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Groundings: Ecofeminism and systems thinking: Shared ethics of care for action research

Anne Stephens

Key words: Action Research, Ecofeminism, Systems thinking, Feminist-Systems thinking principles, sustainability

Abstract

We want to, and need to, do action research really well. The twentieth century has given us an epistemological buffet which has enriched the action researchers’ repertoires of practice. Included in this canonic feast are feminism and systems thinking, which both resonate strongly with action research and offer a liberating praxis that can change practitioners’ paradigms. And to do action research well, it helps to adopt an explicit feminist ethic of care. This chapter demonstrates the closeness of, or goodness of fit between, critical systemic thinking practice and a deliberately and selectively chosen school of feminism, cultural ecofeminism. The discussion takes us through a series of moral and ethical considerations that has the potential to strengthen our practice as action researchers. To make this matter of praxis simpler, the chapter concludes with the introduction of feminist-systems thinking principles which other works have shown can enhance action research practice at the planning, implementation and evaluation phases of the action research cycle. 2

Introduction Getting action research right requires more than a moral undertaking to do justice to the research recipient. It entails more than finding a set of willing participants, working with them, evaluating one’s activities and noting change within the research setting/participants or even within oneself. Action research needs also to entail a level of intellectual honesty that seizes opportunities to make visible the most marginalised. Silent hegemonies can express themselves in attitudes, ideologies, idiosyncrasies, customs and cultural practices, maintaining oppression at unconscious and subjective levels and awareness of their impact can remain hidden from view.

In this chapter I present a set of principles, or feminist-systems thinking (FST), that are ontologically driven by an ethic of care towards the emancipation of women and nature, pay particular attention to marginalised groups and that has the potential to enhance our practice as action researchers. The principles were derived from a systematic review of both critical systems thinking and cultural ecofeminism (Stephens, 2013a; Stephens, 2013b; Stephens, Jacobson, & King, 2010a, 2010b). The FST principles can be applied at any stage of the action research cycle: planning, implementation and as an evaluation tool. There are five principles, listed in no particular order and not required to be used as a set, but, their individual value to research is context-dependent. They are:  Be gender sensitive;  Value voices from the margins;  Centre nature;  Select appropriate method/methodologies; and  Undertake research towards social change.

The strong links between action research and systems thinking are well documented (Greenwood, Lichtenstein, Burns, Midgely) but scholars such 3 as Barbara Hanson (2001) have been calling for academics to actively seek the “compatible, even inseparable” linkages between feminism and systems thinking for some time (p. 546). It has been argued that an epistemological understanding of systemic thinking, or a systemic world- view, is essential to action research practice (Flood, 2010; Ison, 2008). I add that understanding feminist traditions, particularly cultural ecofeminism and its ontological likeness to systems thinking, has implications to our practice as action researchers. Awareness of ecofeminist tradition, praxis, constituent concepts, techniques, tools and methods, can expand action researchers’ repertoire of practice. This chapter will introduce readers to cultural ecofeminism and to some of the commonalities and linkages cultural ecofeminism shares with critical systems thinking (Hammond, 2003; Midgley & Ochoa-Arias, 2001), the epistemic background of the FST principles each of which will be discussed as each one has ethical implications for action research practice.

Ecofeminism and systems thinking – grounds for connection? As a term, ecofeminism first appeared in 1974 in the work of a French feminist, Francoise d'Eaubonne Le Féminismeou ou la Mort. Ecofeminism is unique from other feminisms as it places ‘nature’ at the centre of feminist analysis. Ecofeminists argue that nature is dominated by the same sets of constructs that had historically relegated women to have an inferior social and cultural status (for example, being denied the right to vote in the 19th Century, to a range of equality and equity issues in women’s working and home lives in the 20th Century). Therefore it deals with the dual oppressions of women and nature and extends this framework to understand other forms of marginalisation.

Ecofeminism sits within a broad and well articulated scholarly cannon. Some of its major branches are liberal feminism, radical feminism, Marxist feminism, psychoanalysis, lesbian feminism, Black and post- 4 modern feminism. These demarcations signify important differences within feminism; it is not a monolithic ideology and not all feminists think alike (Putnam Tong, 1998).

