Women and the Environment of the Global South: Toward a Postcolonial Ecofeminism

In this study I claim that mainstream ecofeminism is inadequate to translate the experiences of the women of the Third World and propose postcolonial ecofeminism. The study focuses on the ecofeminist assumption of women?s relationship of care and compassion with nature. Through textual examples, I show the complexity of relationships between South-Asian women, and their natural environment, and claim that these relations are based on their material conditions and social status rather than necessarily being that of care and compassion. The study also highlights the acute nature of women-nature connection in the South-Asian societies where women are treated as land: their bodies are used to reproduce, and at times leased out to earn sustenance through prostitution. I have selected multiple South-Asian texts (fiction). Chemmeen, Village by the Sea, The Folded Earth, and The Hungry Tide are used to shed light on the role of their respective authors in developing postcolonial ecofeminism. Chemmeen, Nectar in a Sieve and Village by the Sea are analyzed to highlight the practices of the characters, male and female, which appear to be disruptive and harmful for their natural environment that sustains them. Then I use alternative analysis that I term as postcolonial ecofeminist perspective, to interpret the practices of the characters, while considering the livelihood strategies of these characters. I provide textual examples from Nectar in a Sieve and Water to support my claim that in the presented societies, women?s bodies are not just symbolically connected to land but are actually treated as land in the form of prostitution. I also analyze Madwoman of Jogare as a counter example that epitomizes mainstream ecofeminism, and also helps to complicate the notion of embodiment. The study also provides pedagogical implications of postcolonial ecofeminism by providing a sample reading of Fire on the Mountain. Besides challenging mainstream ecofeminism, all the discussed texts highlight the need for a revised ecofeminism that encompasses the postcolonial perspective. The study also shows the rhetorical significance of such texts that may enable students in the classroom to become active members of the society who want to bring change