How I became radical: From being an ecologist…to a queer decolonial eco-feminist

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Ebène l'Adelphe

Adventurer, ‘weed’-writer*, research-creation activist & poet, interested in tales of intersectional ecological utopias. * ‘écrivain en herbe’ (from French)

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04/03/2024
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Ideas, Politics, Stories

How I became radical: From being an ecologist…to a queer decolonial eco-feminist

Stories of ecological transition: Ebène l’Adelphe

1st lesson : when adults tell me everything is fine, I should probably worry

At the beginning of this story, I was an averagely politicised kid (citizen) – meaning that I didn’t ask myself too many questions. Like everyone, I was “for” sustainable development, “for” gender equality, and for the rest, I trusted that my parents were doing the right and fair things for any problems to be solved before I enter the adult’s world.

As time passed, I came to doubt. If the situation was “under control”, that most people were very aware, why did adults felt so compelled to endlessly and gravely talk about domestic violence and global warming in the news, diners and birthday parties ?

I was taught to believe we had powerful technologies, smart engineers and good will politicians promising ambitious policies – how come didn’t they find a solution yet by the time I turned a teen ? Despite us being careful to turn off the lights when leaving the classroom and conserving water while brushing our teeth, it seemed that climate change persisted on wanting to become a bigger and bigger problem.

We understand that blue wasn’t just for boys and pink for girls, but I could still hear more and more stories about gender based violence. Every evening, my family watched the news while eating a desert and small talking. In those moments, I often fell my body-mind dissociate in the too-fast juxtaposition of news: the latest money-laundering and sex abuse scandal of some 50-years old white rich man (background noise of my sister noisily enjoying her ice-cream), to a report on the making of foie gras (my mum complaining about her colleagues), to the Gaza Strip in the midst of bomb attacks (my brother asking whether he coud eat another sweet).

Once day, it became unbearable to powerlessly look at forests ablaze, capital cities flooding and climate refugees leaving in disaster their homes while my relatives commenting the great taste of the chocolate cake. Was this mental dissonance “eco-anxiety”?

My dad does not care about climate change effects : he knows he belongs to the more privileged people in this planet that will not be directly affected by the natural disasters – he thinks that nature just does its job selecting the more able to survive… That is scary, because it is probably what is going to happen if most people believe like him in this Malthusian theory. In the same time, as an engineer, he also believes in the techno-solutionism : carbon capture, SUVs, etc… sadly, I am more than doubtful. I should offer him this interesting book that just came out called “letter to engineers who have doubts” (1).

I also asked my parents what they thought on gender equality. My mum built herself as a warrior : she fought to be paid as a man would, treated with the same respect, valued similarly in her job. As a result, she believe strongly on equality : “we are all the same” means for her that there are no differences to be considered. Woman of man, it does not matter. My dad thinks the same. When I asked them if they thought the education they gave my siblings and I was gender emancipating, they said : “you all had access to the same education, clothes, and toys”.

I remember though that my brother was always the one “naturally” invited to work in the garden by my dad, while I had to ask permission if I could join. My brother is the one obsessed with computers and who was the one who could benefit from the teaching of my father on IT skills. He likes table football, video games, virtual reality, taking care of his muscles, wearing strong deodorant and eating Nutella and bananas. My sisters were encouraged to draw, play with horses, involve with housework and laundry. Now, my mum’s starting to think she’s old and ugly, so she wears make-up and looks for clothes that don’t look too “old people fashion” so people don’t mistake her age. She is emotionally driven, caring and mindful, self-sacrificing. My dad is a geek, doesn’t give a damn what people think of him, sits at home in his slippers, takes naps at lunchtime, earns more money than my mum, pragmatic and emotionally rubbish. My brother works in construction, likes hanging out with his friends, to mountain bike, and eats steaks. My sister does pastry, likes interior decoration, reading, and painting. But sure, we had an egalitarian education… just not a feminist one. I did not know yet I was queer, and I did not know words like cis* and straight**. I just had a mere intuition that something was scary on how the pattern of their personalities matched the pink and blue marketing despite what they said.

