April 2020). As the world struggles with the coronavirus crisis and the onset of a major economic crisis, capitalism is again thrown into turmoil due to its internal contradictions. Salleh’s powerful volume helps us to understand these dynamics. I strongly recommend this book for reading to all interested in moving towards post-capitalist futures!

Andreas Bieler

Professor of Political Economy

University of Nottingham/UK

Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk

Personal website: http://andreasbieler.net

6 June 2020