Rethinking Resistance: Ecofeminist Philosophy of Nonviolence

Application summary

This project interrogates and redefines feminist philosophies of nonviolence by addressing their limitations in the context of ecological crisis. Through their conceptualisations of violence, nonviolence, and pacifism, prominent feminist thinkers (e.g., Butler, Cavarero, Hutchings) have shaped how resistance to violence is understood in feminist scholarship today. However, these approaches remain largely anthropocentric, as they do not adequately account for ecological destruction and climate change. Yet such devastation is increasingly recognised as “slow violence,” disproportionately burdening the lives of Indigenous communities, poor women in the Global South, and other marginalised populations. The problem of how nonviolence might be understood in relation to environmental devastation thus remains to be systematically theorised. My project responds to this gap by developing an ecofeminist philosophy of nonviolence. It does so by revisiting 1980s and 1990s ecofeminist notions of nonviolent resistance and pacifism that have largely faded from scholarly debate. Bringing these early insights into dialogue with contemporary, mainly anthropocentric, feminist accounts of nonviolence, the project develops a new approach that places ecological devastation at the centre of feminist philosophical critiques of violence. A crucial part of rethinking resistance is recognising that the ecological emergency is rooted in colonial-capitalist histories and perpetuated today through extractive practices in the Global South and Indigenous territories in the North. To advance a philosophy of nonviolence that highlights counter-hegemonic epistemologies of resistance, the project therefore also draws on emerging decolonial ecofeminist scholarship. The project’s primary research material consists of scholarly texts, complemented by early ecofeminist activist materials, analysed through feminist philosophical close reading and conceptual analysis.