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Paper short abstract

This paper examines eco-feminist entanglements with nature in Zanzibar (Tanzania) and the Seychelles. By foregrounding women’s sensory engagements with oceanic and forest ecologies, I argue that eco-feminist practices can be creative acts of liberation.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines eco-feminist entanglements with nature among indigenous and African diaspora communities in the Western Indian Ocean, drawing on nearly two decades of ethnographic research in Zanzibar (2007–2025) and the Seychelles (2005–2023). Through these long-term field engagements, I explore how women navigate and reconfigure their relationship with environments marked by colonial legacies, slavery histories, and persistent patriarchal structures.

In Zanzibar, the ethnography of scent and ocean heritage illuminates how women use the materiality of fragrance and the cultural practices of the sea to reshape identities, reclaim spaces, and inscribe indigenous feminist heritage in everyday life. In the Seychelles, life histories from La Digue and Silhouette reveal women’s embodied interactions with forests and seas—as octopus hunters, fishers, fruit gatherers, and plant collectors—and the ways these spaces serve as symbolic and practical sites of freedom. By foregrounding women’s narratives and sensory engagements with oceanic and forest ecologies, the paper highlights how eco-feminist practices emerge not only as responses to structural marginalization but also as creative, embodied acts of liberation. Ultimately, these entanglements represent forms of environmental conservation rooted in cultural heritage, embodied practice, and feminist reimaginings of human–nature relations in the Western Indian Ocean. The discussion builds on foundational ecofeminist scholarship (Shiva 1988; Mies & Shiva 1993) and postcolonial feminist theory (Mohanty 2003; Oyewumi 1997), as well as literature on post humanism (Braidotti, 2016) and pluriversal worlds (Escobar 2018) to offer perspectives on human relations with the sea in the global South.