Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Forest feminists? Performing postfeminist subjectivities in Swedish women forest owners’ collective action
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Human Geography.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9162-1280
(English)In: Article in journal (Refereed) Submitted
Abstract [en]

Postfeminism has received little attention within feminist geography; therefore, spatialities have been left largely unexplored in postfeminist studies. In this paper, I explore how postfeminist performances by women forest owners are articulated and maintained in relation to their collective action, paying special attention to spatiality and spatial power relations. I base my analysis on semistructured interviews with women forest owners from six separate networks for women, participant observations at network events, and an analysis of the networks’ written material. The women were reluctant to frame their separate networks as feminist and/or gender equality projects, which I argue should be understood as an expression of a postfeminist sensibility traversed by spatial power relations enacted within Swedish forestry, constituting a social and economic space associated with rurality. Feminism and gender equality were partly understood in relation to spatial power relations connected to the urban-rural dichotomy, which contributed to the articulation of individual postfeminist performances, including the use of spatial and temporal discursive moves to reject sexism and marginalisation, and consequently, the preservation of the self as emancipated while rejecting the need for feminist collective action. The analysis further unpacks how postfeminism is articulated and maintained, contributing to a broader understanding of the paradoxes of women’s collective action.

Keywords [en]
Postfeminism, collective action, spatiality, rurality, forestry
National Category
Gender Studies
Research subject
Human Geography; Gender Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-192526OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-192526DiVA, id: diva2:1546516
Projects
Gendered performances in Swedish forestry: Negotiating subjectivities in women-only networksAvailable from: 2021-04-22 Created: 2021-04-22 Last updated: 2022-02-25
In thesis
1. Gendered Performances in Swedish Forestry: Negotiating Subjectivities in Women-Only Networks
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Gendered Performances in Swedish Forestry: Negotiating Subjectivities in Women-Only Networks
2021 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Environmental resource use is intimately intertwined with gendered power relations. Overarching ideals, governance and management are shaped by the negotiation and performance of gendered subjectivities. This thesis identifies and analyses key features of such negotiations and performances in the context of contemporary Swedish forestry. More specifically, I examine the gendered performances of women forest owners engaged in women-only forestry networks. The study draws on qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and textual analysis. From the perspective of feminist geography, the study builds on a poststructural feminist understanding of gender as relational, spatial, intersectional, and performative processes that influence people’s relationships with the environment. The thesis consists of a comprehensive summary and three papers in which different aspects of women forest owners’ gendered performances are addressed. In Paper I, I show how the women forest owners perform both femininities and female masculinities in ways that both challenge and endorse hegemonic forestry masculinities. In Paper II, I analyse how Swedish forest policy and governance are realised in the social domain through the negotiations and performances of the masculinist policy construct ‘the active forest owner’. Being ‘active’ mainly entailed an orientation towards industrial timber production but was also challenged in the women-only network spaces to also include feminine-coded social and/or environmental values based on an ethics of care. In Paper III, I focus on the tension around the framing of women-only networks as feminist and/or gender equality projects. I argue that the women’s reluctance to politicise their collective action are gendered performances based on a postfeminist sensibility, articulated, and maintained through various discursive moves. Throughout the papers, I also show how the women’s performances are permeated by spatialities and spatial power relations in different ways. The findings contribute to the overlapping fields of feminist geography, gender studies, environmental (forest) governance, and rural studies.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, 2021. p. 100
Series
Meddelanden från Kulturgeografiska institutionen vid Stockholms universitet, ISSN 0585-3508 ; 159
Keywords
gender, femininity, female masculinity, feminist geography, feminist political ecology, environmental governance, forestry, neoliberalisation, collective action, postfeminism, spatiality, rurality, Sweden
National Category
Human Geography
Research subject
Geography with Emphasis on Human Geography
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-192528 (URN)978-91-7911-436-7 (ISBN)978-91-7911-437-4 (ISBN)
Public defence
2021-06-10, De Geersalen, Geovetenskapens hus, and online via Zoom, public link is available at the department website, Stockholm, 14:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2021-05-18 Created: 2021-04-22 Last updated: 2022-02-25Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Authority records

Laszlo Ambjörnsson, Emmeline

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Laszlo Ambjörnsson, Emmeline
By organisation
Department of Human Geography
Gender Studies

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 365 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf