Table Of ContentECOFEMINISM, GAIA, AND NEW MATERIALISM:
TOWARD AN ETHIC OF EMBODIED AGENCY
A Dissertation
presented to
the Faculty of
Claremont School of Theology
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Elizabeth Singleton
May 2019
Copyright © 2019 by [Elizabeth Singleton]
This dissertation completed by
Elizabeth Singleton
has been presented to and accepted by the
faculty of Claremont School of Theology in
partial fulfillment of the requirements of the
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Faculty Committee
Dr. Philip Clayton
Dr. Grace Kao
Dr. Mary-Jane Rubenstein
Dean of the Faculty
Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook
May 2019
ABSTRACT
ECOFEMINISM, GAIA, AND NEW MATERIALISM:
TOWARD AN ETHIC OF EMBODIED AGENCY
by Elizabeth Singleton
As a discourse located at the intersections of patriarchal oppression experienced by
marginalized peoples and the earth, ecofeminism is a rich resources for constructing new moral
frameworks in response to global change. Ecofeminists criticize the dualism, universalization,
hierarchical orientation, and individualized focus of the dominating Western paradigm and point
to these harmful patterns as sources of oppression. In addition to critiquing the dominating
western paradigm, ecofeminists have constructed and enacted new relationships between people
and the earth. Since the primary burden of responsibility for global change falls on white
Western peoples and the oppression of women is entangled in the paradigm that has ushered in
global change, white Western women need frameworks that both restore agency and recognize
our role in the oppression of others. Many Western ecofeminists have leaned on Gaia theory as
an ecological ontology by pairing Gaia the goddess with Gaia theory. However, uses of Gaia
theory in ecofeminism are tied to the conception of Gaia as earth-mother-goddess, putting
ecofeminists at risk of falling into many of the same patterns they criticize in Western paradigms.
Gaia theory and ecofeminism were in dialogue for decades, but there was not an available
ontology that allowed ecofeminists to fully break free of the harmful patterns of the Western
paradigm.
I contend that new materialism’s panagential ontology allows for Gaian ecology to shed
connections with Gaia as goddess, providing the proper ontological foundation for an ethic of
embodied agency that responds to the inherent intersectionality of ecofeminism. New
materialism introduces an ontology of panagency that renders Gaia to be an agent of material
multiplicity. Constructing an ecofeminist moral framework from an ecological ontology of
panagency allows for an ethic of embodied agency in which one’s embodiment encompasses and
is encompassed by other material beings, thus empowering the agency women hold as particular
material beings while responding to the inherent relationality of all beings. Based on an
ecological ontology of panagency, an ecofeminist process for constructing lived responses to
global change must be: 1) based in situated knowledges; 2) historically conscious; 3) ecocentric
but anthropogenic; 4) mutualistic; and 5) adaptive. Although these principles lie at the heart of
ecofeminist thought, they are not sufficient by themselves to offer an all-encompassing solution
to climate change. Still, I argue that they speak effectively to the location of white women; they
offer a path for enacting new ways of being in relation to others, and they do not foster the
harmful practices that have so often followed from the dominating Western paradigm.
CONTENTS
Preface.......................................................................................................................................... VII
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Ecofeminism ............................................................................................................... 28
Chapter 2: Gaia ............................................................................................................................. 63
Chapter 3: New Materialisms ....................................................................................................... 99
Chapter 4: An Ecological Ontology of Panagentialism .............................................................. 136
Chapter 5: An Ethic of Embodied Agency ................................................................................. 150
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 173
Preface
With global change well underway, there is a deep need for the development of
ecological ontologies and new moral frameworks that flow from them. As a discourse that works
at the intersections of oppression that occur as a result of Western patriarchal domination,
ecofeminism is an essential tool for constructing a moral framework based on an ecological
ontology. Many Western ecofeminists have leaned on Gaia theory as an ecological ontology by
marrying Gaia the goddess with Gaia theory. However, uses of Gaia theory in ecofeminism are
tied with the conception of Gaia as earth-mother-goddess which puts ecofeminists at risk of
falling into many of the same patterns they criticize in Western paradigms. Gaia theory and
ecofeminism were in dialogue for decades, but this dialogue was based on the same problematic
ontologies that ecofeminists take issue with. I contend that new materialism’s panagential
ontology allows for Gaia to shed the problematic connections with Gaia as goddess.