Even within ecofeminism itself there are two schools; ‘nature’ and ‘cultural’ ecofeminism. But there is an important distinction to be made between two schools of ecofeminism, as one has been accused of being reactionary rather than revolutionary (Biehl, 1991). ‘Nature ecofeminism’, focuses on the essential link between women and nature that is primarily biological and psychologically determined. Prominent nature ecofeminists include Mary Daly (1973, 1978, 1984), Susan Griffin (1981, 1996, 1999) and, the Spiritual Ecofeminist, Starhawk (1982, 1988, 2003). The argument which is widely accepted by activists in the peace, civil, human and environmental rights movements is that generally, women are closer to nature because they are nurturing. Women are mothers and carers. Central to nature ecofeminism is that women are seen as better placed and able to identify, empathise and connect with nature because of the following claims: (a) they have a special link to nature because of their reproductive/nurturing capabilities; and (b) that women and nature are united by patriarchal oppression. Women are honoured for their unique way of knowing, which might save humanity and the planet from male domination tendencies (Putnam Tong, 1998). But while respecting and understanding the intent to empower and honour women the effect of this thinking may promote the reverse.

Do women have a particular relationship with nature by virtue of their biology? Does their proximity to nature qualify them to speak more eloquently on nature’s behalf? Or can we suggest instead, that due to women’s experience of gendered discrimination and sexual mistreatment, which can be acknowledged is derived from the same prevailing social and economic structures that have produced wide-scale environmental damage, women are often well placed to ‘share’ this experience? Can a 5 process of ‘reclaiming’ the meaning of the nature-woman link even achieve much given the centuries of debasing and negative cultural baggage? I would not be the first ecofeminist to argue that women are well placed to argue on nature’s behalf, but it is not, however, an exclusive role women should have to play. Despite being exalted by the ideology, essentialising the nature of woman objectifies them into an inescapable nurturing, caring, social and environmental function.

An alternative to the nature ecofeminist viewpoint is to seek to de- emphasise the nature-woman connection. The cultural ecofeminist view avoids essentialising and objectifying women and men into inescapable social behaviours and sees any attempt to link women with nature as imposed by a socially constructed patriarchal order. This perspective can observe and expose instances where the masculine dominant hegemony is able to exploit and marginalise ‘others’, including nature, which cultural ecofeminists argue will prevail while women and nature continue to be subordinated to man and culture. It is with cultural ecofeminism that I have extrapolated the many linkages between cultural ecofeminism and critical systems thinking. Central to cultural ecofeminism is a critique of the role of socially constructed dualisms. We therefore begin our exploration with a consideration of the subject-object dualism.

The subject-object dualism

A dualism is a construed dichotomy that polarises differences. They are sets of contrasting but related phenomena with shared, interconnected features. One is often pitched against the other along superior/inferior lines. ‘‘Reason’ (logical thinking as distinct from experience or emotions), for example, is prestiged and tasked to dominate and control the inferior, irrational, lower side of a dualism. Whilst privileging the superior side (the subject) of a dualism, instrumentalism places the inferiorised side (the object) in the service of the subject. Therefore, the subject-object 6 dualism concerns feminists and systems thinking when the inferior side is discriminated, oppressed and subjugated. Examples of subject-object dualisms of concern include: masculine/feminine, reason/emotion, public/private, reason/body, mind/matter, producer/consumer, and for eco-feminists, human/nature. In each of these sets the first term is privileged over the second term which holds major implications for how we as humans interact with and value other human communities and also the non-human realm—organisms, biological communities, species, and ecosystems. Do we value the ‘more-than-human’ realm for what they are, or, in terms of just their value to us?

