Di Chiro, Giovanna. “Living Environmentalisms: Coalition Politics, Social Reproduction, and Environmental Justice” 17, no. 2 (2008): 276–98.
Annotation
DiChiro situates her argument in a Marxist-feminist framework called “social reproduction,” which is the intersection of political, economic, cultural, and environmental processes to maintain everyday life and sustain human culture and community. This premise underlies her central claim that in order to be most effective and generate the most support, both the environmental and women’s rights movements need to move beyond the narrow scopes they promote to create a “transformative alliance” that aims to recognize the inter-connectedness of social, economic, and environmental issues. DiChiro argues for a “coalition of politics,” which is essentially the coming together of the two movements to strengthen both by appealing to different support networks. She argues that, “all environmental issues are reproductive issues.” That is, by broadening the definition of “environment” to include where we live, how we build our communities, and where we as humans are situated within the environment affects reproduction.
DiChiro’s background in gender and women’s studies as well as environmental studies positions her to make a valid argument for the joining of women’s rights and environmentalist movements. Her article can be a bit repetitive, and the reader should have a fairly decent grasp of the academic language she uses. This is a useful article for anyone looking at the ways social movements can be combined to create larger movements as well as how the women’s rights and environmental movement are more interrelated and connected than originally believed.