ABSTRACT
Ecofeminism has been the driving force for ecological movements around the world and is imagined in terms of a theoretical understanding of ecology as well as environmental movements. In its essential rendering it links women to the environment through their shared biological destinies, which includes being exploited by a culture that is dominated by patriarchy and men. With changes in environmental and ecological activism, the ways in which feminist activism and ideology orient themselves have increasingly come under the scanner. This chapter undertakes a critical evaluation of ecofeminism to assess the ways in which it is framed and understood in the emerging thrust towards ecological activism. The author engages with anthropological studies of grass-roots movements in India in the context of the blending of ideological activism with everyday experiential realities. Anna Tsing’s conceptualization of ‘frictions’ that destabilize forms of institutionalized and local conversations and conflicts is deployed by the author to investigate the major theoretical influences behind ecofeminism, especially feminist environmentalism and feminist political ecology.