Dualist constructs are the fundamental building blocks of the rationalist paradigm and hence, much of Western culture and its scientific method. Its establishment in the 17th Century was in deliberate and triumphant opposition to emotion, and was thus the mark of the modern ‘rational’ man (Hanson, 2014). Categorical binary oppositions came to associate science with ‘positivism’. Positivism argues for the elimination of human bias through objectification and separation of the researcher and researched and in the social sciences, its own particular forms were established; French positivism, exemplified by Emile Durkheim for example, and the logical positivists Positivism has also been held responsible for promoting reductionist, mechanistic and atomistic world views. In ecofeminists’ Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva’s view this thinking is behind the cause of chronic global maldevelopment. From a systems thinking perspective, valuable opportunities to view things as interrelated and networked, have been missed. People experience the subject-objectivity of other persons, beings and things, commonly and unquestionably. Instrumental rationalism, and the ideology of human supremacy, is internalised by the collective filters in individuals, linguistic knowledge about human endeavour and reinforced through our socially constructed institutions. As action researchers, we must be aware that these hegemonies play out in our research affecting relationships between ourselves and our research, and between the participants of our projects themselves.

The damaging consequences of the rationalist paradigm, instrumental thinking and positivism, and a culture that values objects to be harnessed in the service of meeting some pre-defined end is of great concern to 7 ecofeminists and critical systems thinkers. The objective of both cultural ecofeminism and critical systems thinking is to transcend dualistic thinking. Dualisms are the ‘enemies’ of the kind of systems thinking that is a foundation of action research (Greenwood & Levin, 2007; Midgley, 2000). The late Val Plumwood (1996) stated that “… I believe a good deal can be learned from the critique of dualism feminist philosophy has developed and from the understanding of the mechanisms of dualism ecofeminists have produced” (p. 168). It has also been suggested that until men join efforts to genuinely transcend the rationalist subject-object dualisms, that suppress and instrumentalise categories of people and other non-human living things, attempts to save the planet are undermined (Putnam Tong, 1998).

Ethics and morality

Cultural ecofeminist ontology is predicated on the social mediation of objects, including natural objects, within value systems, linguistic and cultural contexts. Therefore, context matters as a function of where something is. Context is present in critiquing claims of ahistorical and gender neutral conceptions of reason and rationality. We all have our own ‘stories’ imbued with ‘logic’ and ‘rationality’, inflected with historicity, ecological dimensions and our own context-dependent ‘idiography’, that is, our own peculiar characteristics. As action researchers, we therefore might consider the task put to us by the cultural ecofeminists and the critical systems thinkers, to tease out interwoven and intersectional oppressions, replacing these with the building of better frameworks for analysing humans and non-humans. This is both an ethical and moral imperative that the FST principles can help us to think through.

While the language use between writers differs, cultural ecofeminists and critical systems thinkers are united in their strong stand for researchers to consider the ethical and moral implications of their research. In addition to giving thought to transcending harmful subject- 8 object dualisms, they both premise local knowledge as vital to effective practice.

They do this by challenging the prominence of harmful subject-object dualisms because dualisms substantiate and reinforce systemic and intersectional oppressions. Cultural ecofeminism treats the dual oppression of nature and women, and its consequences, with rigour exposing these to reframe the relationships, valuing the under-side of the dualism and acknowledging difference (Buckingham, 2004; Plumwood, 1996; Warren, 2000). Critical systems thinkers have also considered environmental ethics and their linkages to broader social problems; complex socio-environmental issues, such as land degradation, born by the pressure of poverty, the high social cost of science and technology, and social injustices between 'haves' and 'have nots' at global and intra-national scales (Barton, Emery, Flood, Selsky, & Wolstenholme, 2004; Hammond, 2003; Jackson, 2003; Midgley, 2004; Ulrich, 2003; Walby, 2007).

The question of what to research or what should be observed is a moral question. So too, is the question of how to research. Fundamental to any research project is one’s methodological framework. The positivist scientific method depends on an external, foundational and ahistorical view of reality, and therefore the denial of certain bias (Angen, 2000). Yet, theorising that is independent of contextual frameworks, as the only valid or legitimate research methodology is a naïve acceptance of the superior status of the common demarcated dualist division between objectivist methods (often aligned with quantitative methods) vs grounded, developmental and participatory research methods (frequently aligned with qualitative research). While we know of the criticism that research heavily reliant on grounded processes of emergence from experience and observation is refuted for its overt political and subjective influence (Heron & Reason, 2001) we must also ask: can researchers independently observe to produce outcomes without distortion or intervention? This is a fallacy to cultural ecofeminist and critical systems thinkers. Questions of validity and epistemological legitimacy in respect to all research arise. All methods along a continuum have merit and strengths that are appropriate to the research context. The assessment of what research practice is appropriate for what research setting resides with the skill, experience and professionalism of the researcher.

