Description

In this episode, we listen to Blanca Bayas Fernandez (Observatory of debt in globalisation). She's talking about her article 'Ecofeminism and people power'. You can read more about the topic covered by Blanca in the chapter 2 of Ecology and empowerment : https://f3e.asso.fr/ressource/ecology-and-empowerment/

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

• Host

  Ecology and Empowerment, a F3E Network podcast. Barcelona for public and ecofeminist policies.

• Blanca Bayas

  My name is Blanca Bayas. I work in activist circles and I am also a researcher in the fields of ecofeminism and feminist and ecological economics. First of all, I am here to explain which type of ecofeminism underpins our way of thinking. In fact, we campaign for a constructivist and materialist ecofeminism, which means that our focus is the reproduction of life. We firmly believe that women and non-binary individuals are directly connected to natural resources, to places, because we live in a capitalist and heteropatriarchal system, and we are the ones who dedicate our time, our jobs to care work. We believe that the system profits from natural resources as much as from our work and time. And this is where ecology and feminism coincide. In my opinion, it's important to beware of fake solutions, to distrust greenwashing. By the way, where I live at the moment, they are developing photovoltaic projects, and we end up with the same energy oligopoly that led us to the climate emergency we are currently facing. That's why I believe that we should be the ones making proposals, to support local and collective empowerment, bottom-up proposals. For example, it's important to support citizen energy communities, which implement grassroots projects but with the help of public policies. I think we need to rethink or question the dialogue we have with public policies. Because in principle they should guarantee universal access to resources, but we know fully well that's not the case. So we need to put pressure on public policies while at the same time supporting community initiatives. It's true that it's not always easy to maintain this dialogue with public sector. When we talk with other comrades from countries in the Global South, they tell us that their relationship with the public sector can be really complicated, because obviously the state is used to carrying out partnerships between the public and private sectors. It's important in the fields of international solidarity and education for development to challenge this capitalist mindset. The public must stop supporting the mercantile private sector and put its trusts in community-based initiatives.

• Host

  Read more about Blanca Bayas and her article Ecofeminism and people power in Ecology and empowerment.