Cyberfeminism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberfeminism 

 

Cyberfeminism is a feminist approach which foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be used to refer to a philosophy, methodology or community. The term was coined in the early 1990s to describe the work of feminists interested in theorizing, critiquing, exploring and re-making the Internet, cyberspace and new-media technologies in general. The foundational catalyst for the formation of cyberfeminist thought is attributed to Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto", third wave feminism, post-structuralist feminism, riot grrrl culture and the feminist critique of the alleged erasure of women within discussions of technology.

Definition

Cyberfeminism is a sort of alliance that wants to defy any sort of boundaries of identity and definition and rather be truly postmodern in its potential for radical openness. This is seen with the 1997 Old Boys Network's 100 anti-theses which lists the 100 ways "cyberfeminism is not." Cornelia Sollfrank from the Old Boys Network states that:

Cyberfeminism is a myth. A myth is a story of unidentifiable origin, or of different origins. A myth is based on one central story which is retold over and over in different variations. A myth denies one history as well as one truth, and implies a search for truth in the spaces, in the differences between the different stories. Speaking about Cyberfeminism as a myth, is not intended to mystify it, it simply indicates that Cyberfeminism only exists in plural.

Mia Consalvo defines cyberfeminism as:

1. a label for women—especially young women who might not even want to align with feminism's history—not just to consume new technologies but to actively participate in their making;
2. a critical engagement with new technologies and their entanglement with power structures and systemic oppression.

The dominant cyberfeminist perspective takes a utopian view of cyberspace and the Internet as a means of freedom from social constructs such as gender, sex difference and race. For instance, a description of the concept described it as a struggle to be aware of the impact of new technologies on the lives of women as well as the so-called insidious gendering of technoculture in everyday life. It also sees technology as a means to link the body with machines. This is demonstrated in the way cyberfeminism—as maintained by theorists such as Barbara Kennedy—is said to define a specific cyborgian consciousness concept, which denotes a way of thinking that breaks down binary and oppositional discourses. There is also the case of the renegotiation of the artificial intelligence (AI), which is considered top-down masculinist, into bottom-up feminized version labeled as ALife programming.

VNS Matrix member Julianne Pierce defines cyberfeminism: "In 1991, in a cozy Australian city called Adelaide, four bored girls decided to have some fun with art and French Feminist theory... with homage to Donna Haraway they began to play around with the idea of cyberfeminism."

Authors Hawthorne and Klein explain the different analyses of cyberfeminism in their book: "Just as there are liberal, socialist, radical and postmodern feminists, so too one finds these positions reflected in the interpretations of cyberfeminism." Cyberfeminism is not just the subject matter, but is the approach taken to examine subject matter. For example: Cyberfeminism can be a critique of equality in cyberspace, challenge the gender stereotype in cyberspace, examine the gender relationship in cyberspace, examine the collaboration between humans and technology, examine the relationship between women and technology and more.

Sadie Plant much more viewed Cyberfeminism as a project which sought to uncover the history linking femininity and technology and how traits which were feminine were both useful to technology while still being in the same historical position as technology, objectified and to serve the ends of men, but for Plant this is where the future leads, towards technology and the abandoning of man, while women and technology go hand in hand escaping "the meat" for Plant by making "the meat" and "the mind" the same.

Theoretical background

Cyberfeminism arose partly as a reaction to "the pessimism of the 1980s feminist approaches that stressed the inherently masculine nature of techno-science", a counter-movement against the 'toys for boys' perception of new Internet technologies. According to a text published by Trevor Scott Milford, another contributor to the rise of cyberfeminism was the lack of female discourse and participation online concerning topics that were impacting women. As cyberfeminist artist Faith Wilding argued: "If feminism is to be adequate to its cyberpotential then it must mutate to keep up with the shifting complexities of social realities and life conditions as they are changed by the profound impact communications technologies and techno science have on all our lives. It is up to cyberfeminists to use feminist theoretical insights and strategic tools and join them with cybertechniques to battle the very real sexism, racism, and militarism encoded in the software and hardware of the Net, thus politicizing this environment."

Donna Haraway is the inspiration and genesis for cyberfeminism with her 1985 essay "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" which was reprinted in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991). Haraway's essay states that cyborgs are able to transcend the public and private spheres, but they do not have the ability to identify with their origins or with nature in order to develop a sense of understanding through differences between self and others. Shulamith Firestone and her book The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution has been named as a precursor to Haraway's work in cyberfeminism. Firestone's work focuses reproductive technology and advancing it to eliminate the connection of the feminine identity being connected to childbirth. Firestone believed that gender inequality and oppression against women could be solved if the roles around reproduction did not exist. Both Firestone and Haraway had ideals based on making individuals androgynous, and both women wanted society to move beyond biology by improving technology.

Cyberfeminism is considered a predecessor to networked feminism. Cyberfeminism also has a relationship to the field of feminist science and technology studies.

British cultural theorist Sadie Plant chose cyberfeminism to describe her recipe for defining the feminizing influence of technology on western society and its inhabitants.

Timeline

1970s

Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution created the foundation for many cyberfeminist activities. In her book, Firestone explores the possibility of using technology to eliminate sexism by freeing women from their obligation to carry children in order to create a nuclear family. In many ways, this can be seen as a precursor to cyberfeminism because it questions the role that technology should play in dismantling the patriarchy.

1980s

Donna Haraway was the inspiration and genesis for cyberfeminism with her 1985 essay "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century", which was later reprinted in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991). Haraway's essay states that cyborgs are able to transcend the public and private spheres, but they do not have the ability to identify with their origins or with nature in order to develop a sense of understanding through differences between self and others. Haraway had ideals based on making individuals androgynous, and wanted society to move beyond biology by improving technology.

1990s

The term cyberfeminism was first used around 1991 by both the English cultural theoretician Sadie Plant and the Australian artist group VNS Matrix, independently from each other.

In Canada, Nancy Paterson wrote an article entitled "Cyberfeminism" for EchoNYC in 1991.

In Adelaide, Australia, a four-person collective called VNS Matrix wrote the Cyberfeminist Manifesto in 1991; they used the term cyberfeminist to label their radical feminist acts "to insert women, bodily fluids and political consciousness into electronic spaces." That same year, British cultural theorist Sadie Plant used the term to describe definition of the feminizing influence of technology on western society.

In 1996, a special volume of Women & Performance was devoted to sexuality and cyberspace. It was a compendium of essays on cybersex, online stalking, fetal imaging, and going digital in New York.

According to Carolyn Guertin, the first Cyberfeminist International, organized by the Old Boys Network in Germany, in 1997, refused to define the school of thought, but drafted the "100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism" instead. Guertin says that cyberfeminism is a celebration of multiplicity.

2000s

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, cyberfeminist theorists and artists incorporated insights from postcolonial and subaltern studies about the intersection of gender and race, inspired by thinkers such as Donna Haraway and Gayatri Spivak. Artists such as Coco Fusco, Shu Lea Cheang, and Prema Murthy, explored the ways that gender and race by combining performance art, video art, and with the then-emerging technologies of interactive websites, digital graphics, and streaming media.

