Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America. A Tribute to Berta Cáceres by Irune del Rio Gabiola (review)
2023; University of Texas Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/lag.2023.a899559
ISSN1548-5811
Tópico(s)Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
ResumoReviewed by: Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America. A Tribute to Berta Cáceres by Irune del Rio Gabiola Lidiya Beida Irune del Rio Gabiola Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America. A Tribute to Berta Cáceres. New York: Peter Lang, 2020. xiv + 184 pp. 8 color illustrations, endnotes. $98.95 hardcover (ISBN: 978-1-433-15909-1); $94.45 eBook (ISBN: 978-1-433-16555-9). Reading Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles: A Tribute to Berta Cáceres by Irune del Rio Gabiola is allowing yourself to be guided by emotions, to feel out the pages and the author's voice. Del Rio Gabiola describes her book as an active act of mourning Berta Cáceres and other environmentalists in Honduras, which is one of the most dangerous countries for environmental activists. Del Rio Gabiola takes the readers on an affective journey through the work of Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) and its founder, Berta Cáceres, one of the world's most celebrated environmental activists, who was murdered in her home in La Esperanza, Honduras, in March 2016. By analyzing the role of feelings and emotions, from outrage to care and solidarity, in Cáceres's and COPINH's struggle against the Chinese-Honduran hydropower dam on the Gualcarque River, the book's theoretical contribution provides a framework for understanding decolonization and Indigenous struggles for sovereignty through affect: paving the way toward environmental justice by "moving and touching as many individuals as possible" (p. 18). Del Rio Gabiola's book is both a helpful guide to affect theory, ecofeminism, and psychoanalysis, and a captivating reconstruction of Cáceres's activism through her work at COPINH, the events and circumstances in the lead-up to her assassination, as well as the wave of international outrage that followed. Building upon the work of a multitude of scholars who have engaged with various aspects of the affective turn (see, for example, Clough, 2008), the author argues that affect theory has been based upon the Western understandings of emotions, which so far have failed to incorporate Indigenous and other non-Western, non-binary perspectives; in Western thought, femininity is often associated with negativity and with emotions that are perceived as dangerous to "the projects of civilization" (p. 12). In the book, del Rio Gabiola demonstrates "how Berta and COPINH's affective journey has embraced an intersectional analysis of struggles that integrate difference to achieve social justice" (p. 13). While focusing primarily on the environmental activism of COPINH, del Rio Gabiola also highlights that the organization seeks broader goals: [End Page 167] LGBT rights, gender equality, and general improvement of the quality of life for Indigenous groups in Honduras. Del Rio Gabiola engages with the existing theoretical literature on the triad of affect-ecofeminism-intersectionality and demonstrates her interpretations of the theory (and its shortcomings) through examples of intersectional ecofeminism in action, and the role of emotions such as outrage through the activist work of Cáceres, COPINH, and the Lenca Indigenous group to which Cáceres's family belonged. In Chapter 2, del Rio Gabiola analyzes how Cáceres's and COPINH's work is a living example of intersectional ecofeminism. The author deconstructs Western philosophy's tendency to lock female bodies in the roles of care, while also problematizing the mainstream "catching-up development" discourse that promotes the participation of women in the capitalist economy in the same way as their male counterparts. Building on the work of Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva's book Ecofeminism (1993), del Rio Gabiola suggests that ecofeminist struggles across the developing world should be seen as a mosaic of similar and intersecting problems, but each with a local context and in need of localized solutions. As such, del Rio Gabiola describes how COPINH's and Cáceres's work is rooted in Lenca ecological spirituality, with the Gualcarque River being a sacred entity for women and young girls, nurturing fertility in humans and on the land. COPINH's opposition to the hydropower project, Gabiola reminds, is rooted in Indigenous spirituality, and emotions such as love and care that are deployed throughout the organization...
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