Gender, Capitalism, and Environment

Catalog description

What is "the economy," and how is "it" gendered? How is access to land, resources, and livelihood options mediated by hierarchies of gender that are co-constituted with race, class, age, and ability? How are gender equality, economic justice, and environmental justice interrelated? This course grapples with these and other foundational questions concerning the ways that gender, economy, and environment are intimately linked. Using case studies from around the world, we will consider Marxist-feminist, ecofeminist, political ecology, queer, critical race, and postcolonial approaches to understanding how abstract economic processes are materialized in social relations and in human-environment interactions. From women peasant farmer's online practices in Myanmar to land-grabs and contemporary witch-hunting in African countries, together we will engage with the material histories, politics, and power relations shaping the uneven distribution of wealth and resources among gendered populations - and how different social groups are mobilizing to contest these gender, economic, and environmental inequalities together. In addition to our core questions, this course asks: How is capitalism itself gendered, and with what effects? What is considered productive work, and how are categories of worker gendered? Why are women overrepresented as peasant farmers in global south countries? How and why is climate change gendered? How and why are solutions to climate change and other environmental problems gendered? What are the gendered benefits and costs of sustainable development, and who bears them? Most of these questions lack clear answers, but by the end of the semester you will be able to give compelling oral and written explanations in response to each. Using a diverse array of texts - including film, podcasts, poetry, and peer-reviewed academic literature - this course will…