Composting Feminisms and Environmental Humanities: A Critical Genealogy

• In Event: COMPOSTING Feminisms and Environmental Humanities 4. Beginnings and Endings

Abstract

We propose that thinking about environmental humanities as a kind of composting allows us to map a genealogy of our field as arising from feminist scholarship and praxis. Taking Donna Haraway’s latest texts and the material metaphor of the domestic composting system as our points of departure, we suggest that composting demands that we pay attention to our critical metabolisms; composting reminds us that the particular kinds of scraps fed into the compost pile shape the friability and absorbency of our messy co-becomings. In our paraphrase of Haraway, it matters what compostables make compost. This, we argue, is why feminist composting matters. Our argument unfolds in two related directions. First, by examining the field’s origin stories, we identify the important influence of feminist thinking within the environmental humanities. We observe that while key feminist scholars or concepts are frequently mentioned in these stories, their feminist investments are rarely engaged as such. As a result, the originality and value of the environmental humanities is compromised. Second, given the ways that feminisms have already enriched environmental humanities scholarship, we suggest that composting as scholarly tactic ought to be taken up further. Concomitantly, though, we insist this be done with care, and in consideration of feminism’s own disavowals, specifically in relation to its colonial inheritances. In short, our work is both to acknowledge the ongoing work of feminism’s muddy offerings in environmental humanities and to seek opportunities for carefully composting the insights of inclusive feminisms with matters of environmental concern.

Author Bios:

Astrida Neimanis is a Senior Lecturer in Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney.

Jennifer Mae Hamilton is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of New England, Armidale.

Authors

• Jennifer Mae Hamilton, Unversity of New England

• Astrida Neimanis, University of Sydney