* Cis(gender) refers to a person’s gender identity corresponding to their sex assigned at birth (vs transgender). It is also a political organisation of society creating “normal people” (= gender conforming) and “monsters” as supported by the philosopher Paul b. Preciado in their book Testo Junkie. (2)

** a heterosexual person, someone having a sexual orientation to persons of the opposite sex and according to the French philosopher Monique Wittig, a political ideology, in her book the straight mind, she writes : “heterosexuality is the political regime under which we live, based on the enslavement of women [it] is a cultural construct that justifies the entire system of social domination based on the function of obligatory reproduction for women and the appropriation of this reproduction” (3).

2nd Lesson: just "ecology" is white dude ecology

Some years later, I learned that Gaia – the living planetary system (4), had the ability to absorb a certain amount of “waste” produced by humans. However, what we were producing in the Anthropocene era far exceeded what it could absorb. Anthropocene is the name of a geological epoch highlighting the idea of mankind as a significant force driving climate change and ecosystems’ destruction. As I discovered later, this concept could be criticized because it implies that all humans contributed the same in creating planetary unbalance. However we now know that this responsibility is not shared equally between social, cultural and political groups of people in this planet. This is what I found out by calculated my ecological footprint. I realized that the toothbrush and the light switch had nothing to do with ecological awareness. The real questions were: how many people do I live with in how much space, how to I use energy and what source of energy, how do I get around, and what do I eat ? This is when I embarked (to the despair of my family) on a true eco-transitioning reflexion:

Regarding housing, we were not too bad; my family shared a house with 7 people in an old farmhouse renovated with good insulation and underfloor heating from a wood stove. My dad also created a garden where we grew vegetables, we had fruit trees, and a pond for birds to come and drink. We even had a rare species of toads taking refuge in the natural stone wall of our backyard. I convinced my dad to have chickens, but they got eaten by a wild carnivore (cries) – but it had the merit to make my sisters and my mum more sensitive to antispecist issues which I will tell you more about later. The backflip of all those efforts is the 40° heated inflatable pool my dad insisted on installing on the terrace making our family ecological footprint back to 0…

I became antispecist some years ago thanks to the whistleblowing work of the association L214 in slaughter houses, and readings of the Australian philosopher Peter Singer and of the French buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard (5). Their concepts of “limited empathy” really struck me : we love and value only those closest to us – beyond this boundary, the fate of other beings is of little importance to us. This circle depends on our affinities: for most humans, it seems that it includes human relatives and friends. For others strange beings like me, it did include horses, trees, and – in spite of myself – arachnids. As frightened as I was by the spiders in my room, I couldn’t help but freeze, my shoe on top of their frail bodies, questioning the divine right of life and death I’d granted myself over them, ethically analyzing the possibility of peaceful cohabitation. There was indeed something on the order of empathy that led me to consider their point of view, even if the mere sight of them made me shudder with fear.

Anyway, all that to say that the day I told my family I was vegan was a real coming-out. My family was eating meat every day and was not ready to change that habit. Bringing up anti-speciest questions at the table created divide between us. Being vegan was a betrayal of the French commensality, something that brought us together despite cultural difference. Moreover, my mum was concerned about my health : we indeed learnt at school that a healthy diet implies to eat everyday dairy product and animal proteins. So, I learnt again entirely about nutrition to make sure I had the good input in my body and prouve my mum I wasn’t putting myself in danger. She was right on that on the way to become vegan, I spend some time being vegetarian, and compensating the lack on protein with cheese and eggs. However, this is neither good for the animal cause (producing milk means killing the offsprings for whom it was intended, which is strongly linked to the meat industry), nor for my health or that of Gaia. I also had iron deficiencies because modern French cuisine doesn’t have recipes that are easily adaptable and balanced, especially when you lose 50ml of blood every month… in short, those “mistakes” in the way of understanding vegan philosophy has enabled me to be more attentive to my body and look for ethic and balance in my diet.

