Decolonial Eco-Feminisms as Onto-Epistemological Antidotes to Imperial Eco-Fascisms: Exploring Theoretical Possibilities and Praxis for Climate Justice Education

• In Event: Environmental Education and the Eco-Fascism Problem

Abstract

Introduction & Objectives

The goal is to re-visit theoretical literature on eco-feminism in the context of rising eco-fascism to generate understandings of the “truths” advocated by these divergent perspectives while attending to decolonial critiques levelled at both. These perspectives have profound implications for educational approaches to climate justice in times of oppressive patriarchal and white-supremacist resurgence. This study compares literature related to eco-feminism and eco-fascism to generate and map onto-epistemological divergences that are useful for teaching climate justice as a form of decolonial citizenship.

Theoretical Framework

Drawing on arguments regarding unfair critiques of eco-feminism (Hatten-Flisher & Martusewicz, 2018; Holmes, 2016; Mallory, 2018), particularly in the context of the salience of the term in Global South contexts (Serafini, 2021), this inquiry re-engages the importance of ecofeminist concepts, critiques and onto-epistemologies in teaching for climate justice. Eco-fascism presents dangerous ideologies as seductive “truths” in contexts of precarity (Hughes, Jones & Amarasingam, 2022). Comparing these conceptions with ecofeminist “truths” regarding ecological interconnection, the primacy of care and compassion as orienting principles for living, and the centring of intersectional and interspecies understandings of oppression (Gaard, 2015; Harris, 2016) can serve as powerful antidotes to eco-fascist paradigms. Layering a decolonial analysis onto these perspectives provides additional opportunities to imagine citizenship “otherwise” (Andreotti, 2021).

Modes of Inquiry & Data Sources

This study engaged in a comparative review of literature related to eco-feminism and eco-fascism, with particular attention to recent theoretical literature and empirical studies on these themes and topics. Using a combination of narrative synthesis and comparative analysis, this review systematically mapped ontologies, epistemologies, concepts and principles associated with each perspective.

Results

This study found that eco-fascist perspectives are grounded in onto-epistemologies of historically-established and sanctioned control, dominance, duality, extraction, hierarchy, scarcity and xenophobia leading to dogmatic, foreclosed and violent orientations to the future. Eco-feminist onto-epistemologies are rooted in interrelationships of care, compassion and connection with all living beings, metaphysical orientations towards planetary life, inviolable equities of life forms and systemic, holistic and intuitive modes of perceiving, leading to receptive, liberatory and peaceful orientations to the future. Using decolonial theories to further analyze results created possibilities for understanding eco-fascist perspectives as extensions of colonial logics that re-inscribe and worsen ecological precarity. Decolonial analysis and conceptualizations of eco-feminism generated possibilities for collective action across differences that resist universalist erasure for the celebration and embrace of contextual nuances.

Scholarly Significance

The comparison of perspectives and paradigms through this literature review offers possibilities to develop conceptual frameworks to guide climate justice education projects in diverse contexts. Namely, contrasting these onto-epistemologies leads to generative understandings that enliven collective disruptions to oppressive structures through forms of environmental citizenship education.

Author

• Maria Vamvalis, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author