In 2003 the feminist anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium was published; it includes the essay "Cyberfeminism: Networking the Net" by Amy Richards and Marianne Schnall.

2010s

Usage of the term cyberfeminism has faded away after the millennium, partly as a result of the dot.com bubble burst that bruised the utopian bent of much of digital culture. Radhika Gajjala and Yeon Ju Oh's Cyberfeminism 2.0 argues that cyberfeminism in the 21st century has taken many new forms and focuses on the different aspects of women's participation online. It also includes the promotion of feminist ideals on more modernized technology. This included the emergence of several feminist blogs. They find cyberfeminists in women's blogging networks and their conferences, in women's gaming, in fandom, in social media, in online mothers' groups performing pro-breastfeeding activism, and in online spaces developed and populated by marginal networks of women in non-Western countries.

Feminist action and activism online is prevalent, especially by women of colour, but has taken on different intersectional terms. While there are writing on black cyberfeminism which argue that not only is race not absent in our use of the internet, but race is a key component in how we interact with the internet. However, women of colour generally do not associate with cyberfeminism, and rather re-frame africanfuturism, afrofuturism in feminist terms.

The decline in the volume of cyberfeminist literature in recent years would suggest that cyberfeminism has somewhat lost momentum as a movement; however, in terms of artists and artworks, not only is cyberfeminism still taking place, but its artistic and theoretical contribution has been of crucial importance to the development of posthuman aesthetics.

Xenofeminism

Xenofeminism, or the movement that incorporates technology into the abolition of gender, is a concept that is intersectional to cyberfeminism. It is an offshoot of cyberfeminism established by the feminist collective Laboria Cuboniks. In its manifesto, Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation, the collective argues against nature as desirable and immutable in favor of a future where gender is dislodged from power and in which feminism destabilizes and uses the master's tools for its own rebuilding of life. The movement has three main characteristics: it is techno-materialist, anti-naturalist, and advocates for gender abolition. This means that the movement contradicts naturalist ideals that state that there are only two genders and aims toward the abolition of the "binary gender system". Xenofeminism differs from cyberfeminism because while it has similar ideals, it is inclusive to the queer and transgender communities. The manifesto states:

Xenofeminism is gender-abolitionist. 'Gender abolitionism' is shorthand for the ambition to construct a society where traits currently assembled under the rubric of gender, no longer furnish a grid for the asymmetric operation of power. 'Race abolitionism' expands into a similar formula – that the struggle must continue until currently racialized characteristics are no more a basis of discrimination than the color of one's eyes. Ultimately, every emancipatory abolitionism must incline towards the horizon of class abolitionism, since it is in capitalism where we encounter oppression in its transparent, denaturalized form: you're not exploited or oppressed because you are a wage labourer or poor; you are a labourer or poor because you are exploited.

Critiques

Many critiques of cyberfeminism have focused on its lack of intersectional focus, its utopian vision of cyberspace, especially cyberstalking and cyber-abuse, its whiteness and elite community building.

One of the major critiques of cyberfeminism, especially as it was in its heyday in the 1990s, was that it required economic privilege to get online: "By all means let [poor women] have access to the Internet, just as all of us have it—like chocolate cake or AIDS," writes activist Annapurna Mamidipudi. "Just let it not be pushed down their throats as 'empowering.' Otherwise this too will go the way of all imposed technology and achieve the exact opposite of what it purports to do." Cyberfeminist artist and thinker Faith Wilding also critiques its utopian vision for not doing the tough work of technical, theoretical and political education.

Art and artists

The practice of cyberfeminist art is inextricably intertwined with cyberfeminist theory. The 100 anti-theses make clear that cyberfeminism is not just about theory, while theory is extremely important, cyberfeminism requires participation. As one member of the cyberfeminist collective the Old Boys Network writes, cyberfeminism is "linked to aesthetic and ironic strategies as intrinsic tools within the growing importance of design and aesthetics in the new world order of flowing pancapitalism". Cyberfeminism also has strong connections with the DIY feminism movement, as noted in the seminal text DIY Feminism, a grass roots movement that encourages active participation, especially as a solo practitioner or a small collective.

Around the late 1990s several cyberfeminist artists and theorists gained a measure of recognition for their works, including the above-mentioned VNS Matrix and their Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st century, and Faith Wilding and Critical Art Ensemble. Some of the better-known examples of cyberfeminist work include Auriea Harvey's work, Sandy Stone, Nancy Paterson, Linda Dement's Cyberflesh Girlmonster a hypertext CD-ROM that incorporates images of women's body parts and remixes them to create new monstrous yet beautiful shapes; Melinda Rackham's Carrier, a work of web-based multimedia art that explores the relationship between humans and infectious agents; Prema Murthy's 1998 work Bindigirl, a satirical Asian porn website that examines the intersection of racialized gender, sexuality, and religion online; Murthy's 2000 project Mythic Hybrid, based on reports of mass hysteria among microchip factory workers in India; Shu Lea Cheang's 1998 work Brandon, which was the first Internet based artwork to be commissioned and collected by the Guggenheim. A later work of Cheang's, I.K.U. (2001), is a sci-fi pornographic film that imagines a cybersexual post-Blade Runner universe, where sexual encounters with feminine, shapeshifting "replicants" are distilled and collected for resale, and ultimately reuse. I.K.U. was the first pornographic film to screen at Sundance. Dr. Caitlin Fisher's online hypertext novella "These Waves of Girls" is set in three time periods of the protagonist exploring polymorphous perversity enacted in her queer identity through memory. The story is written as a reflection diary of the interconnected memories of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. It consists of an associated multi-modal collection of nodes includes linked text, still and moving images, manipulable images, animations, and sound clips. Recent artworks of note include Evelin Stermitz's World of Female Avatars in which the artist has collected quotes and images from women over the world and displayed them in an interactive browser based format, and Regina Pinto's Many Faces of Eve. Orphan Drift (1994-2003) were a 4.5 person collective experimenting with writing, art, music and the internet's potential "treating information as matter and the image as a unit of contagion."

Listserves

An important part of the generation of cyberfeminist theory and critique was the emergence of a few critical listserves that served as the basis for the organization of three international cyberfeminist events and several major publications.

• Nettime – More broadly situated in new media theory, the nettime listserve became a site for the discussion, performance, and arbitration of cyberfeminist theory in 1997.^{[citation needed]}
• FACES – The FACES-l.net mailing list started in the spring of 1997 partly out of a series of concurrent dinner conversations known as the Face Settings Project. The initial goal of the project was to bring together women working at the intersections of art and media to share their work and to counter the lack of women's work presented at international festivals. Faces-l was created as a means for the artists, curators, DJs, designers, activists, programmers, and technologists to meet at festivals to share their work and discuss gender and media with an international community of women.

A Cyborg Manifesto

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cyborg_Manifesto 

 

"A Cyborg Manifesto" is an essay written by Donna Haraway and published in 1985 in the Socialist Review (US). In it, the concept of the cyborg represents a rejection of rigid boundaries, notably those separating "human" from "animal" and "human" from "machine." Haraway writes: "The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."

