Ecology

Conceptualizing ecology is contested terrain. Ecology may generically denote “the study of ecosystems,” with etymological roots in terms for home and economy. Most broadly, an ecosystem could refer to any conception of how various beings, entities, elements, and flows relate to one another as members of a network that constitutes a shared environment. In practice, though, there are cases where some people mobilize definitions of ecology in ways that directly or indirectly wield power over others. And how someone understands ecology relates to their perspectives on the concepts of land, property, resilience, and sustainability. Such concepts intersect with gender, sexuality, and power in multiple ways, including but not limited to gendered inheritance laws, racial logics of ownership, and heteronormative assumptions about the natural world. Furthermore, climate change’s impacts on how, when, and under what conditions people can work, reproduce, move, and migrate exposes the differential risks borne by women, trans, and gender nonconforming people.