Environmental Activism and the Maternal: Mothers and Mother Earth in Activism and Discourse

Book excerpt: This anthology seeks to explore the complex, varied, and sometimes contradictory intersections between mothers, mothering, and environmental activism in discourse and in lived experiences. It is intended to look critically, and yet hopefully, at the ways in which feminist, Indigenous, and environmentalist challenges to the western, capitalist moral imagination are linked. It explores the reach of rape culture and the ways in which a capitalist, patriarchal society interacts with the earth as a feminine-personified identity. It also shares the hope available to all women through raising a coming generation and the great power to effect change. This work endeavours to share lessons from the Earth in resistance to the continued assaults of anthropogenic capitalist industry, and to inspire new ways to course-correct, to resist, to rise up, to create differently, and to foster evolution and revolution as mothers, as women, and as hearts and minds. This volume is curated to be a space for critical discussion about representations linking environmental activism, maternality, and "mother earth," as well as a venue for creative expression and art. In keeping with its intention to provide a space for discussion of a complex and varied array of perspectives on mothers, mothering, and mother earth, this is an interdisciplinary anthology. Contributions included hail from a wide range of disciplines and fields including psychology, sociology, anthropology, women's and gender studies, cultural studies, literary studies, as well as law and legal studies. Contributions from scholars working in the fields of social science are interwoven with creative contributions from academics, writers, and artists working in fields in the humanities.