Ecofeminism And Globalization: Exploring Culture, Context, And Religion

ECOFEMINISM AND GLOBALIZATION This Page Intentionally Left Blank ECOFEMINISM AND GLOBALIZATION Exploring Culture, Context, and Religion Edited by Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, I N C Lanharn * Boulder * New York * Toronto Oxford ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS,INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com PO Box 317 Oxford OX2 9RU, UK Copyright 0 2003 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eaton, Heather, 1956Ecofeminism and globalization : exploring culture, context, and religion / edited by Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7425-2697-6 (alk. paper)-ISBN 0-7425-2698-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ecofeminism. 2. Globalization. I. Lorentzen, Lois Ann, 1952- 11. Title. HQ1194.E38 2003 305.42'01-dC21 2003000833 Printed in the United States of America eM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSUNIS0 239.48- 1992. Contents vii Foreword Rosemary Radford Ruether ... Acknowledgments Xlll Introduction Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen 1 Economic Globalization, the Environment, and Gender 9 Gender and the Environment Mary Mellor Can Ecofeminism Withstand Corporate Globalization? Heather Eaton 11 Challenges to Ecofeminism: Concrete Cases Women and Sacred Groves in Coastal Kenya: A Contribution to the Ecofeminist Debate Celia Nyamweru Indigenous Feet: Ecofeminism, Globalization, and the Case of Chiapas Lois Ann Lorentzen Traditions of Prudence Lost: A Tragic World of Broken Relationships Aruna Gnanadason -v- 23 39 41 57 73 Contents vi 111 Regional and Transnational Expressions of Ecofeminism and Responses to Globalization 6 Ecofeminist Natures and Transnational Environmental Politics Noel Sturgeon 7 Environmental Protection as Religious Action: The Case of Taiwanese Buddhist Women Wan-Li ffo 8 The Con-spirando Women’s Collective: Globalization from Below? Mary Judith Ress 9 Ecofeminism: An Ethics of Life hone Gebara 10 Deconstructive Ecofeminism: A Japanese Critical Interpretation Masatsugu Maruyama 11 Ecofeminists in the Greens Greta Guard 89 91 123 147 163 177 203 Selected Bibliography 233 Index 239 Contributors 25 1 Foreword Ecofeminism and the Challenges of Globalization Rosemary Radford Ruether T to evaluate the discourse of ecofeminism, which has emerged worldwide in the last three decades, and to explore its adequacy to the challenges of “globalization”;that is to say, to the vast human misery and degradation of the environment that is being wrought by the Western corporate domination of the world economy. The book brings together both critics and advocates of ecofeminist discourse. There are those who write from a more theoretical perspective and those who delve into concrete cases of the interconnection of women and ecology. There are those who write from a first-world context and others from