The "Manifesto" challenges traditional notions of feminism, particularly feminist that focuses on identity politics, and instead encourages coalition through affinity. Haraway uses the concept of a cyborg to represent the plasticity of identity and to highlight the limitations of socially imposed identities; the "Manifesto" is considered a major milestone in the development of feminist posthumanist theory.

Major points

Haraway, the author, in 2006

Haraway begins the "Manifesto" by explaining three boundary breakdowns since the 20th century that have allowed for her hybrid, cyborg myth: those between human and animal, animal-human and machine, and physical and non-physical. Evolution, she claims, has blurred the lines between human and animal; 20th-century machines have blurred the lines between natural and artificial; and microelectronics and the political invisibility of cyborgs have blurred the lines of physicality.

Haraway’s piece is a novel approach to examining the culture-nature divide. She introduces the potential of a completely new ontology of hybridization of nature and culture through the cyborg, a combination of machine and organism. Haraway’s use of the cyborg illustrates her conceptualizations of socialism and feminism in the examinations of dichotomies such as nature/culture, mind/body, and idealism/materialism. Haraway’s cyborgs are a blending of imagination and material reality. The cyborg is a dualism, as opposed to a dichotomy; there is value perceived in the confusion of the borders of bounded categories. The need for the divide between culture and nature is no longer relevant, and the cyborg emerges from the blending of that boundary.

Issues with Western patriarchal tenets

Haraway highlights what she sees as the problematic use and justification of historical Western ideologies like patriarchy, colonialism, essentialism, and naturalism (among others). These traditions in turn allow for the problematic formations of taxonomies (and identifications of the Other) and what Haraway explains as "antagonistic dualisms" that order Western discourse. These dualisms, Haraway states, "have all been systematic to the logics and practices of domination of women, people of color, nature, workers, animals... all [those] constituted as others." She highlights specific problematic dualisms of self/other, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man (among others). She explains that these dualisms are in competition with one another, creating paradoxical relations of domination (especially between the One and the Other). However, high-tech culture provides a challenge to these antagonistic dualisms.

There is also the idea that cyborgs are beings that have been uncoupled from organic reproduction. Haraway also distinguishes the cyborg from other literary ideas that are lacking in their parentage such as Frankenstein's monster, because that parentage is no longer a relevant or desired connection. Haraway paints the cyborg as the illegitimate offspring of patriarchal capitalism; because that connection isn’t sought or is irrelevant, the cyborg is not beholden to its capitalistic, patriarchal, and neoliberal origins. There are social and bodily realities that come about from the joint kinship with both organisms and machines that inform on the identities of cyborgs to be permanently partial identities, incorporating aspects of both. The struggle is to see from both perspectives at once, and can provide an archetype for resistance, as another of Haraway’s premises is about the need for unity of people in the face of what she refers to as “world wide intensification of domination.”

Cyborg theory

Haraway's cyborg theory rejects the notions of essentialism, proposing instead a chimeric, monstrous world of fusions between animal and machine. Cyborg theory relies on writing as "the technology of cyborgs," and asserts that "cyborg politics is the struggle for language and the struggle against perfect communication, against the one code that translates all meaning perfectly, the central dogma of phallogocentrism." Instead, Haraway's cyborg calls for a non-essentialized, material-semiotic metaphor capable of uniting diffuse political coalitions along the lines of affinity rather than identity. Following Lacanian feminists such as Luce Irigaray, Haraway's work addresses the chasm between feminist discourses and the dominant language of Western patriarchy. As Haraway explains, "grammar is politics by other means," and effective politics require speaking in the language of domination. Still, as Haraway states, "Feminist cyborg stories have the task of recoding communication and intelligence to subvert command and control." These stories are "communications devices" which "can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies," dualisms which engender the illusion of perfect coded communication. Haraway mentions Octavia Butler, John Varley, and Vonda McIntyre as authors/artists whose work constitute a feminist science fiction of cyborg stories.

As she details in a chart of the paradigmatic shifts from modern to postmodern epistemology within the Manifesto, the unified human subject of identity has shifted to the hybridized posthuman of technoscience, from "representation" to "simulation", "bourgeois novel" to "science fiction", "reproduction" to "replication", and "white capitalist patriarchy" to "informatics of domination". While Haraway's "ironic dream of a common language" is inspired by Irigaray's argument for a discourse other than patriarchy, she rejects Irigaray's essentializing construction of woman-as-not-male to argue for a linguistic community of situated, partial knowledges in which no one is innocent.

In her discussion of cyborg theory, Haraway describes two possible worlds resulting from embracing cyborg identity. The first future, which aligns with the view point taken by socialist and radical feminism, is that the breaking down of the boundary between the organism and technology will represent the final conquering of the oppressed body. The second future, which Haraway offers as an alternative in her critique of binary thinking, allows for kinship between boundaries and acceptance of fluid and contradictory identities. These futures function within her argument for cyborg theory in that she sees the acknowledgment of both possibilities as necessary for understanding intersecting forces of oppression and preparing for how technological advancement will change the ways that political forces as well as identity and kinship will function in the future.

Criticism of traditional feminism

Haraway takes issue with some traditional feminists, reflected in statements describing how "women more than men somehow sustain daily life, and so have a privileged epistemological (relating to the theory of knowledge) position potentially." The views of traditional feminism operate under the totalizing assumptions that all men are one way, and women another, whereas "a cyborg theory of wholes and parts," does not desire to explain things in total theory. Haraway suggests that feminists should move beyond naturalism and essentialism, criticizing feminist tactics as "identity politics" that victimize those excluded, and she proposes that it is better strategically to confuse identities. Her criticism mainly focuses on socialist and radical feminism. The former, she writes, achieves "to expand the category of labour to what (some) women did". Socialist feminism does not naturalize but rather builds a unity that was non-existent before - namely the woman worker. On the other hand, radical feminism, according to Catharine MacKinnon, describes a world in which the woman only exists in opposition to the man. The concept of woman is socially constructed within the patriarchal structure of society and women only exist because men have made them exist. The woman as a self does not exist. Haraway criticizes both when writing that "my complaint about socialist/Marxian standpoints is their unintended erasure of polyvocal, unassimilable, radical difference made visible in anti-colonial discourse and practice" and "MacKinnon's intentional erasure of all difference through the device of the 'essential' non-existence of women is not reassuring" (299).

Haraway also indirectly critiques white feminism by highlighting the struggles of women of color: she suggests that a woman of color "might be understood as a cyborg identity, a potent subjectivity synthesized from fusions of outsider identities and in the complex political-historical layerings of her 'biomythography.'"

To counteract the essentializing and anachronistic rhetoric of spiritual ecofeminists, who were fighting patriarchy with modernist constructions of female-as-nature and earth mothers, Haraway employs the cyborg to refigure feminism into cybernetic code.

