ABSTRACT
All the stories encourage us to focus on the importance of gendered human agency and social structure in shaping pivotal environmental policies and decisions. They raise key questions about the relationship between knowledge and power as local communities and grassroots groups and movements struggle to find ways to resist dominant world views of the environment and resource use (Escobar and Alvarez 1992). Local communities may be disempowered by outsiders who extract what they need (and dump what they do not want) to the detriment of local residents. Their experience raises further questions about the relationships among knowledge, power, action, and resistance.