My dad was not very concerned about philosophical concerns but with more practical issues : if I cooked for myself, he didn’t see a problem of my change of diet. However, as a decent of prehistoric hunter (as all French males apparently are…) he though that eating meat was the natural order of things and he was not going to change that. Well, you would be surprised that in fact, my father was the one starting to gradually change our family meals (he is the one cooking at home) because he read articles discussing health issues related to meat consumption. Moreover, as I discovered how to enhance the flavors of my plant-based proteins, spices, and leafy greens, my siblings began to want to taste my dishes ! The incredible chef Jack (that you well know) played a significant role in all of this: he was the one who rekindled my joy of eating by transmitting his (buddhist) philosophy of colors and cooking methods. Thanks to him, I understood that food was the first care I provided for my body. Finally, I enjoyed on the way to learn about French and global traditional cuisines are often vegan (before the industrial revolution, meat was an occasional meal), healthier (because less processed), and more ecological (more local). So, go vegan now 😉

The last challenging topic in my family was my choice to boycott the holidays in plane : my decision was perceived as an abandonment. I kind of felt sad too and it made me wonder whether “saving the planet” deserved that I broke my family relations. Definitively, no. So I wondered why my family had this urge more than others to travel internationally. Indeed, my “French origins” friend didn’t “need” to travel so much abroad : tourism VS family – the stakes were not the same. This made me thoughtful on the carbon footprint of the western imperialism and the slave trade history that leads today my family to be so far apart. That is what the French thinker Malcom Ferdinand calls the Plantationocene (6) : to believe the ecological responsibility of having destroyed the ecosystems is equally shared between nations is an illusion perpetuated by the word “Anthropocene”. This hinders our understanding that the real problem lies in our colonial and extractivist system which benefits still today’s descents of the slave traders. Thus, they (we?*) have the biggest carbon footprint (linked to their ancestors) and so the most power to make a change in the system.

* I also have colonial ancestors and consider myself beneficiary of the slave system as I have French white papers and citizenship.

Well, about transportation, I am now in a dead end : I did my research about alternatives to the plane but it was not very successful. If you know reasonable options, please, let me know ! Reasonable means for my family : a travel mean over the summer vacations (1 month) and within 6000€ (ticket plane back and forth).

. By sail-boat : first, you need a boat and to know how to navigate. Otherwise, you need to rent the boat with a skipper – budget is at least 3000€ just for the skipper and 6000€ for an average boat for one month. The length of the trip is not very predictable (depends on the forecast) and it takes for sure more than one month to go to Mauritius or Korea by the sea…

. By cargo ship : once, it was accessible for free, but now, business made it a luxury experience accessible only to few, it’s pretty long and you can’t chose your route.

. By hot-air balloon : 40% of accidents, 20% of mortality rate.

Now, I would like to bet on slow travel, but it implies a radical life change that my family is not ready to make. If you have any other ideas, please contact me haha !

On my path of radicalization (etymologically, trying to get back to the root of issues), I have sometimes felt a bit alone. So I went to meet groups of young people facing the same problems in the French Young Ecologists. After some month of activism, I felt something wrong. The main concerns about my peers were nuclear power and the Common Agricultural Policy (which were very interesting) but nothing seemed to disturb them about their parents having a SUV-car, an apartment in Paris, a second home in Brittany, and their lifestyle of going in vacations in Balearic Islands every winter, studying engineering or political science to work in Brussels. For me, ecological activism was fundamentally starting by questioning myself and my relation to other beings. It was indeed important to talk about COP and global energy policies, but how come we did not have any answers about why people were fighting in shops for pots of Nutella, migrants freezing in our streets, elderlies dying of isolation in our retirement homes ?! Had I become a socialist without realizing it ? To me those questions were deeply linked to ecology.

As for gender issues… when I began to understand what mental load was and I discussed it with my mum, she outrightly denied it; it was as if I was questioning her entire life. Before admitting later that indeed, she would like my father to be more involved in handling everyday life small and necessary caring tasks. I suppose that my mother’s burnout is somehow also linked to this load, whereas my father admits to be quite emotional illiterate himself. Sometimes, it saddens me to feel a lack of empathy on his behalf towards other beings suffering from climate change effects (“it is your generation’s problem, I don’t care” he told me – thanks dad). Or maybe is it just a protective denial strategy ? Although he has more practical sense than my mother, this seems a bit heartless sometimes – noticing that, I feel like reinforcing another stereotype.