Call to action

Haraway calls for a revision of the concept of gender, moving away from Western patriarchal essentialism and toward "the utopian dream of the hope for a monstrous world without gender," stating that "Cyborgs might consider more seriously the partial, fluid, sometimes aspect of sex and sexual embodiment. Gender might not be global identity after all, even if it has profound historical breadth and depth."

Haraway also calls for a reconstruction of identity, no longer dictated by naturalism and taxonomy but instead by affinity, wherein individuals can construct their own groups by choice. In this way, groups may construct a "post-modernist identity out of otherness, difference, and specificity" as a way to counter Western traditions of exclusive identification.

Updates and revisions

Although Haraway's metaphor of the cyborg has been labelled as a post-gender statement, Haraway has clarified her stance on post-genderism in some interviews. She acknowledges that her argument in the "Manifesto" seeks to challenge the necessity for categorization of gender, but does not correlate this argument to post-genderism. She clarifies this distinction because post-genderism is often associated with the discourse of the utopian concept of being beyond masculinity and femininity. Haraway notes that gender constructs are still prevalent and meaningful, but are troublesome and should therefore be eliminated as categories for identity.

Applications of The Cyborg

Although Haraway intended her concept of the cyborg to be a feminist critique, she acknowledges that other scholars and popular media have taken her concept and applied it to different contexts. Haraway is aware and receptive of the different uses of her concept of the cyborg, but admits "very few people are taking what I consider all of its parts". Wired Magazine overlooked the feminist theory of the cyborg and instead used it to make a more literal commentary about the enmeshment of humans and technology. Despite this, Haraway also recognizes that new feminist scholars "embrace and use the cyborg of the manifesto to do what they want for their own purposes".

Patchwork Girl

Shelley Jackson, author of Patchwork Girl.

Patchwork Girl, a hypertext work, makes use of elements from "A Cyborg Manifesto". Patchwork Girl's "thematic focus on the connections between monstrosity, subjectivity, and new reproductive technologies is apparent from its very first page, when readers, or users, open the hypertext to find a picture of a scarred and naked female body sewn together with a single dotted line...Readers enter the text by clicking on this body and following its 'limbs' or links to different sections of the text." In Jackson's narrative, the Patchwork Girl is an aborted female monster created by Victor Frankenstein of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, an abhorrent and monstrous creature that is "part male, part female, part animal, 175 years old, and 'razed' up through hypertext technology." The monster, following her destruction by Victor, is sewn back together by Mary Shelley herself, while simultaneously becoming Mary's lover; she is thus, "a cyborg who is queer, dis-proportioned, and visibly scarred. She both facilitates and undermines preoccupations with the benefits and dangers of reproductive technologies by embracing all of the monstrosities that reproductive/fetal screenings are imagined to 'catch' and one day prevent." The Patchwork Girl embraces Haraway's conception of a cybernetic posthuman being in both her physical multiplicity and her challenge towards "the images and fantasies sustaining reproductive politics."

"Cyborg Goddesses"

Turkish critical scholar Leman Giresunlu uses Haraway's cyborg as framework to examine current science fiction movies such as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Resident Evil in her essay "Cyborg Goddesses: The Mainframe Revisited". In this essay, she explores how her new concept of the cyborg goddess, a female figure "capable of inflicting pain and pleasure simultaneously", can be used to make sense of how female representation is shifting towards a more multidimensional stance. Giresunlu builds from Haraway's cyborg because the cyborg goddess goes beyond "offering a way out from [the] duality" and instead provides how spirituality and technology work together to form a complex and more accurate representation of women.

"Mind Over Matter"

In her essay "Mind Over Matter: Mental Evolution and Physical Devolution in The Incredible Shrinking Man", American critical scholar Ruthellen Cunnally uses Haraway's cyborg to help make sense of how Robert Scott Carey, the protagonist of The Incredible Shrinking Man, transforms into a cyborg in the midst of a metaphor of cold war politics in his home. As Robert continues to shrink, the gendered power dynamic between him and his wife Louise shifts from "the realm of husband/wife into the mode of mother/son". When Robert finds himself lost in the feminine space of the basement, an area of the house that was reserved for Louise's domestic duties of sewing and washing, he is forced to fight for his life and reclaim his masculinity. Although he is able to conquer some of his foes and regain his "manhood", the gender lines do not become established again because there is no one to share and implement the gendered power structure with. Robert's transformation presents "an existence in which acceptance and meaning are released from the limitations of patriarchal dualisms", which aligns with Haraway's cyborg.

Reviews and criticism

Traditional feminists have criticized "A Cyborg Manifesto" as anti-feminist because it denies any commonalities of the female experience. In the "Manifesto", Haraway writes "there is nothing about being 'female' that naturally binds women", which goes against a defining characteristic of traditional feminism that calls women to join together in order to advocate for members of their gender.

Criticism and controversy surrounded the essay's publication history: the East Coast Collective of the Socialist Review found the piece "a naive embrace of technology" and advocated against its publication, while The Berkeley Collective ultimately insisted that it go to print. The essay has been described as "controversial" and "viral" in its circulation through multiple academic departments and disciplinary boundaries, contributing to the critical discourse on its claims. This controversiality was matched by its omnipresence; Jackie Orr, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Syracuse University, writes, "It is hard to be a feminist graduate student in the U.S. humanities or social sciences after 1985 and not be touched in some way by the Cyborg Manifesto." The rapid adoption of the article in academic circles also increased the pace of the critical conversation surrounding the work, and in 1990, Haraway felt that the essay had "acquired a surprise half life," which made it "impossible to rewrite" and necessitated revisiting the topic in her subsequent publications.

Many critiques of "A Cyborg Manifesto" focus on a basic level of reader comprehension and writing style, such as Orr's observation that "undergraduate students in a science and technology class find the Cyborg Manifesto curiously relevant but somewhat impenetrable to read." This is corroborated by Helen Merrick and Margret Grebowicz's observation that scientists who reviewed Primate Visions had similar issues, particularly as related to Haraway's use of irony. Judy Wajcman, Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, suggests in TechnoFeminism that "the openness of her writing to a variety of readings is intentional," which "can sometimes make Haraway difficult to interpret;" however, it does not seem that Wajcman critiques Haraway's tone for its capability to encompass more possibilities, rather than limit them. Wajcman concludes her chapter "Send in the Cyborgs" on a critical note, claiming that "Certainly, Haraway is much stronger at providing evocative figurations of a new feminist subjectivity than she is at providing guidelines for a practical emancipatory politics."

Critiques of Haraway have also centered on the accessibility of the thematic topics she discusses in her writing, and according to third-wave feminist readings, her work "assumes a reader who is familiar with North American culture," and posits that "readers without the appropriate cultural capital are...likely to find it infuriatingly obscure and impenetrable." Therefore, Haraway's symbolism is representative of North American culture symbolizing a "non-universalizing vision for feminist strategies" and "has been taken up within cyberfeminism as the symbol of an essential female being." Considering the question of accessibility more broadly, disability studies have focused on Haraway's essay, noting the absence of "any kind of critical engagement with disability...disabled bodies are simply presented as exemplary...requiring neither analysis nor critique"—a gap which Alison Kafer, Professor of Feminist Studies at Southwestern University, attempts to address in Feminist, Queer, Crip. Wajcman also argues that Haraway's view of technology in "A Cyborg Manifesto" is perhaps too totalizing, and that the binary of "the cyborg solution and the goddess solution" ultimately "caricatures feminism" by focusing too readily on a dichotomy that may in fact be a false one.

