Eco-maternalism: The contribution of grandmaternal values to environmental discussion in the Global South

Abstract

With the rising global environmental issues, a scramble for effective adaptation and mitigation strategies has been developed by experts from all disciplines. Evidence of this is notable with the various environmental conferences where solutions are sought from the perspectives of intellectuals from the global South and North. Despite this, multidisciplinary studies have indicated that amidst this scramble for solutions, certain communities continue to be marginalised and are severely disconnected from conducting meaningful contributions to these environmental discussions. The UN-WOMEN (2024) has indicated that in the global South, with a focus on African countries, women continue to lag behind as integral contributors to such platforms (environmental conferences) where decision-making takes place regarding environmental matters. In the discipline of environmental philosophy, the movement of ecofeminism has exposed the mentioned issue of marginalisation by showing the complex relationship that exists between women and the environment that rarely gets considered. Ecofeminists (i.e. Western, Third World, and African perspectives) such as Karen J. Warren (1990), Val Plumwood (1993), Vandana Shiva (1988; 1993), and Wangari Maathai (2006), have specifically considered the issues of oppression, epistemic marginalisation of women, and the long-standing historical pattern of domination of both women and nature. In this dissertation, I build on these scholars' shared concerns and arguments, particularly those of African ecofeminists. Scholars of African ecofeminism, such as Wangari Maathai, have raised concerns about bodies that have been favoured as credible knowledge producers perpetuating the pre-existing intersectional issues of race, class, and gender in environmental matters. I begin this dissertation by identifying one of the marginalised communities in the global South, whom Maathai has previously perceived as people who have not always been noted as credible epistemic agents. The identified marginalised community whose voices and perspectives have not always been heard are elderly African women (i.e. grandmothers) in the rural outskirts of the African continent. I aim to extend the proposal by Lilian Cheelo Siwila (2014), who calls us (Africans) to 'trace the ecological footprints of our grandmothers'. In this dissertation, I go on to evaluate how African grandmothers have been decentralised in society, consequently leading to their exclusion in environmental discourse in the 21st Century. Furthermore, by using the theory of eco-maternalism (a branch of ecofeminism) in this dissertation, I conclude this paper by illustrating the significance of the elderly African woman as an integral epistemic contributor to environmental matters by analysing how their environmental knowledge can continue being centralised in environmental discussions.