But how come my parents, claiming to have raised boys and girls equally could reproduce so much gender rules ? This makes me realize that, contrary to cis-straight people, I do not believe anymore that it is possible to achieve equality while keeping strict gender boxes. For exemple, my mum claimed she did not experience femmephobia (7) until she finally admit that she was often taken for a sex-worker in the street. When I discovered the extent of violence against women, with #MeToo, I began to feel deeply wounded. I hold a grudge against my mother for erasing her own memories of violence and choosing to submit to patriarchal/rape culture by urging me not to go out in a dress at night, repeatedly asking where I was going (unlike my brother), and constantly judging my weight and outfit. And the more I was outraged by the state of the world seen through my feminist lens, the more my parents seemed to detach themselves from my conclusions with an air of “but it has always been like that.” As if violence was normal. Indeed, I slowly understood that in my genealogy, like many others women’s herstory (8)… traumas were ordinary.

One day, I did my mourning and accepted the truth : even if they believed in equality, my parents had contributed on reproducing patriarchy – they were never feminist.

There you go. I had become a feminist and a radical socialist and ecologist. Those 3 fights were all important to me, and despite my belief that ecology embraced them all, I did not see the expected convergence in ecologist groups. Moreover, when I asked my activist peers what was ecology for them, many didn’t quite know, there was no consensus. I was quite disappointed about those people (I am not gonna lie, there were mostly white rich cis dudes) fighting for something they could not quite define. For me, ecology was about links between living beings, so if inter-human solidarity was dead, how could we claim to take care of our connection with the rest of the living?

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3rd Lesson: Intersectional queer ecology, alias ecofeminism

If you’ve made it this far, you have probably asked yourself the same questions as I have. I hope this final part will bring you as much pleasure as it did for me: every time I discovered the thinking of the following authors, I felt an electric current running through my entire body ! Well, have a nice electrifying experience while reading !

As I wrote before, I did not understand how come we could claim to “save the planet” while not even being able to take care of our neighbors. In French society, Muslims are spat on, the poor are called lazy, the disabled are locked away; how are we going to take care of others with that if we can’t even respect each other ? That were my thoughts when Sandrine Rousseau appeared in the public arena : she was the first female politician to claim to be an eco-feminist. A good introduction to this train of thoughts was written by the author Jeanne Burgart Goutal (9). At a time, I had almost given up on ecology, but she reignited the flame: raped by a man, she quitted politics before to come back to say that she would not let herself be defeated by the silence. In her discourses, she supports the idea that women, like the Earth, are used, exploited, raped by men ; that patriarchy boiled down to BBQs and gold mines, a predatory regime on the rest of the living. Wow. Explosion, revelation. That was maybe the reason I felt personally offended by images showing destruction of Gaïa, that was the reason why my first fight was against islamophobia directed toward sexualized muslim women, that was the reason why I feel so deeply affected when I see an non-human animal suffering. That is how I found a name for what I felt inside : I can not be an ecologist, I am an ecofeminist.

Belonging to a movement is useful in that it gives a story to be attached to, thinkers to be inspired by. So as I dug into this school of thought, I came accros the philosopher Donna Haraway (10) who talks about this quality of friendship we could develop to other species. I like to think that this awareness is also linked to a neurodivergent queer approach to the world… the following thinkers are related to those. The first one is Paul B. Preciado that I already previously mentioned writes in Dysphoria Mundi (11) that dysphoria is not just a matter for transgender individuals, but rather a global concern. Rather than trying to “treated” the planetary dysphoria (which he criticizes psychiatry for), transitioning could be the opportunity to build something different. Indeed, in that moment of chaos where everything is questioned, anything becomes possible. While this situation is certainly not easy, it provides hope to get out of a thanatopolitical world (a concept from Foucault). Preciado (and Judith Butler) highlights that most humans (outside the western world) developed much skills and knowledge on vulnerability, meaning on how to survive in a harsh context. In short, those 3 thinkers were my introduction to a queer ecological thought, even though they do not particularly claim to align with this movement.