In Unfinished Work-From Cyborg to Cognisphere, N. Katherine Hayles questions the validity of cyborg as a unit of analysis. She says that because of the complicated situation of technology and media, "cyborg is no longer the individual person – or for that matter, the individual cyborg – is no longer the appropriate unit of analysis, if indeed it ever was."

As for the relationships between cyborg and religion, Robert A. Campbell argues that "in spite of Haraway's efforts to move beyond traditional Western dualisms and offer a new hope for women, and by extension of humanity and the world, what she in fact offers is a further legitimation for buying into the not so new American civil religion of high technology." He says that "in spite of what some may view as a radical critique of the present and a potentially frightening prescription for the future, the stark reality about Haraway's 'postmodern reality' is that there is no such thing."

Beyond its presence in academic context, "A Cyborg Manifesto" has also had popular traction including Wired's piece by Hari Kunzru and Mute, BuzzFeed,  as well as Vice. Retrospective articles consistently mark its anniversary.

In 2018, the disability rights activist and self-described cyborg Cy argued that "A Cyborg Manifesto" erased disabled people and appropriated the aesthetic of disability.

Sonographic fetus as cyborg

Scholar Marilyn Maness Mehaffy writes that the "sonographic fetus is in many ways the ultimate cyborg in that it is 'created' in a space of virtuality that straddles the conventional boundary between an organic body and a digital text." Yet it is this cyborg that presents a limit to Haraway's posthuman theory. The sonographic fetus, as posited by scholar Heather Latimer, "is publicly envisioned as both independent of [its mother's] body and as independent of the sonographic equipment used to read this body. We know that fetal images are depictions, yet the sonogram invokes a documentary-like access to fetuses that makes it easy to ignore this, which in turn can limit the authority and agency of pregnant women." In positioning the fetus as independent, and consequently oppositional, to the pregnant mother, these reproductive technologies "reinscribe stable meanings to the human/machine dualism they supposedly disrupt." Valerie Hartouni argues, "most reproductive technologies have assimilated into the 'order of nature'" which would make Haraway's vision of a regenerative species, unrestricted by heteronormative conceptions of reproduction, unattainable in the sonographic fetus.

Publication history

Haraway began writing the "Manifesto" in 1983 to address the Socialist Review request for American socialist feminists to ponder over the future of socialist feminism in the context of the early Reagan era and the decline of leftist politics. The first versions of the essay had a strong socialist and European connection that the Socialist Review East Coast Collective found too controversial to publish. The Berkeley Socialist Review Collective published the essay in 1985 under the editor Jeff Escoffier. The essay was most widely read as part of Haraway's 1991 book Simians, Cyborgs and Women. In 2006, a variorum edition of the Manifesto was published in The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments integrating variations from the various versions and returning references and some of the scholarly apparatus that had become separated from the text.

Sexecology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexecology 

Sexecology, also known as ecosexuality, is a radical form of environmental activism based around nature fetishism, the idea of the earth as a lover. It invites people to treat the earth with love rather than see it as an infinite resource to exploit. It was founded by Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, who describe themselves as "two ecosexual artists-in-love", whose manifesto is to make environment activism "more sexy, fun, and diverse". Sexecology employs absurdist humor, performance art and sex-positivity, which Stephens claims "may produce new forms of knowledge that hold potential to alter the future by privileging our desire for the Earth to function with as many diverse, intact and flourishing ecological systems as possible." The couple promote education, events such as the ecosex symposium, and activism, such as protecting the Appalachian Mountains from mountain top removal.

Difference from ecofeminism

Sexecology conceives of the earth not as a mother, but as a lover. This conceptual shift invites people to engage their bodies and senses in acts of environmental preservation.

Unlike ecofeminism, sexecology does not see an intrinsic link between women and nature; some of the limitations of ecofeminism which sex ecology indirectly addresses are "the reliance on women's biological functions to establish a connection between women and nature, the uncritical over-privileging of women's experiences, the inappropriateness of designating ideal female characteristics, and the regressive political implications of associating women with nature". "The formulation of an Eco-Sexual identity is a practice of an erotic eco-logic, deconstructing heteronormative constructions of gender, sex, sexuality, and nature in order to continually queer and destabilize identities, actively form and retain spaces of lack that necessitate interdependency, and engage a permeable sensuous self in perpetual sensorial reciprocity with the sensing and sensible more-than-human environment. It is an identity identified by desire rather than a stable essence or being, and it is a desire for the more-than-human environment in which the human subject is sensorially implicit."

Ecosexuals

Proponents of this movement are called "ecosexuals"; they are unafraid to engage in and embrace their erotic experience with the earth, such as bathing naked, having sex with vegetables or having an orgasm in a waterfall. Stephens describes ecosexuals as people who "... are related to cyborgs and are not afraid of engaging in intercourse with nature and/or with technology for that matter. We make love with the Earth through our senses."

Ecosexuals range from those who use sustainable sex products and like being nude in nature to those who "roll around in the dirt having an orgasm covered in potting soil" and those who "masturbate under a waterfall" "[Sprinkle and Stephens] have officiated wedding ceremonies where they and fellow ecosexuals marry the earth, the moon, and other natural entities"  They have also stated that they believe there are over 100,000 people who identify as ecosexual worldwide.

Human/nonhuman relationships

Sexecology seeks to direct attention towards “the ways in which sex and sexuality affect the larger nonhuman world.” Ecosexuality is an orientation directed toward the non-human material world. With this direction, ecosexuality makes a bold statement that “these human bodies are part of the nonhuman material world.” The blur between human and non-human entities is essential to Sprinkles and Stephens’ demonstration of sexecology.

Sexecology was influenced by contemporary theories around posthumanism and the relationships between humans and nonhumans.

Elizabeth Stephens has said "Haraway’s work has guided my understanding of the material consequences and the theoretical underpinnings embedded in human/nonhuman relationships that matrix our world. This has helped me understand how human exceptionalism has been constructed and privileged throughout the history of religion and science as well as in other secular practices in western culture. Human exceptionalism, in collaboration with global capitalism, has created the isolated space necessary for the ongoing practices that have produced the dangerously degraded environmental conditions in which we now live. The belief systems and ideologies that allow some people to think that they have the Darwinian survival skill and the rights that accompany those skills to use or destroy other human and non humans is now causing the kind of environmental degradation that affects the whole system sooner or later."

Performances and workshops

“The Love Art Lab projects aim to instill hope, create an antidote to fear, and act as a call for action.” It is a private demonstration into the work of the two founders of the movement, Sprinkles and Stephens, as the research how to become "lovers with the earth. The performances can be privately booked by contacting the two and are meant to be demonstrational, informative, and "radical."

