Groundings: Ecofeminism and Systems Thinking: Shared Ethics of Care for Action Research
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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.
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 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-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 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 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 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-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.