Five principles of feminist-systems thinking 9

From the analysis presented in this chapter, it should be clear that both critical systems thinking and cultural ecofeminism share ethical and ontological goals. But how can these learnings translate into good action research practice?

A theoretical framework containing a set of principles of feminist systems thinking was extracted from a more detailed synthesis of cultural ecofeminism and critical systems thinking (see Stephens, 2013a). Each principle is detailed in the next section.

Gender sensitivity It has been too often implicitly assumed that ‘women’s’ experiences are parallel to men's, or even unimportant, rather than distinctive from a homogenous male proxy. Gender sensitivity is a continuity, or consciousness towards, and reflexivity of attending to gender in research practice. Considerations of gender implications must be intrinsic to all research processes; from developing the research question(s), to exploring the implications of the findings and embedded in any advocacy for change based on those research findings.

A gender sensitive research approach acknowledges the importance of contextualising the research practice and outcomes in relation to the social, cultural, racial, religious, ethnic, economic and historical situation of the women participants and the recipients of the research, being mindful not to conceive of social phenomena such as race, class, gender, sexual preference, and/or abilities, in isolation from one another. Systematic bias in knowledge categories objectifies people into data placing researchers in danger of justifying exploitation and ‘studying- down the poor, ethnic, gendered, etc,’ (Sprague, 2005, p. 11). A gender sensitive research approach also includes being mindful of the appropriation of language, for example, non-gender specific language has 10 been criticised for concealing oppression as the underlying paradigmatic influences are not addressed (Plumwood, 2002).

Value voices from the margins Researchers commonly have more social power than the people they study, due to their relatively privileged position. Values voices from the margins encourages researchers to take a view from below, to hearing the voices of the silenced, and to bringing these voices to the table. Remnants of patriarchal ideology continue to influence the notion of ‘others’ (which includes but is not limited to gender) in complex, multiple ways which intertwine with other social orderings. Patriarchies are intrinsic to the formation of, and changes within, the categories of class and caste and interrelate with politics, economy, religion, law, culture and neoliberalism, on a global scale (Hart, 2005). The Chilean feminist Margarita Pisano (2001) articulates the impact of Western patriarchy on the world’s powerless people. She has stated:

Whoever argues that the patriarchy has been humanizing itself does not see . . . the thousands of third world people terrorized by and trying to escape famine, drought, and war without being able to jump over the invisible wall the First World has mounted to maintain its privileges. (Pisano, 2001 cited in Perkins et al., 2005, p. 115)

Engagement with the margins extends to the ‘non-human’ or ‘more-than human’ realm. This is the realm of companion and captive animals, organisms, biological communities, species, and ecosystems. Valuing non-human ‘voices’ is achieved by finding a place for emotion, subjectivity, particularity, and our own ‘animality’, that is, our continuity with animals, in moral philosophy. We have the capacity to empathise and give the more-than-human realm greater moral consideration in the processes of our work. We need a profound ethical shift to recognise 11 nature’s agency in experiencing the impacts of our actions, including their trauma, suffering and loss. Loss includes the loss of social networks between species, networks of species, and the loss of access to the necessities that may be caused directly, or indirectly, by human activity. Understanding the ‘voices’ of non-human species lies in humans recognising non-human agency and ecosystems and species are present on the margins, cohabitating, occupying and living with and along-side us in unnoticed or taken for granted ways. To do so might evoke another FST principle, and that is to centre nature in all that we do.

Centre nature In reconsidering the ontological ‘divide’ between people and nature we can become aware of naïve and harmful dualisms at play, as discussed above, fundamentally challenging the underlying subject-object dualist constructs. “What is taken to be authentically and characteristically human, defining of the human, as well as the ideal for which humans should strive is not to be found in what is shared with the natural and animal…” but in what is thought to separate and distinguish us from them (Plumwood, 1996, p. 162). This attitude is expressed any time environmental considerations are seen to be better understood and administered by management experts with technical solutions.