Sprinkles and Stephens have performed a number of "weddings to the earth" across the world intended to break the barrier between human sexuality and nature. The performances include "Wedding to the Dirt, Wedding to Lake Kallavesi, Wedding to the Coal, Wedding to the Rocks, Wedding to the Snow, Wedding to the Moon, Wedding to the Appalachian Mountains, Wedding to the Earth, and Wedding to the Sea", to date. The intention, according to Sprinkles, is to "…shift the metaphor from ‘Earth as Mother’ to ‘Earth as Lover´" 

Sprinkles and Stephens have performed a two women show 25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth (Theatre Piece) at the Kosmos Theatre in Vienna in 2010 to demonstrate how to "make love with the earth", including talking, singing, dancing, and stroking natural objects. The performances are educational as well as self-promoting of the movement.

The aesthetic strategies of sexecology are influenced by Joseph Beuys' concept of social sculpture, which sees art as having the potential to transform society.

"... the production of visible art may effect the production of invisible ideological and class relations. For Joseph Beuys, sculpture and artistic creativity hold the potential to reshape the educational and governmental institutions that produce ideological subjects, as well as social, political, and economic systems. Art, Beuys argues, is the necessary condition for the production of a revolutionary society because it can both unravel the old order and engage everyone in the production of a new social order."

Ecosexuals have engaged in protests against mountaintop removal, as shown in the film "Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story."

Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story (film)

Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story (2013) is an autoethnographic documentary film by Elizabeth Stephens with Annie Sprinkle about the environmental issue of Mountaintop removal in West Virginia, United States. West Virginia native Stephens returns to her childhood home to create a film that incorporates autobiography, a brief history of the coal industry, an inventory of activist strategies, an eco-sexual mini-manifesto, and finally, an example of the performance art Stephens and Sprinkle often employ to express their ecosexuality. Stephens presents a community struggling to reconcile their love of their natural mountainous environment with the fact that its destruction via MTR provides the local economy. The piece explores the negative consequences of mountaintop removal, both cosmetic and environmental, and culminates in an exploration of ecosexuality, followed by wedding ceremony in which Stephens and Sprinkle "marry" the mountain. “Ecosexuality inserts an ‘erotic’ humor that plays against the horrific subject matter. So far the feedback that I’ve received at film previews makes me realize that these are effective strategies for creating space to briefly cut the feeling of despair that MTR evokes.

Environmental humanities

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_humanities 

 

The environmental humanities (also ecological humanities) is an interdisciplinary area of research, drawing on the many environmental sub-disciplines that have emerged in the humanities over the past several decades, in particular environmental literature, environmental philosophy, environmental history, science and technology studies, environmental anthropology, and environmental communication. Environmental humanities employs humanistic questions about meaning, culture, values, ethics, and responsibilities to address pressing environmental problems. The environmental humanities aim to help bridge traditional divides between the sciences and the humanities, as well as between Western, Eastern, and Indigenous ways of relating to the natural world and the place of humans within it. The field also resists the traditional divide between "nature" and "culture," showing how many "environmental" issues have always been entangled in human questions of justice, labor, and politics. Environmental humanities is also a way of synthesizing methods from different fields to create new ways of thinking through environmental problems.

Emergence of environmental humanities

Although the concepts and ideas underpinning environmental humanities date back centuries, the field consolidated under the name "environmental humanities" in the 2000s following steady developments of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in humanities and social science fields such as literature, history, philosophy, gender studies, and anthropology. A group of Australian researchers used the name "ecological humanities" to describe their work in the 1990s; the field consolidated under the name "environmental humanities" around 2010. The journal Environmental Humanities was founded in 2012 and Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities in 2014, indicating the development of the field and the consolidation around this terminology.

There are dozens of environmental humanities centers, programs, and institutions around the world. Some of the more prominent ones are the fully funded Environmental Humanities Graduate Program at the University of Utah, the oldest environmental humanities graduate program in America, the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) at LMU Munich, the Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, The Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences at Rice University, the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, The Greenhouse at the University of Stavanger, and the international Humanities for the Environment observatories.

Dozens of universities offer PhDs, Masters of Arts degrees, graduate certificates, and Bachelor of Arts degrees in environmental humanities. Courses in environmental humanities are taught on every continent.

The environmental humanities did not just emerge from Western academic thinkers: indigenous, postcolonial, and feminist thinkers have provided major contributions. These contributions include challenging the human-centered viewpoints that separate "nature" and "culture" and the white, male, European- and North American-centric viewpoints of what constitutes "nature"; revising the literary genre of "nature writing"; and creating new concepts and fields that bridge the academic and the political, such as "environmental justice," "environmental racism," "the environmentalism of the poor," "naturecultures," and "the posthuman."

Connectivity ontology

The environmental humanities are characterised by a connectivity ontology and a commitment to two fundamental axioms relating to the need to submit to ecological laws and to see humanity as part of a larger living system.

One of the fundamental ontological presuppositions of environmental humanities is that the organic world and its inorganic parts are seen as a single system whereby each part is linked to each other part. This world view in turn shares an intimate connection with Lotka's physiological philosophy and the associated concept of the "World Engine". When we see everything as connected, then the traditional questions of the humanities concerning economic and political justice become enlarged, into a consideration of how justice is connected with our transformation of our environment and ecosystems. The consequence of such connectivity ontology is, as proponents of the environmental humanities argue, that we begin to seek out a more inclusive concept of justice that includes non-humans within the domain of those to whom rights are owing. This broadened conception of justice involves "enlarged" or "ecological thinking", which presupposes the enhancement of knowledge sharing within fields of plural and diverse ‘knowledges’. This kind of knowledge sharing is called transdisciplinarity. It has links with the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt and the works of Italo Calvino. As Calvino put it, "enlarge[s] the sphere of what we can imagine". It also has connections with Leibniz's Enlightenment project where the sciences are simultaneously abridged while also being enlarged.

The situation is complicated, however, by the recognition of the fact that connections are both non-linear and linear. The environmental humanities, therefore, require both linear and non-linear modes of language through which reasoning about justice can be done. Thus there is a motivation to find linguistic modes which can adequately express both linear and non-linear connectivities.

Axioms

According to some thinkers, there are three axioms of environmental humanities:

1. The axiom of submission to ecosystem laws;
2. The axiom of ecological kinship, which situates humanity as a participant in a larger living system; and
3. The axiom of the social construction of ecosystems and ecological unity, which states that ecosystems and nature may be merely convenient conceptual entities (Marshall, 2002).

Putting the first and second axioms another way, the connections between and among living things are the basis for how ecosystems are understood to work, and thus constitute laws of existence and guidelines for behaviour (Rose 2004).

The first of these axioms has a tradition in social sciences (see Marx, 1968: 3). From the second axiom the notions of "ecological embodiment/ embeddedness" and "habitat" have emerged from Political Theory with a fundamental connectivity to rights, democracy, and ecologism (Eckersley 1996: 222, 225; Eckersley 1998).