Gaia theory is inherently materialist but not mechanist, and so does not fit a materialist
paradigm that gives way to a mechanistic conception of the earth, a paradigm that ecofeminists
were also opposed to. Thus, a theistic dualism served as the best option for keeping the earth
ontologically alive and developing an ethic that appealed to a meaningful system of
interrelationship amongst beings. Emerging decades into the conversation between Gaia theory
and ecofeminism, new materialism offers the missing link: a panagential ontology to drive
forward an ethic of embodied agency.
My position is that we must move from an ethic of individual consumption to an ethic of
embodied agency within Gaia, and I argue that an ecological ontology of panagentialism allows
for an ecofeminist ethic that centers on embodied agency. Panagentialism enables the merging of
ecofeminism and Gaian science without risk of committing the pitfalls of a Western paradigm
VII
that ecofeminists criticize for: 1) sanctifying science through a universalized epistemology; 2)
upholding a dualist metaphysics that relies on the distinction between either spirit/matter or
reason/matter; 3) essentializing women with the earth; and 4) maintaining an ethic based on
patterns of infinite consumption and growth. An ontology based on Gaia theory and new
materialism gives rise to a reformed ecofeminist ethic that does not follow those harmful
patterns.
By linking Gaia theory to Gaia the goddess, ecofeminism was at risk of falling into the
same traps it was criticizing—namely, consecrating science and relying on a dualistic
metaphysics. The thea-fication of Gaia theory is problematic for ecofeminism because 1) it
perpetuates an essentialism of the feminine with the earth; 2) a thea-fication is still a deification
and results in the consecration of science, thus positing a universal perspective; 3) it maintains a
hierarchical conception of humans in relation to the earth; and 4) it perpetuates an ethic based on
tension between the individual and the whole.
In the introduction, I will present background information to demonstrate why, especially
for my primary audience of white upper-middle class women, there is a need for ecofeminist
ethics, and I will locate myself in order to situate my perspective. In Chapter 1, I will lay out the
ways current ecofeminist uses of Gaia theory are at risk of many of the same problems
ecofeminists have identified as problematic in Western dualist ontologies. In Chapter 2, I will
explore Gaia theory as presented by Lovelock, Margulis, and others as a scientific theory with
religious connotations but void of that attribution of consciousness, animism, or a moving spirit.
In Chapter 3, I will propose new materialism as a discourse that solves previous problems with a
pan-agential ontology. In Chapter 4, I will examine the points of intersection between
ecofeminism, new materialism, and Gaia theory that shape an ecological ontology of
VIII
panagentialism. In Chapter 5, I will lay out principles of an ecofeminist ethic of embodied
agency against the backdrop of an ecological ontology of panagentialism.
IX
Introduction
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in
the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the
man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the
livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. 21
–Genesis 2:19-20
None were left now to unname, and yet how close I felt to them when I saw one of them
swim or fly or trot or crawl across my way or over my skin, or stalk me in the night, or go
along beside me for a while in the day. They seemed far closer than when their names
had stood between myself and them like a clear barrier: so close that my fear of them and
their fear of me became one same fear. And the attraction that many of us felt, the desire
to smell one another’s smells, feel or rub or caress one another’s scales or skin or
feathers or fur, taste one another’s blood or flesh, keep one another warm— that
attraction was now all one with the fear, and the hunter could not be told from the
hunted, nor the eater from the food.
- Ursula K. Le Guin’s She Unnames Them
White women, with one foot on the ladder of the white patriarchal hierarchy and one foot
embedded in the earth, hold a power that has been suppressed by the embodiment of femininity
projected onto us. It is time that we come to the full realization of that power to move towards
dismantling the white patriarchal system that has dominated the Western world, and benefited us
to some degree, for far too long. In 2016 I came to the full realization of this power as a slight
majority of white women voted a patriarchal prodigy into presidency, proving that we are pawns
in the scheme of our own oppression. I know better, or perhaps I want to believe we are better,
because it was my mother who opened doors to our friends, created spaces for all kinds of
prayer, and offered hospitality to everyone who came to our home. White women taught me to
err on the side of love, compassion, and understanding. It was my mother’s body that
demonstrated to me the power of a body to give, nourish, and destroy life as we tended the
garden, prepared and preserved our harvest, and made our own ways through the world of my
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