Embedding environmental education within secondary science curriculum presents both philosophical and practical difficulties for teachers. This ethnographic/narrative study, with its methodology grounded in eco-feminism and realism/constructivism, examines the work of six secondary science teachers as they engage in an action research project focused on merging environmental education in their science lessons. Over the course of several months the teachers examine and discuss their views and their professional development related to the project. In the place of definitive conclusions, eight propositions relating the work of secondary science teachers to environmental education, form the basis for a discussion of the implications of the study. The implications are particularly relevant to secondary schools in Ontario, Canada, where the embedding of environmental education in science studies has been mandated.

Embedding environmental education within secondary science curriculum presents both philosophical and practical difficulties for teachers. This ethnographic/narrative study, with its methodology grounded in eco-feminism and realism/constructivism, examines the work of six secondary science teachers as they engage in an action research project focused on merging environmental education in their science lessons. Over the course of several months the teachers examine and discuss their views and their professional development related to the project. In the place of definitive conclusions, eight propositions relating the work of secondary science teachers to environmental education, form the basis for a discussion of the implications of the study. The implications are particularly relevant to secondary schools in Ontario, Canada, where the embedding of environmental education in science studies has been mandated.

In this thesis the Swedish author Elin Wägner’s debate book Alarm clock and the American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel Herland are analysed and compared from an ecofeminist perspective. Since the use of an ecofeminist perspective can be perceived as anachronistic as the term ecofeminism was drafted far later than the literary works in question I have chosen to distinguish between empirical and analytical concepts to approach their texts. In order to interpret their texts in their intellectual and historical contexts, concepts such as ecofeminism, matriarchy, utopia, vision and science have been of significance. This as the authors’ theoretical approaches in matriarchal theories, utopic perception, vision and science shaped their literary point of departure. The sociologist Lester Frank Ward’s theories on social planning had a huge impact on Gilman’s ideas as had the influence of the Darwinian movement focusing on evolution and eugenic, theories that at the time around the turn of the 19th century influenced social science, history and psychology. Elin Wägner found her inspiration in works by Johan Jakob Bachofen, Rosa Mayreder and Mathilde Vaerting, anchored in the Central European literacy discourse of her time; ideas significant for her civilization-critical thinking focusing on the relationship between women’s subordination and the environment, where the ruling of the earth is understood by the same logic that drives men’s dominion over women. Wägner and Gilman follows a line in the eco-feminist theorem, based on the statement that women are more responsive than men to nature and environmental issues, a biological determinism, conceptual essentialism and universalism, based on women’s different experiences in a gender society.

abstract: During the politically charged period between the 1950s and 1970s in the United States, Nancy Newhall emerged as an important advocate for open space. She began traveling to the West which encouraged her dedication to land preservation and invigorated her enthusiasm for photography. Newhall was already a respected curator and author addressing the communicative roles of photographs. After spearheading groundbreaking museum retrospectives of contemporary photographers she expanded her artistic vison to include conservation activism. The notable photographers, scholars, writers, and politicians with whom she collaborated often overshadowed her contributions, and they have been under celebrated until recently. My project studies her efforts on a quintessential Sierra Club publication from 1960. While considering her book titled This Is The American Earth I was led to insightful explorations of her unique approach to contextualizing photographs. My investigations revealed the impact that the work of Nancy Newhall had on land preservation, alongside her prolonged influence on the acceptance of photography as fine art and a resilient device of communication. In This Is The American Earth her calculated, inspired approach, attaching text to photos conveyed stirring messages to readers and forwarded an innovative use of a genre that the Sierra Club willingly embraced. Working with its president and Ansel Adams, she edited, wrote, and published several popular illustrated volumes which brought an interpretation of open space into American living rooms. Her efforts produced iconic picture books that remain memorable examples of the mid-20th century conservation movement. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Art History 2016

My thesis explored the idea that inequality is a human-made perspective that has been informed concurrently through social and metaphysical structures. My intent has been to show how inequality as a learned man-made system of consciousness has played a pivotal role in justifying the exploitation of other cultures and the environment in the name of progress, advancement and human destiny. I have explored the idea that anthropocentrism and ethno-centric patriarchy has been woven so deeply into the fabric of modern perception that we are largely unconscious of its existence, even while we reap the results in both environmental and social degradation. My thesis has argued that a metaphysics, which supports equality, would result in a different value system that would prioritize diversity of life above and beyond human advancement, and emphasize cross-species interconnectedness thereby reducing the risk of exploitation inherent in the existing globally driven capitalist system.

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abstract: This study weighs the connection of environmental crisis with race and gender in different cases of environmental crisis and conflicts. The study documents how Indigenous cosmologies and cosmopolitics, and scientific arguments converge in unexpected alliances in the advent of environmental crises. This research focuses on specific instances, or situations related to environmental justice movements addressing the environmental crisis in Mexico (and its convergences to other similar cases). I examine and present a discussion of the research methodologies and methods used to study the ‘environment’ as well as indigenous cosmologies and cosmopolitics. With this, I embark on a research that includes feminist decolonial theory, eco-feminism and material feminisms into a larger project for autonomy and decoloniality. In particular, I discuss one of the concepts that have caught the attention of those studying race and ethnicity in the Americas: mestizaje as an ordinal principle in the context of Mexico. Also, I discuss the inscriptions of the mestiza body in relation to the materiality of race and gender in the context of Latin America. It is shown how the discourse of mestizaje is tangled with the idea of a modern civilization, such as in the Mexican state. Overall, this research analyzes different responses to environmental crises; from environmental activists, community organizers to plastic artists and scientific experts. Also, it includes a literary analysis of contemporary indigenous literatures to show how state sponsored violence and settler colonialism have an incidence in gender violence by placing the female body close to nature. As global environmental problems have risen, this research contributes to the understanding of the underlying factors in environmental crises and conflict that have been overlooked. Herein lies an important possibility to reach a broader audience in different disciplines, ranging from indigenous studies to the global politics of human rights. Furthermore, this research aims to contribute to the work of environmental activists, scholars and scientists with regard to the understanding of how different arguments are used in research and advocacy work, and how they can integrate an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach when addressing environmental justice cases. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Justice Studies 2016