The third axiom comes from the strong 'self-reflective' tradition of all 'humanities' scholarship and it encourages the environmental humanities to investigate its own theoretical basis (and without which, the environmental humanities is just 'ecology').

Contemporary ideas

Political economic ecology

See also: Political ecology

Some theorists have suggested that the inclusion of non-humans in the consideration of justice links ecocentric philosophy with political economics. This is because the theorising of justice is a central activity of political economic philosophy. If in accordance with the axioms of environmental humanities, theories of justice are enlarged to include ecological values than the necessary result is the synthesis of the concerns of ecology with that of political economy: i.e. Political Economic Ecology.

Energy systems language

The question of what language can best depict the linear and non-linear causal connections of ecological systems appears to have been taken up by the school of ecology known as systems ecology. To depict the linear and non-linear internal relatedness of ecosystems where the laws of thermodynamics hold significant consequences (Hannon et al. 1991: 80), Systems Ecologist H.T. Odum (1994) predicated the Energy Systems Language on the principles of ecological energetics. In ecological energetics, just as in environmental humanities, the causal bond between connections is considered an ontic category (see Patten et al. 1976: 460). Moreover, as a result of simulating ecological systems with the energy systems language, H.T. Odum made the controversial suggestion that embodied energy could be understood as value, which in itself is a step into the field of Political Economic Ecology noted above.

Ecophobia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecophobia 

Ecophobia is an ethical undervaluing of the natural environment that can result in cataclysmic environmental change. The term was coined, as author Simon C. Estok has revealed in his book The Ecophobia Hypothesis, by George F. Will in a September 18, 1988 Chicago Sun-Times article entitled "The Politics of Ecophobia." Will, cited by Estok, defines it as "the fear that the planet is increasingly inhospitable."  

Overview

To date, Estok has done the most work defining and expanding the concept of ecophobia. He explains that "The ecophobic condition exists on a spectrum and can embody fear, contempt, indifference, or lack of mindfulness (or some combination of these) toward the natural environment. While its genetic origins have functioned, in part, to preserve our species (for instance, the fight or flight response), the ecophobic condition has also greatly serviced growth economies and ideological interests. Often a product of behaviours serviceable in the past but destructive in the present, it is also sometimes a product of the perceived requirements of our seemingly exponential growth. . . . Ecophobia exists globally on both macro and micro levels, and its manifestation is at times directly apparent and obvious but is also often deeply obscured by the clutter of habit and ignorance".

Environmental educator David Sobel uses the term somewhat differently, describing instead the fear of the environmental effects of human actions – ranging anywhere from oil spills to deforestation. Sobel described it as "a helpless sense of dread about the future." A study with 10-to-12-year-olds found 82% of the children expressed fear, sadness, and anger about environmental problems.

The neologism was used by Simon C. Estok, David Sobel, and Roger Scruton.

Ecophobia and COVID-19

The University of Cambridge tells it readers that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to life and exacerbated many conditions and differences between people. Estok draws direct links between ecophobia and COVID-19, explaining, among other things, that "Pandemics are always environmental events, the current one being a direct result of closer human/nonhuman animal contacts—itself a result of diminishing food sources and increasing populations. Given these facts, and given the fact that ecophobia is central to the environmental crises we have created, theoretical, personal, and political discussions about ecophobia and COVID-19 are very timely."

Ecophobia and theater

Turkish folk theater dramatizes ecophobia by showing fear, anxiety, and threat of the natural world, with traditional plays often showing dominance of the natural world.

Many eco-critics and academic writers have noticed Shakespeare's representations of ecophobia in nature in plays like Othello and King Lear, among others: "The play markets this dramatic ecophobia to an audience very familiar with grain shortages, bad harvests, cold weather, and profound storms. It was a time of unprecedented exploration, perhaps in part owing to the poor harvests and lack of local fish, and the world was getting smaller." Critics also point out the ecophobia induced by monsters in Shakespeare's plays: "The plays' obsession with monsters jiggles orders, hierarchies, values, rules, and forms defining nature."

Ecophobia and The Green New Deal

The Green New Deal is a broad topic scope that defines a group of policies that aim to address the problems the planet faces, with the most recent example being legislation introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The phenomenon surrounding ecophobia has actually made it more difficult to pass legislation such as this, because voters allow their fear to impact how they vote. This in turn leads to a lack of legislation that addresses climate change policy.

Political statements made by former president Donald Trump have been cited as an example of sociopolitical effects of ecophobia, and especially how it can impact opinions on climate change. Critics have argued that rhetoric inspired by Ecophobia can limit open discussion about climate change policy and Green New Deal legislation.

Eco-anxiety

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eco-anxiety (short for ecological anxiety and also known as eco-distress or climate-anxiety) has been defined as "a chronic fear of environmental doom". Extensive studies have been done on ecological anxiety since 2007, and various definitions remain in use. Another widely cited definition is: "the generalized sense that the ecological foundations of existence are in the process of collapse." Some scholars use the term eco-anxiety as a synonym for climate-anxiety, while others like to treat the terms separately. While much ecological disruption results from climate change, some is caused by direct human activity, such as deforestation. The condition is not a medical diagnosis and is regarded as a rational response to the reality of climate change; however, severe instances can have a mental health impact if left without alleviation. There is also evidence that eco-anxiety is caused by the way researchers frame their research and their narratives of the evidence about climate change: if they do not consider the possibility of finding any solution to overcome climate change and for individuals to make a difference, they contribute to this feeling of powerlessness.

Eco-anxiety is an unpleasant emotion, though it can also motivate useful behavior such as the gathering of relevant information. However, it can also manifest as conflict avoidance, or even be "paralyzing". Some people have reported experiencing so much anxiety and fear about the future with climate change that they choose not to have children. Eco-anxiety has received more attention after 2017, and especially since late 2018 with Greta Thunberg publicly discussing her own eco-anxiety.

In 2018, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a report about the impact of climate change on mental health. It said that "gradual, long-term changes in climate can also surface a number of different emotions, including fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, or exhaustion". Generally this is likely to have the greatest impact on young people. Eco-anxiety that is now affecting young adults has been likened to Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation felt by baby boomers. Research has found that although there are heightened emotional experiences linked with acknowledgement and anticipation of climate change and its impact on society, these are inherently adaptive. Furthermore, engaging with these emotional experiences leads to increased resilience, agency, reflective functioning and collective action. Individuals are encouraged to find collective ways of processing their climate related emotional experiences in order to support mental health and well being.

The APA describes eco-anxiety as "the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one's future and that of next generations". The APA, therefore, considers that the internalization of the great environmental problems that affect our planet can have psychological consequences of varying seriousness in some people.

Prevalence

Degrees of concern about the effects of climate change vary with political affiliation.

