ABSTRACT
Since at least the 1960s, ecological and environmental scholarship and activism have developed at a remarkable rate, both in terms of popularity and through the emergence of a myriad of different approaches to the topic. One set of approaches, offering a critical and insightful contribution to the field, is derived from gender and sexuality scholarship. Indeed, coinciding with the general boom in scholarship and activism, the international community has also turned its attention to environmental concerns. Reconciling development with environmental sustainability has officially been on the international agenda, to varying degrees, since the 1970s and the role of gender in relation to sustainable development has translated into various UN initiatives since the 1990s. This chapter, then, reviews the debates in the field of gender, sexuality and ecologism/environmentalism from early ecofeminist interventions in the late 1970s to contemporary debates on gender/climate justice and the queer ecologies that have emerged in conversation with the idea of the Anthropocene. Alongside reviewing the feminist, queer and gender scholarship in this field, the chapter also maps where these insights have, at least ostensibly, shaped environmental decision-making at an international level. Ultimately, the chapter explores the critical interventions made by feminist, queer and gender scholars and activists and highlights the (limited) aspects of this scholarship/activism that has resonated with policy-makers at the international level.
