Decolonizing human-nature relations : ecofeminist climate activism in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

Women are one of the most vulnerable groups affected by the climate crisis, not only because of their limited equal access to the benefits of a healthy ecosystem but also because of their loss of essential livelihood spaces. Despite being impacted and made more vulnerable by the climate crisis, the women’s activist movement in East Kalimantan has fueled their resistance from the bottom up. Using a decolonial ecofeminist approach, this chapter will examine how women activists in East Kalimantan reflect on their vulnerability to the climate crisis and their efforts to respond. This approach is used to explain the behaviors, responses, and narratives voiced by women activists in building more harmonious human–nature relations. Data on their ideas on human–nature relations and responses to the climate crisis were collected through webinar documentation, public discussions, and personal interviews with selected representatives of women activists from NGOs and academia, and with fieldwork in several locations in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. I argue that through the integration of knowledge production and climate activism, women activists construct a “critical community” and reflect ideas of “human–nature relations” within Indonesian environmentalists that seek to transform ecofeminist knowledge into everyday socio- ecological practices. In the process, women environmentalists demonstrate that ecofeminist- grounded social movements may simultaneously pursue socio-political change.