In 2018, surveys that were conducted in the United States found between 21% and 29% of Americans said they were "very" worried about the climate, which is double the rate of a similar study in 2015. This concept of climate or ecological anxiety and grief is far-reaching due to the extensive awareness about climate change that is made possible through technology and global communication. Climate change is an ongoing global threat that is largely characterized by uncertainty and lack of understanding. For this reason, anxiety and grief in humans is a natural and rational response for those feeling fear or a lack of control. For example, these feelings could arise in people who are forced to leave their homes, deal with uncertainty about their future environment, or feel concern for the future harm of their children. Climate grief can be divided into three categories: physical ecological losses, the loss of environmental knowledge, and anticipated future losses.

Prevalence in Children and Young Adults

The condition has become especially common among children and young people – in some universities over 70% of students have self described as suffering from eco-anxiety. However, as of early 2021, validated ways to assess the prevalence of climate or eco-anxiety were not well established. A survey published in September 2021 had queried 10,000 young people from 10 countries across the world, finding that almost 60% were either very or extremely worried about climate change. Two thirds said they felt sad, afraid and anxious, while close to 40% reported they were hesitant to have children.

The people that surround children and young adults, like parents, guardians, teachers, and mentors, can have an impact on how they view climate change. There is research being done about how these groups of people should talk to children and young adults to prevent eco-anxiety in these populations, while still encouraging climate change mitigation practices.

Prevalence in Women

An October 2021 report based on polling in the UK found 78% of people surveyed expressed some degree of eco-anxiety. It did however find that women (45%) were substantially more likely to report high levels of eco-anxiety compared to men (36%). Similar observations have been reported worldwide, including European and African countries. Another reason eco-anxiety is more prevalent in women is because 80% of climate migrants are women. Many women decide whether or not they will have children based on climate change, because climate change is predicted to impact future generations more. A survey conducted by the New York Times in 2018 found that 33% of women that chose not to have children cited climate change as a reason.

Prevalence in Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous populations are especially vulnerable to eco-anxiety and other climate-caused emotional responses because of their reliance on their land and land-based activities for their livelihood and well-being. A study from 2021 found that indigenous populations that were exposed to environmental changes that are associated with climate change, like species loss, droughts, rising temperatures, and erratic weather patterns, were most likely to experience a decrease in mental wellbeing. This decrease can be expressed as eco-anxiety, but also as other climate related emotional responses, like eco-anger.

Symptoms

Eco-anxiety can manifest in ways that cause physical symptoms and may exacerbate pre-existing mental health conditions. Symptoms include irritability, sleeplessness, inability to relax, loss of appetite, poor concentration, bouts of weakness, panic attacks, muscle tension and twitching. These symptoms are similar to the symptoms that someone diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder might experience.

These symptoms are common in people who experience eco-anxiety. For example, a 2022 study commissioned by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine reported that "anxieties around climate change and environmental issues" caused insomnia for 70% of Americans.

Other mental and/or emotional symptoms include feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, distancing oneself from or avoiding the issue, and feeling overwhelmed or suffocated.

Treatment and response

The first step for therapists in treating eco-anxiety is realizing that a fearful response to a real condition is not pathological. Eco-anxiety is a completely normal response, even if the client finds it profoundly disturbing. Therapists need to take clients' fears about the situation seriously and "not assume they're a dysfunctional mental health problem or that a person suffering from eco-anxiety is somehow ill." In terms of treatment, individualistic models of mental health are "not designed to deal with collective trauma on a planetary scale".

Various non-clinical treatments, group work options, internet based support forums, and self-help books are available for people suffering from less severe psychological conditions. Some of the psychological impacts require no form of treatment at all, and can even be positive: for example, worry about climate change can be positively related to information-seeking and to a sense of being able to influence such problems.

One way to combat eco-anxiety is through beliefs about the effectiveness of personal actions. Eco-anxiety can be fueled in part by climate change helplessness, a form of learned helplessness applied to climate change fears. Because climate change is such an enormous issue with such dire consequences, an individual's actions may seem to make no difference in combatting the bigger issue. This can demotivate people from taking any pro-environmental at all. But, an intervention advocating for the effectiveness of individual actions can reduce feelings of apathy and anxiety associated with climate change helplessness. When people receive information describing how their personal actions impact the environment, they report less fear of climate change, and intend to make more sustainable choices, showing that climate change helplessness can be treated by beliefs in climate change efficacy.

In general, psychotherapists say that when individuals take action to combat climate change, this reduces anxiety levels by bringing a sense of personal empowerment and feelings of connection with others in the community. Many psychologists emphasize that in addition to action, there is a need to build emotional resilience to avoid burnout.

A 2021 literature review found that emotional responses to crisis can be adaptive when the individual has the capacity and support to process and reflect on this emotion. In these cases, individuals are able to grow from their experiences and support others. In the context of climate change, this capacity for deep reflection is necessary to navigate the emotional challenges that both individuals and societies face.

Further research

As eco-anxiety has gained traction and becomes more prevalent, one of the current hot topics in the scientific literature concerns how to define and assess eco-anxiety. Other future research may examine and develop ways for people to remain resilient in the face of climate change.

Related emotional responses

In the field of ecopsychology, there are other climate-specific psychological impacts that are less well studied than eco-anxiety. They include, but are not limited to, eco-grief (or eco-depression), eco-anger, eco-guilt, and solastalgia.

Eco-anger

Eco-anger is frustration about climate change and the environmental changes that are caused by it. It can also be frustration towards certain groups, corporations, or countries that contribute to climate change. A study that separated the effects of eco-anxiety, eco-depression and eco-anger, found that eco-anger is the best for a person's wellbeing. This study also found that eco-anger is good for motivating participation in actions that combat climate change. A separate report from 2021 found that eco-anger was significantly more common among young people.

Eco-grief

After a Blue Origin spaceflight

      It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna... things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

— William Shatner in Boldly Go

Ecological grief (or eco-grief) is "the grief felt in relation to experienced or anticipated ecological losses, including the loss of species, ecosystems, and meaningful landscapes due to acute or chronic environmental change."

Eco-guilt

Eco-guilt is "guilt that arises when people think about times they have not met personal or societal standards for environmental behavior." This guilt can take the form of self-criticism, self-blame, self-examination, and/or self-torturing.

Solastalgia

Solastalgia is "the distress caused by the transformation and degradation of one's home environment." A 2019 study found that the number of people who experience solastaliga will increase as the rate of climate change also continues to increase. This is due to the fact that more people will see the effects of climate change on their home environments as climate change continues.

Organizations

Several psychological organizations have been founded around climate psychology. Scholars have pointed out that there is a need for a systemic approach to provide various resources for people in relation to the mental health impacts of ecological problems and climate change. Some organizations, such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists, provide web based guidance to help caregivers assist children and young adults deal with their eco-anxiety.

Eco-anxiety support groups have also been created locally, nationally, and globally. These groups allow people to discuss their fears about climate change and receive advice from other members on how to address those fears. Peer-to-peer support groups have also emerged among individuals who have moved through the stages of grief into acceptance of climate impacts as ongoing and, to some degree, inevitable. Examples includes groups arising from the concepts of Deep adaptation (origin 2018) and Post-doom (origin 2019).