A new ontology and language of people and nature might revalue the human connection to nature (and place) in terms of our continuity between genuine human virtues and nature. For our practice, this means exposing harmful or naïve dualisms. But we also need to be mindful that systems (human, social and ecological) are interrelated and distinguishable from one another. An attempt to extinguish boundaries between human and nature would produce an ironic philosophical twist in maintaining rationalism. When ‘others’ and ‘difference’ is incorporated into the self through, for example, an egoistic self-sacrifice or a self- merger (Plumwood, 1996), the effect may be to deny difference, 12 preventing a transcendence of the harmful dualism and erode the distinctiveness between ourselves, other people and living things.

Select appropriate method/ologies So when is a research practice legitimate? One answer is when the methodology and methods chosen are viewed by participants and researcher, stakeholders and/or other interested parties, as appropriate to the context of the research.

We must be thoughtful when giving one particular theory or philosophy primacy over others in action research and value action research for the opportunities it gives us to surface varieties of viewpoints, that have a high degree of commensurability to those that are seemingly contradictory or adverse, generating new knowledge and providing powerful and empowering learning opportunities. This, in itself, is a commitment to distributing power as it is not being retained or withheld by the ‘scientist’ or person in an authority position (Midgley, 2000, 2011).

Methodological selection entails both choices and responsibilities and choices. This has, on occasion, led to charges of ‘relativism’ (Hammersley, 2009), that there are no universals and validity of an idea or belief is contingent on relative context and circumstance. However, as Harding (1987) noted over 20 years ago, that the problem of relativism only becomes a ‘problem’ when it threatens the universality of viewpoints held by dominating groups who may prefer to remain unchallenged. To deal adequately with multiple diverse people and contexts, method/ologies require a commitment to communication and critical reflection.

Building a new framework for knowledge generation, therefore, is going to need a conversation about boundaries. ‘Boundaries’ around systems are physical, personal or social constructs and an important concept to 13 action research. They define the limits of something and mark what is included and excluded, therefore, boundary judgments and value judgments are intimately linked.

A study can be thought of as a system where knowledge comes into existence as a product of the study's’ activities. Through the process of boundary reflection, analysis and questioning of the study’s data collection, the boundaries of a study can expand (or shrink), changing with the generation of new knowledge. If knowledge is constructed by boundary decision making processes then decisions of what’s in and out can allow for ‘untraditional’ information in a research setting. Action research is enhanced and lives are changed when unique voices are heard. So too can people’s intuitive thinking be valued as an important resource in the research process, particularly to unmask mistakes that might otherwise be hidden by rational justifications.

Promote plurally desirable and sustainable social change Methodology can play an important role in social change. Cultural ecofeminism has a reconstructive function and extends its social critique and utopian visioning to lead to actions that achieve social change. For any person working in the social sciences and related service sectors, we have a professional obligation to examine all oppression and to actively critique interrelated oppressive social institutions, as well as their social, political and economic structures. Social change will be achieved when the methods of social workers recognise the interrelations and systemic forces that function to maintain all forms of injustice towards nature and human beings (Besthorne & Pearson McMillen, 2002; Mallory, 2008). Therefore, helping people to become aware, and expanding our own awareness as researchers, of the interrelatedness of systemic forces that function to maintain all forms of injustice towards nature and human beings, is a methodology leading to action and radical change in social, 14 political, and economic structures. The FST principles applied to action research practice can be a starting point.

A major challenge to most researchers, including action researchers, is dealing with complexity and uncertainty. Action-oriented philosophy must engage methods that are viewed by the researcher and stakeholders as appropriate to the circumstances or context of the question/s. Therefore, a considerable advantage of the action research approach is that it allows for responsive change to be made during the stages of research (Dick, 2006).

By way of example, consider the conventional and alternative way of thinking about the concept of ‘sustainable development’. Commonly defined as “the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), this limited definition obscures the seriousness of the situation of resource exploitation. The problem lay in the concept of ‘needs’ and that the environment’s ability to meet those needs is not limitless–that human development must be limited.

