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Paper short abstract:

As part methodological intervention and part manifesto, I introduce the ethics, curatives, and praxis of ecowomanist (auto)ethnography (EWAE). EWAE ultimately answers a growing methodological call for feminist abolition ecologies and furthers a long tradition of BIPOC counter-narratives.

Paper long abstract:

Feminist activist scholarship at the intersection of environmental, climate, and energy justice has grown substantially in recent years, particularly amongst a new generation of scholars who embrace interdisciplinary, critical, decolonial, queer, and narrative approaches to environmental science & studies (ESS). Nevertheless, mainstream ESS research only superficially centers embodied and spiritual knowledge, insufficiently critiques Eurocentric and masculinist forms of knowledge production, and rarely investigates methodological approaches for ecological justice developed specifically by and for women of color. Furthermore, very few environmental studies proactively address research fatigue and translation exhaustion within frontline communities, and even fewer studies acknowledge burnout, eco-anxiety, and vicarious traumatization amongst Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) ESS researchers. As part methodological intervention and part manifesto, I introduce the ethics, curatives, and praxis of ecowomanist (auto)ethnography (EWAE). EWAE radically addresses epistemological and ontological omissions commonly found within positivist ESS research as well as shallow methodological engagements with embodiment, affect, spirituality, and subjectivity. EWAE similarly encourages recovery of ecomemories and feminist partial perspective, thus providing analytical tools to reflexively examine environmental (her/their/his)stories and center embodied ecowomanist standpoint(s). I finally focus on EWAE’s potential to facilitate research as healing in opposition to research as emotional violence and epistemic extraction. Feminist activist approaches to environmental research such as EWAE ultimately answer a growing methodological call for feminist abolition ecologies in relation to the ethnographic crisis of representation, and further a long tradition of Black feminism’s minor empiricism, polyvocality, and BIPOC counter-narratives.