Moving forward to go back: Doing Black feminism in the time of climate change

abstract

This article deals with how one moves from global catastrophe to local implementation from the perspective of one individual. It asks how one can live with the consciousness that system change is necessary and inevitable for species survival, while translating that consciousness into the necessity for immediate and personal action. It emanates from a history of oppression on the basis of race, gender and indigeneity, but argues that victimhood is no excuse for failing to take responsibility for our actions and how we live in this world. The recovery of indigenous knowledge systems is seen as crucial in making the transition from victim to survivor, and survivor to revolutionary in the sense of achieving long-term qualitative change. Since indigenous knowledge systems operate on the basis of experiential knowledge situated within specific material and cultural contexts, this recovery is described in terms of plants, soaps, oils, earth worms and manure.

keywords:

• gender and climate change
• mitigation
• adaptation
• resilience

Notes

1. Coyolxauqui is the Goddess of the moon in Aztec theology.

2. Als being African wormwood Artemisia afra.

3. Strangely enough named Olea europaea africana, although the tree is indigenous to the Cape.

4. This has been an extremely difficult paragraph to reference. A helpful website which combines a balanced review of the literature with personal experience can be found at http://www.solveeczema.org/thesolution.html. The problem, especially with the increasing corporatisation of universities, is that each paper should come accompanied by a declaration of interest as to whether the authors or their university have received funding from the industry. A similar problem has been defined in relation to agricultural research (Berry, 2002: 210–211). For a fuller discussion of the way we have to re-examine claims to knowledge in the light of climate change, cf. Abrahams (2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yvette Abrahams

YVETTE ABRAHAMS graduated with a Master's degree in History in 1994 and a PhD in Economic History in 2002. She has worked at the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape, and consulted for government and various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on issues relating to gender equality in policy and practice. Yvette has published locally and internationally on various topics related to gender equality and queer theory, as well as the history of First Nation South Africans. She worked for five years as a Commissioner for the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) as head of their programmes on poverty, energy and climate change. She is currently attached to the Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of the Western Cape, and continues to consult for NGOs in the field of gender and climate change. Email: [email protected]