Mies Maria - Ecofeminism

TITLES IN THE CRITIQUE INFLUENCE CHANGE SERIES

Reclaiming Development

An Alternative Policy Manual

by Ha-Joon Chang and Ilene Grabel

Realizing Hope

Life Beyond Capitalism

by Michael Albert

Global Governance and the New Wars

The Merging of Development and Security

by Mark Duffield

Capitalism in the Age of Globalization

The Management of Contemporary Society

by Samir Amin

Ecofeminism

by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva

Debating Cultural Hybridity

Multicultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism

edited by Pnina Werbner and Tariq Modood

Deglobalization

Ideas for a New World Economy

by Walden Bello

A Fundamental Fear

Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism

by Bobby S. Sayyid

Grassroots Post-modernism

Remaking the Soil of Cultures

by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash

Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale

Women in the International Division of Labour

by Maria Mies

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR ECOFEMINISM

This book provides an extraordinarily productive framework for entire generations of scholars and activists.

Michael Hardt, co-author of the Empire trilogy

This book is prescient: its time is now. The courage, radicalism and lucidity of Mies and Shiva twenty years ago still guide us on the path ahead.

Gustavo Esteva, grassroots activist and author

Ecofeminism belongs to the classical texts of a feminism that developed a more profound critique of modernity as capitalist patriarchy than Marxism, ecoscience and gender studies had done.

Claudia von Werlhof, University of Innsbruck

This book is a light in the dark ages of social and ecological crises.

Ana Isla, Brock University

The re-release of Ecofeminism is auspicious and long overdue. Overturning all, like good cultivators, Mies and Shiva prepare the earth for renewal.

Joel Kovel, author of The Enemy of Nature

Mies and Shiva are ideally suited to author a book of such broad intellectual, geographic, and political scope.

Karen T. Litfin, University of Washington

Read independently of the collection, many of the essays have innovative things to say to the political movements involved in fighting large scale development, nuclear energy, violence against women, wars and environmental destruction.

Wendy Harcourt, Development

In view of the postmodern fashion for dismantling all generalizations, the views propounded in Mies and Shivas Ecofeminism make refreshing reading. They show a commendable readiness to confront hypocrisy, challenge the intellectual heritage of the European Enlightenment, and breathe spiritual concerns into debates on gender and the environment.

Emma Crewe, Appropriate Technology

Shiva and Mies offer an all-embracing vision. For all those, and certainly for humanists, who are wrestling with the ethical, sexist and racist issues raised by invasive reproductive gene technology, Mies chapters on these developments are a must.

Gwen Marsh, New Humanist

Ecofeminism presents a very focused, searing indictment of development strategies practised by the North on the South.

Anne Statham, Feminist Collections

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Maria Mies is a Marxist feminist scholar who is renowned for her theory of capitalist-patriarchy, one which recognizes third world women and difference. She is a professor of sociology at Cologne University of Applied Sciences, but retired from teaching in 1993. Since the late 1960s she has been involved with feminist activism. In 1979, at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, she founded the Women and Development programme. Mies has written books and articles that deal with topics relating to feminism, third world issues and the environment. Her other titles published by Zed Books include The Lace Makers of Narsapur (1982), Women: The Last Colony (1988), Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale (1999) and The Subsistence Perspective (1999).

Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental leader and thinker, is director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology. In 1993, Shiva won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize and in 2010 was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for her commitment to social justice. She is the author of over twenty books. Her other titles published by Zed Books are Staying Alive (1989), The Violence of the Green Revolution (1991), Biodiversity (1992), Monocultures of the Mind (1993), Biopolitics (1995), Stolen Harvest (2001), Protect or Plunder (2001), Earth Democracy (2005) and Soil Not Oil (2009).

ECOFEMINISM

MARIA MIES
AND VANDANA
SHIVA

WITH A FOREWORD BY

ARIEL SALLEH

Zed Books
London & New York

Ecofeminism was first published in 1993 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA

This ebook edition was first published in 2014

www.zedbooks.co.uk

Copyright Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva 1993, 2014
Foreword Ariel Salleh 2014

The rights of Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Typeset by Kali for Women
Cover designed by www.alice-marwick.co.uk
Printed and bound by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available

ISBN 978 1 78032 979 6

Contents

Ariel Salleh