The definition also falls short of an integrated approach to viewing life on Earth and human’s interdependency with nature and has been narrowed to refer to the carrying capacity of natural resources to support human activity. An alternate way of considering sustainability by Roling and Wagemaker (1998) has relevance to us today. The notion of sustainablity is localised within an agreement made by the stakeholders engaged with a particular problem. This does several things. Firstly, it recognises that sustainability is an emergent property of a social system, that is, it is the outcome of the collective decision-making that arises from interaction among stakeholders of natural resources. Secondly, this definition problematises sustainability, as externally applied solutions from outside 15 experts or inputs, are less reliable. When actions are resolved by the stakeholders the answers may be better grounded within the context of the unique sets of issues or concerns. Thirdly, the definition of sustainability is politicised. Questioning ‘sustainable development’ practices provides a space where stakeholder and ecological subjectivity can be formed, contested, destabilised, and re-formed, in a democratic process. Localising the notion of sustainability makes explicit human’s relations with nature, and fundamental obligations of resource managers to protect and support nature.

Crucial to this principle, therefore, is the moral responsibility researchers have to reflectively practice which will mean that practice is under continual re-conceptualisation. Reflection, according to Midgley and Reynolds (2004) will;

…involve questioning purposes (rather than taking them as given); focusing on the big picture; multi-sectoral thinking; including multiple agents in defining problems; drawing upon and mixing multiple methods and embracing environmental issues alongside social ones (rather than taking either environmental or social issues as prime). (p. 62)

Social research is an exciting field. Researchers as activists or change agents, promote a just and safer world. I commend Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, & Maguire’s (2003) advice to “try not to avoid messy situations despite knowing that we do not have the ‘magic bullet’ because we believe that, together with legitimate community stakeholders, we can do something to improve the situation” (p. 21).

Conclusion 16

In the foreseeable future, large-scale destruction of part of or whole ecosystems may become a crime (see (Higgins, 2010).) International laws will shift protection away from private, profit driven interests, to the public interest and a wider community (i.e., ecosystems and species), than current laws have had the ability to achieve. Actions that adversely affect the inhabitants of a place, humans and the more-than-human realm will be more preventable as new laws centre the inhabitants of a place as a central determinant. It has the potential to be the most effective means to recognise the voice and interests of nature and the more-than-human realm. The question that then arises is what will we do, and how will we do it, when the old ways are illegal? The FST principles, applied to sound action research practice used more readily now to catalyse the paradigm shift required of us in the future.

The FST principles provide a focus for critical reflection. They embody ethical and moral issues and help define boundaries to consider what has been made explicit and implicit in our action research projects. In either the project planning and design phase, or during implementation, monitoring and evaluation that is undertaken as a matter of course during the project’s progress, (rather than a post-project point-in-time activity), may enhance the quality and achievable objectives of action research.

Thinking about a project’s strengths and weaknesses through the FST principles highlights the different levels of relevance and influence some principles have over others. They can help enhance action research’s contribution to movements for social change and inform our awareness of the interrelated power relations that extend between organisations of people, and, people and nature. Reflexive practices may prompt researchers to recognise their own subjective sociocultural reality, gender orientations and belief systems, and the part these play in the research process. 17

The principles, drawn from established cultural ecofeminist and critical systems thinking epistemology, provide a strong focus for reflexive practice and for thinking about social justice ethics. I suggest that establishing their presence in action research may have beneficial outcomes for all species on our planet–not just humankind. Our point in time demands that we do things differently. It is my hope that these simple principles can assist practitioners to make the transitions towards the new research paradigms.

Bio Anne Stephens is a Post Doctoral Senior Researcher with the Northern Futures Collaborative Research Network based at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Australia. Anne is the author of one book, Ecofeminism and Systems Thinking, Routledge (2013), and has authored dozens of research papers using participatory action research and systemic intervention practice as her primary methodological approach to problem solving in community and regional development, public health and education fields. Anne developed the Feminist-Systems Thinking principles as part of her PhD research, and has been adapting and modifying their use in action research, since their inception in 2009.

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