This thesis examines the discursive position of 'goddess feminism', in relation to some of the difference- and eco feminist positions from the1960s and until today. In focus are the texts of the two goddess feminists, Monica Sjöö and Starhawk. The thesis contributes to a historiographical (re)situating of their political and religious narratives. It also contributes to an elaborated understanding of these goddess feminists and the goddess feminist discourse they are part of. The tentative feminist figuration 'the goddess identified feminist’ is articulated as a tool to discuss the religious and political discourse of goddess feminists as part of contemporary feminist and environmental political conversations and practices. Donna Haraway’s and Karen Barad’s post humanist theoretical interventions are used to explore and discuss the affinities between goddess feminists (re)negotiation of the subject/s 'goddess/nature/human' – and the (re)negotiation of 'nature/human’ made by new materialist/post humanist difference- and eco feminists of the 2000s. Rosi Braidotti’s writings on sexual difference, becoming and feminist figurations further informs the conclusions drawn in the thesis. Drawing on the methodological approaches of Clare Hemmings and Mieke Bal in the analysis of story-telling and subject construction, a contribution is also made, to the understanding of how story-telling as part of a discourse, produces meaning and asymmetric subject relations. In particular the thesis shows how a compassionate feminist storytelling involuntarily produces subject positions through, essentialist dualisms, hierarchical ordering and othering. In parallel, the thesis also discusses alternative narrative strategies that focus on both the discursive boarders and affinities. / Baksidestext: Det här är en bok om två gudinnefeminister och deras religiösa och politiska berättande. Men det är lika mycket en bok om ’gudinnefeminism’ och hur denna feministiska position relaterar till, skiljer sig från och överlappar med andra skillnads- och ekofeministiska positioner från 1960-talet och till idag. Magdalena Raivios doktorsavhandling omförhandlar historien om ’gudinne-feminism’. Den synliggör även innehållet i Monica Sjöös och Starhawks berättelser om samhället, gudinnan/naturen/människan, framtiden och revolu-tionen. Här visas hur problematiska generaliseringar och uppdelningar i ”vi” och ”de andra” skapas i berättandet – men att Sjöö och Starhawk även vidgar och omförhandlar innebörden av begrepp som ’kvinna’ och ’natur’. En feministisk figuration kallad ’den gudinneidentifierade feministen’ används som tentativ utgångspunkt för nutida samtal om feministiska och miljöpolitiska visioner och för-ändringsstrategier. Avhandlingens resultat styrker tidigare forskning som visat att ett ”feministiskt medkännande berättande” – trots sin välmenta ambition – ofrivilligt medverkar i skapandet av diskursiva gränser, hierarkier och generaliseringar. Som ett teoretiskt bidrag, formuleras och diskuteras här några skillnadsfeministiska ansatser till alternativa berättandestrategier.

Previous research has shown a post-disaster increase of Gender Based Violence [GBV], suggesting a need for further investigation of the phenomena and its causes. This research draws together a wide-ranging collection of secondary data sets concerning disasters and gender based violence. It analyses the social environment in post-disaster settings that breeds an increase in GBV with focus on Sexual Gender Based Violence[SGBV] and Intra Personal Violence [IPV]. Through a comparison of two case studies: (a) post-earthquake Haiti and (b) post-hurricane Katrina. The cases are analysed through an analytical framework constructed out of three theories, Eco-feminism, Hyper-masculinity and Situational Theory, which together could give a trustworthy explanation of the phenomena. The findings show that similar factors were prevalent in both cases, and in turn provides insights for the abductively derived framework that relates the causal mechanisms behind the phenomena of post-disaster gender-based violence, building on the commonalities between social environments and structures in the cases. In particular, it was found that a patriarchal root structure and high rates of frustration both provided explanatory causal mechanisms for increased GBV. Though changes in environments can affect the prevalence of GBV as it can provide easier access of victims and lower the risk of penalties in relation to the crimes. In order to address GBV associated with future disasters, post-disaster plans need to adapt a gender mainstreamed approach with focus on safe housing and rapid rebuilding processes for the grass root level.

Text in Afrikaans / During the last few decades the need existed for a new framework to give direction to development and ecological thought in respect of the sustaining of nature in order to place development and ecological thought within the limits of nature. However, development thought and the debate relating to nature are to some extent still treated in theory and practice as two separate entities. One of the current challenges for sustainable development is to reconcile the development and ecological branches of this debate. The thesis firstly explains the origin and characteristics of sustainable development. Secondly, the crisis in nature is discussed, followed by a discussion of the most important ecological views relating to sustainable development. Then issues in development thought that relates to sustainable development is discussed, as well as the changing emphasis in development thought that stimulated the growth of sustainable development. The mainstream development view, as the other main branch of sustainable development thinking, is then discussed. In conclusion, some issues relating to the operationalisation of sustainable development is discussed. / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Ontwikkelingstudies)