Although I aligned more with queer ecology, there was a spiritual aspect my linkage to the living that I could not let aside to give anchoring and meaning to my activism : my ancestors. Connecting to them reminds me how my privileges everyday are bonded to a responsibility : I owe them the power I have. I can not forget that the wealth I am surrounded by is the result of the biggest historical continental plunder. Malcolm Ferdinand’s decolonial ecology (that I previously mentioned) reminds me of it : the Anthropocene is a lie. Today, most people in poverty are women of color (and most often disabled/migrants/sex workers). They are the first victims of climate change though they are the ones who must maintain households and ensure the survival of the human species.

That is why I liked eco-feminism : its plurality allows all voices to be heard, from center to margin (1). Dynamic processes of poetic-political self-reflexive knowledges circulate between eclectic spaces creating convergences between western writers, african philosophers, latinos’ witches and asian activists. Thus I came across the inspiring Indian activist Vandana Shiva who created a movement for tree protection. I liked to listen to the sparkling and vivid thinking of the philosopher Myriam Bahaffou in podcast interviews (12) : she tells that where women live, nature is better off. She does not essentialize femininity (supposedly having a stronger connection with nature) but she explains that it is a cultural reality that today women are responsible for subsistence in agricultural economies and so have every interest in environmental stability. Thus, they ensure resilience, abundance, and protection. Another insping figure is the Kenyan biologist Wangari Muta Maathai who created and promoted a project called the Green Belt to stop the progress of the desert. She created women collectives to fight the masculine logic (also perpetrated by some women) to exploit all resources. That led villagers to cut down all the trees to use them for fuel. As a result, the desert sand was no longer stopped in its progression and began to dry up the soil making it uncultivable. Wangari passed on to the women of her community the desire to plant trees and turn villages into orchards to provide shade, moisture, and cultivability to the soil in the long term.

Something else I learn with Myriam Bahaffou was the danger of eco-macho rhetoric of “rewilding” spaces. Often, this was used as an excuse to drive local tribes out of their homes. Bahaffou argues that what is needed is a caring policy: women in communities know how to find a third way between over-exploitation and abandonment of the land. They have practices allowing the regeneration of the land and perpetuation of economic dynamics. They are better planners on the long term because they are responsible for raising children, whereas men are in a short-term “off-the-ground” exploitation logic. In one the the many previously cited podcast, Myriam Bahaffou (find her book reference in footnote 12) also describes the way women have been exploited like non-human animals throughtout history. For exemple, the first doctors were following Descartes’ theory of the mechanic animal as an excuse to vivisected living beings. Some centuries later, the first gynecologists experimented the same on black women and slaves… today, those people are “coincidentally” animalized as “gazelles”, “leopards”, or “deer”. Another exemple from Myriam Bahaffou : nowadays, makeup tests are often carried out on non-human animals and as vaccine tests are on precarious Latinos or Africans. If one has to classify living beings, it seems that the division lies more between the rich white Men and the rest of the inhabitants of the Earth than an inter-species separation. Eco-feminism is not an essentialization, but an invitation to think about the articulation of our biological reality with what we want to make of our culture and society. Eco-feminism recognizes that strategically, women and the rest of the living have suffered common mistreatment from similar oppressors. They may so have more interests in considering themselves as a community united against the ideology of the dominant – this is well explained by bell hooks’ (13) concept of margin VS center (western-valid-rational-white-cis-heteropatriarchal-capitalist-masculinity, etc.)

With these new references, I felt more legitimate to openly stand for an intersectional activism : it seemed obvious to me that all oppressions had common roots but I did not have words to think it. Theories but also tools like the Fresque des Résistances proposed by the Laboratoire des Résistances (14) helped me to articulate it with friends and (activist) relatives. Do you know the gender-race-class triptych? It is a sociological lens useful to apply on any (ecological) issues to think it in a situated way. For exemple, it helped me to carbon footprint is directly correlated with one’s positionality (15) or social gear (concept developed by the previously mentioned Laboratoire des Résistances). I understand that our privileges are directly correlated with our responsibility in the environmental crisis. Paradoxically, this social stand is also linked to the level of ignorance and inaction since more privileged we have, the less affected by climate change we are. That problem sometimes bring self-guilt, which is an issue that Jack kindly helps us overcome with his special eco-coaching 😋 so if you feel that way, contact him ! Personally, I think the loooong philosophical-political-spiritual-esthetic-epistemological-ecological discussions we had at night about the state of the world did nurture my sense of purpose.

