Abstract
Two of our most seminal philosophies of Nature, deep ecology and ecofeminism, offer alternative accounts of our relationship with the natural world. Deep ecology tends to take a basically holistic view of Nature—its image of the natural world is that of a field-like whole of which we and other ‘individuals’ are parts. Ecofeminists, in contrast, tend to portray the natural world as a community of beings, related, in the manner of a family, but nevertheless distinct. Although the tension between these two theories cannot be resolved by merely cutting and pasting them together, I think that a dialectical reconciliation of their respective views of Nature can be achieved, though this may result in an irreducibly ambivalent ecological ethic. Such ambivalence may in fact be precisely what an adequate understanding of the ecological structure of reality requires.
Originally published as: Mathews, Freya. 1994. Relating to Nature: Deep Ecology or Ecofeminism? The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy 11 (4) (Fall): 159–166.
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Notes
- 1.
Jim Cheney brought this point out very clearly in his 1987 article ‘Ecofeminism and Deep Ecology’. Environmental Ethics 9(2). It is also explored extensively in Val Plumwoo d. Spring 1991. Nature, Self and Gender. Hypatia 6(1). However, as ecofeminism is not typically expounded systematically as a philosophy, other views of nature are also represented in ecofeminist works. Conversely, the view of nature that I have here identified as ecofeminist is also espoused by writers who make no reference to feminist theory at all. See for instance J. Baird Callicott’s account of American Indian views of nature in ‘Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes Toward nature: an Overview’. 1989. In Defense of the Land Ethic. Albany: SUNY Press. See also Callicott’s book on multicultural environmental ethics. 1994. Earth’s Insights. Berkeley: University of California Press. Both Callicott and Aldo Leopold, the architect of the land ethic Callicott is concerned to defend, tend to view nature as a community of natural elements and beings, but both also seem to adopt a holistic interpretation of community for ethical purposes, where this would run counter to the ecofeminist tendency. I am not really concerned to discuss deep ecology and ecofeminism per se here, but rather a certain complex of issues which are central but not exclusive to these two positions. The issues in question concern the relative merits of the individualistic and holistic views of our relationship to nature. An author who has recently addressed these issues without reference to either deep ecology or ecofeminism is Robert W. Gardiner. 1990. ‘Between Two Worlds: Humans in nature and Culture’. Environmental Ethics 12 (4).
- 2.
Evelyn Fox Keller develops a sophisticated argument along these lines in 1985. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- 3.
In his later work, Fox has made more room for a relative form of individuality in his ecological metaphysic. See 1990. Towards a Transpersonal Ecology. Boston: Shambhala.
- 4.
Val Plu mwood identifies three versions of the deep ecological account of the relationship of self to nature. She calls them the ‘indistinguishability account’, the ‘expanded self’ account and the ‘transcended or transpersonal self’ account. Although there are indeed certain distinctions to be made among these three positions, it seems to me that they all involve basically holistic interpretations of interconnectedness, since they all point to the substitution of a greater Self for the normal self understood as ego or individual. See Val Plumwood. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of nature. New York: Routledge.
- 5.
This argument that the relational nature of systems entails both individuality and holism is developed in my book: 1991. The Ecologica l Self. London: Routledge.
- 6.
This is evident in the web imagery which is so central to ecofeminism, and which appears in a number of ecofeminist titles, for example, J. Plaskow and C. Christ, eds. 1989. Weaving the Visions. New York: Harper and Row, and I. Diamond and G. F. Orenstein. 1990. Reweaving the World: the Emergence of Ecofeminism. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. In the latter work, the editors, in their Introduction, characterize the early ecofeminists as those feminists who ‘affirmed and celebrated the embeddedness of all the earth’s peoples in the multiple webs and cycles of life’.
- 7.
The comparatively easygoing attitude of certain native peoples in this respect, unfettered as they are by hard-and-fast (dualistic) distinctions between what qualifies as natural (and hence sacred) and what does not, is illustrated by a point made by my colleague at La Trobe, Raj Bessarib, concerning a ‘dreamer’ of the Sardi people in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. This story-teller of the dreamtime, Billy Ahchoo, includes a ‘dance of the motorboat’ in his repertoire of dreaming dances.
Bibliography
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Mathews, F. (2018). Relating to Nature: Deep Ecology or Ecofeminism?. In: Stevens, L., Tait, P., Varney, D. (eds) Feminist Ecologies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64385-4_3
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