ZEF Public Lecture: The Ecological Collapse from a Feminist and Postcolonial standpoint: Perpectives from Colombia
November 9, 2023 | 13:30 h - 14:30 h
We'd like to invite you to ZEF's Public Lecture organized by ZEF's Gender Group!
Topic: The Ecological Collapse from a Feminist and Postcolonial standpoint: Perpectives from Colombia
Speaker: Natalia Sánchez-Corrales (DSSP Writing Fellow, Universidad de La Salle, Colombia)
Please register here: https://bit.ly/Nov9-2023
Abstract:
The understanding of the ecological collapse faces two major challenges today: 1. The colonial paradox: both for the historical responsibilities for the ecological damage, as for the way alternative solutions are being proposed (neoliberal environmental governance). 2. The patriarchal paradox: implicit in the instrumental appropriation of nature with cumulative purposes, and in the ontological subordination of all knowledge, bodies and experiences that unfold in the world to sustain and care for life (Svampa, 2021).
On this lecture, I will outline some perspectives on these paradoxes by analyzing an on-going research project with peasant organizations in Colombia from a feminist and postcolonial standpoint. Following an emerging methodology which comprises the knowledge production with political situated action, we have found that grassroots organizations have a very complex understanding of today’s challenges through the lenses of food: from the commodification of the land, the body-territory continuity in the wars for resources, to the role pesticides play in the myth of competitiveness and their own health. But most of all, we have found an educational approach to cultural and political change grounded in each territory: the idea of owning community schools to teach the new generations the issues and the strategies to care for life.
Natalia Sánchez Corrales is an associate professor at Universidad de La Salle, Colombia. She holds a Ph.D. and a MSc. in Education and two majors, one in Philosophy and the other in Cultural Studies. Her research interests are related to the field of cultural, feminist and postcolonial studies of education, specifically, she has been involved in several projects as an activist researcher on Gender violence and Ecofeminist alternatives to development.