It is almost the end, so thanks for sticking with me until there. Let’s conclude : I won’t lie, it was smoother to believe that my father’s technology could absorb all the CO2 to release it into space, that poverty exists but that is ok because I am rich, and that gender equity is just a matter of wage. I think I have become a bit doubtful, and to tell you the truth, that is not a relaxing emotion to carry on with. When I am tired of it, I reminds myself of our best philosophers (16) : owning my own responsibility and freedom can be tough, but it is also something desirable.

Becoming ecofeminism led me to Reclaim (17) the knowledge of the female body that was erased by the Inquisition and the doctors’ witch hunt in the XVIIIe century. Witches were the people’ scientists and healers. They were the precarious, divorced, old, or childless women who lived on the margins of villages and who passed down the knowledge of plants, dreams’ interpretation, and intuition. Becoming eco-feminist allowed me to find beauty in my ability to relate to other beings, sharing suffering but also joy. Becoming aware of violence and death opens up my understanding of the preciousness of each ephemeral moment of living sweetness. Being more vulnerable, I am more intensely alive, and everywhere, there could be magic in the air. Becoming ecofeminist is learning to pay attention to the breathing of trees, to the ways water flows from the clouds through us to the sea (18), is to listen to the whispered memories of our garden’s pebbles. Becoming ecofeminism gives me a new sense of belonging in my relation to Gaïa, to the invisible, to the many unknown people who are trying to inhabit the earth differently, transform our relationships to prioritize mutual aid over competition, responsibility over denial, care over contempt, contemplating celebration of the circular time over the unsatisfied agitation provoked by the linear calendar. I met peers in queer, intersectional, ecofeminist places in France : “the transition campus”, “the cat farm”, “the blue windmill”, the “weaving of dreams” … are existing proofs that give me enthusiasm and faith : I know there are so many ways to live outside of oppressive structures and I want to continue to search to grow my list so big that it would include infinite possibilities of radically ecological lives ! If you are a searcher too, I will be happy to hear about your findings !

Bibliography

(1) Lefebvre, Olivier, Letter to Doubting Engineers, l’échappée, 2023.
(2) Preciado, b. Paul, Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics, Points Feministe, Paris, 2021.
(3) Wittig, Monique, The Straight Mind, Boston, Beacon Press, 1992.
(4) Lovelock, James, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford University Press, 2000.
(5) Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (1975), Melbourne, Ecco Press, 2001.
Ricard, Matthieu, Advocacy for Animals, Allary edition, Paris, 2014.
(6) Ferdinand, Malcom, Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World, Polity, Paris, 2022.
(7) Hoskin, R.A. Femmephobia: The Role of Anti-Femininity and Gender Policing in LGBTQ+ People’s Experiences of Discrimination. Sex Roles 81, 686–703, 2019.
(8) Herstory: oncept created/diffused first by the feminist journalist Morgan Robin
(9) Burgart Goutal, Jeanne, Being Ecofeminist – Theories and Practices, L’échappée, collection versus, 2020.
(10) Haraway, Donna, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003.
(11) Preciado, b. Paul, Dysphoria Mundi, Grasset, Paris, 2023.
(12) La Poudre with Lauren Bastide Episode 126: Myriam Bahaffou
Conversations écoféministes, Karina Kochan, Léa Chancelier, Jasmine Marty, Capucine
Néotravail #20: Des Paillettes sur le Compost de Myriam Bahaffou – Les coups de ❤️ d’Hélène & Laetiti
Avis de Tempête S2 E5 – Pratiquer les éco-féminismes depuis les marges
Book : Bahaffou, Myriam, Des paillettes sur le compost : Ecoféminismes au quotidien [Glitter on the Compost: Everyday Ecofeminisms], Le passager clandestin, 2022.
(13) Hooks, Bell, Feminist theory : from margin to center, Cambridge, MA : South End Press, 1952.
(14) Website of the association https://www.labodesresistances.fr/
(15) Bayeck, R. Y, Positionality: The Interplay of Space, Context and Identity. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2022.
(16) Sartre and the Existentialism, Camus and The Rebel… yes, yes, I know their are cis-white-het men, but don’t you think I need to add a bit of traditional Frenchness to this article to make it readable ?
(17) Hache, Emilie, RECLAIM, Anthologie de textes écoféministes, Editions Cambourakis, 2016
(18) Neimanis, AstridA, Hydrofeminism : becoming a water body, https://philo.esaaix.fr/content/hydrofeminisme/hydrofeminisme.pdf

