Catriona Sandilands – författare

This Elusive Land introduces readers to women's perceptions and experiences of the Canadian natural environment. This multidisciplinary anthology discusses the ways in which women integrate the social and biophysical settings of their lives, featuring a range of contexts and issues in which gender mediates, inspires, and informs a sense of belonging to and in this land. In particular, the historical association of women with "domestic" nature is challenged by the investigation of women's lives in a broad range of environments.The collection begins with an introduction to literatures on women and the environment, and to Canada within ecological feminist conversations. The first section discusses the invisibility of women in traditional accounts of Canada's exploration and settlement, pointing to the literary, historical, and geographic significance of women's experiences in a variety of landscapes. Section two develops the ways in which the natural environment is a source of social and economic livelihood, with particular emphasis on fishery, forestry, agriculture, and parks. The third section explores environmental politics through a feminist perspective. The book concludes with a discussion of new directions for a culturally and ecologically diverse Canadian environment.This book contributes to women's studies through its environmental focus; informs environmental studies with a range of feminist perspectives; and complements Canadian studies by integrating disciplinary perspectives of the Canadian experience from the humanities and social sciences.

A foundational statement of the democratic promise of ecofeminism.Heroic mothers defending home and hearth against a nature deformed by multinationalist corporate practice: this may be a compelling story, but it is not necessarily the source of valid feminist or ecological critique. What’s missing is the democratic element, an insistence on bringing to public debate all the relations of gender and nature that such a view takes for granted. This book aims to situate a commitment to theory and politics-that is, to democratic practice-at the center of ecofeminism and, thus, to move toward an ecofeminism that is truly both feminist and ecological.The Good-Natured Feminist inaugurates a sustained conversation between ecofeminism and recent writings in feminist postmodernism and radical democracy. Starting with the assumption that ecofeminism is a body of democratic theory, the book tells how the movement originated in debates about “nature” in North American radical feminisms, how it then became entangled with identity politics, and how it now seeks to include nature in democratic conversation and, especially, to politicize relations between gender and nature in both theoretical and activist milieus.