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22 February 202330 May 2023

The art of noticing: a photo journey

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Jacques Lawinski

PhD candidate in philosophy and ecology at Université Paris VIII, visiting researcher in Lesvos, Greece. A writer, an activist, and an avid walker, I explore the planet and what it means to relate to nature, finding new, ecological ways of being.

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22/02/2023
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The art of noticing: a photo journey

On a recent walk in the Eastern Hills in Lower Hutt, my father pointed out how many ‘shortcuts’ had been made by people not wanting to follow the curvature of the path, creating their own little routes through the forest. We wondered, ‘why do people not just want to enjoy their walk, what means that they are so hurried to create these shortcuts?’

I’m not sure what the answer to that is, and the response is probably different for many people. The moment motivated me to think about what I had missed on our walk, and go back with my camera the next day, to investigate.

The natural world is full of presence and absence, life and death, and the transformations that take place between these two. This cicada exoskeleton on this tree reminds us of the transformation that takes place in the life cycle of this insect. The sound of the cicadas fills my ears as I take the picture, and occasionally one will fly into my face, or on my neck, only to quickly fly off again.

Amongst the very dry soil, there are small flowers growing out of the sides of the bank. I initially simply thought this was a dandelion, like the ones that often grow in the grass. Through using the plantnet website, it would appear to be a Hawksbeard of some sort – something much more interesting, though also just as frequent, it would seem, based on the reported sightings in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia…

I love ferns, and the way they spread out, open up, and unfold. This large fern has many layers, too, with different colours of each frond coming out from the centre.

The koru, the unfolding fern, is another of my favourite symbols of the forest. I am always overjoyed to find this shape, I can bear witness to the creation of new life, new leaves. Nestled among the e/older leaves, this koru is protected from harm in its first weeks of life.

One of the magnificent trees along the walk, with its branches providing a great contrast against the sky in the background. We see a few strong branches growing out horizontally, and the rest are tangled and untidy; like a morning hairstyle. There are no straight lines in this picture, reminding us of the fact that nature is often ambiguous, messy, and unwilling to conform to our expectations or desires.

This dead wood lying on the forest floor is a reminder of how all material inside the forest is regenerated, the wood becoming the environment on which moss can grow, as it slowly decomposes. The small shoots coming out around the wood will later turn into larger trees, using the previous strength of their ancestor to grow.

Green and brown, life and death, again the dualities and opposites are clearly present in the forest at each turn. These crossing ferns belong to two different plants, behind which we see the wild tangle of fern branches further from the path.

Another shape, the four leaves coming out at right angles to one another, supporting the growth of the new leaves from the centre. The vivid and shiny green is remarkable against the brown soil and muted green of the ferns.

“A blueberry!” I exclaimed. “It might be a blue berry, but it’s not a blueberry” was the response. Turns out this is the New Zealand blueberry, tuturu. Its bright purple berries immediately caught my eye in amongst the greens and browns we normally see in the forest. Full and bursting with colour, these berries fall off with even the slightest touch.

Next time you’re on a walk, in the forest, around nature, or even in the city, take the time to notice what is around you. Take a picture of a tree, a form that intrigues you, a colour that you love, a juxtaposition of presence and absence… there is so much to see, when we look.

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15 January 202330 May 2023

The feeling of gardening

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author

Jacques Lawinski

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15/01/2023
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Stories

The feeling of gardening

What emotions arise when we are gardening? What can we learn about ourselves and the environment?

I put my hands into the clay-brown soil, making a small hole for the tomato plant. Gently pushing the soil to either side of the hole, I ensure there is enough space for the new inhabitant in this patch. Once the hole is deemed sufficient, the tomato plant gently comes out of the small pot where it is beginning to wither, and I place it into the hole, pressing gently on the top soil. Taking some of the surrounding soil, I spread it around the plant, filling in the edges of the hole. Finally, a little bit of mulch on top – to make sure the soil doesn’t dry out too much – I’m told.

On to the next one, the same procedure, just a little further down the line. We’re making a row of tomato plants here, evenly spaced along the narrow mounds of soil, which are separated by channels where we are allowed to place our feet. We all wear shoes, however – the unexpected danger always lurking in the community garden, whether it be glass, an old gardening tool, or something more foreign. Next to the tomato plants are the spring onions, little grass-like tufts which will grow into hollow green shoots with white stems.

My companions are a lovely bunch – from different backgrounds, workplaces, and ages, each with a different story to tell. We ask questions to each other, slowly probing at the history which creates us, and gradually weaving a new story in which we are all featured. Tastes and preferences are good questions; shoe sizes and basketball soon follow, but the money shot of political and philosophical opinions never ceases to generate fascinating moments of shared connection.

The garden feels our warmth as we share in its creation. Our hands, collectively planting new fruits and vegetables into Mother Nature’s bountiful skin, energise these little seedlings, giving them a boost, gently courting them, encouraging them to grow. We will not know, after this moment, which ones were our’s and which ones our neighbour’s, but this doesn’t bother us. Each is trusted to give the same quality of planting, without teaching or instruction. We all just know how to give a good life to these plants.

As we work, the soil slowly sticks to my fingers, around the nails and into the palms. It is as if nature wants to plant me, too; to give me a chance to grow with her help. And I let her, I need not worry about washing or cleaning, but as the plants get larger, I dig down deeper into the earth, extracting more soil to make a larger hole. The seed mix feels different to the clay-like soil in the ground, and I wonder what the roots will think of this change. Will it be like moving to another country, where everything is different, and one must learn to adapt? Or do roots sense that something is different, and pull out the knowledge they need to grow in different soils?

Gardening shows us that we can take care of our environment. It is also a way for us to take care of ourselves. We imagine the efforts of the past season when it comes time to harvest and eat our vegetables, taking the time to taste the flavour of the tomatoes and courgettes; getting to know them as vegetables, rather than in a tomato sauce. We also feel the satisfaction of having cared for and nurtured our food, and all the nourishment we gave to the plant, we can now take back for ourselves. And so the cycle of gardening continues.

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Our stories present new ideas, new thinking. They will always be open and free for everyone to read, without any advertising.

All our articles are freely accessible because we believe that everyone needs to be able to access to a source of coherent and easy to understand information on the ecological crisis. Through new ideas, we can think differently about our daily experiences, and begin to change the way we interact with our environment.

If you've learned something today, or feel inspired, please consider donating, to help us produce more great stories and share this knowledge with a wider audience.

to support independent and ad-free ecological thinking

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Ebène l'Adelphe

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How I became radical: From being an ecologist…to a queer decolonial eco-feminist

1st lesson : when adults tell me everything is fine, I should probably worry

2nd Lesson: just "ecology" is white dude ecology

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3rd Lesson: Intersectional queer ecology, alias ecofeminism

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Our Stories of Ecological Transition series puts a spotlight on inspirational people who have changed not only who they are, but how they treat the world. They've done this with courage and strength, and their stories help us all to see the ways we could change, too.

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to support independent and ad-free ecological thinking

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Jacques Lawinski

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The art of noticing: a photo journey

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Our stories present new ideas, new thinking. They will always be open and free for everyone to read, without any advertising.

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We're part of the .eco network of organisations committed to support positive change for the planet.

to support independent and ad-free ecological thinking

author

Jacques Lawinski

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share

The feeling of gardening

Sharing knowledge is also a great gift. Let others know about this article

Our stories present new ideas, new thinking. They will always be open and free for everyone to read, without any advertising.

Why plurality.eco?

Our network

On social media

We're part of the .eco network of organisations committed to support positive change for the planet.

Why plurality.eco?

Our network

On social media

We're part of the .eco network of organisations committed to support positive change for the planet.

Sharing knowledge is also a great gift.
Let others know about this article

Sharing knowledge is also a great gift.
Let others know about this article

Sharing knowledge is also a great gift.
Let others know about this article