Val Plumwood
Encyclopedia
Val Plumwood formerly Val Routley, was an Australia
n ecofeminist
intellectual and activist, who was prominent in the development of radical ecosophy
from the early 1970s through the remainder of the 20th century.
and halt deforestation
from the 1960s on, and helped establish the trans-discipline known as ecological humanities
. She married philosopher Richard Routley, and then separated in the early 1980s. Richard, who died in 1996, changed his name to Richard Sylvan
in 1983, and Val then changed her name to Plumwood.
At the time of her death, Plumwood was Australian Research Council Fellow at the Australian National University
, and in the past had held positions at North Carolina State University
, the University of Montana, and the University of Sydney
.
She was found dead on 1 March 2008 and is thought to have died about 28 February. The cause of death was originally thought to be a snakebite
or spider bite
, but her death was confirmed to be the result of natural causes.
Plumwood critiques what she describes as "the standpoint of mastery," a set of views of the self and its relationship to the other associated with sexism
, racism
, capitalism
, colonialism
, and the domination of nature
. She draws on feminist
theory to analyze this standpoint, which she argues involves "seeing the other as radically separate and inferior, the background to the self as foreground, as one whose existence is secondary, derivative or peripheral to that of the self or center, and whose agency is denied or minimized." She identifies the human/nature dualism as part of a series of problematic, gendered dualisms, including "human/animal, mind/body... male/female, reason/emotion, [and] civilized/primitive." She argues for abandoning these dualisms, and correspondingly the traditional Western notion of a rational, unitary, Cartesian self, in favor of an ecological ethic based on empathy for the other. In doing so, she rejects not only the "hyperseparation" between the self and the other, and between humanity and nature, involved in the hegemonic
view, but also postmodern
alternatives based on a respect for absolute difference and deep ecological
alternatives based on a merging of the self and the world, in favor of a view that recognizes and grounds ethical responsibility in both the continuities and the divisions between the subject and the object, and between people and the environment.
Val Plumwood was a vegetarian.
About Val Plumwood
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n ecofeminist
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
intellectual and activist, who was prominent in the development of radical ecosophy
Ecosophy
Ecosophy and ecophilosophy are neologisms formed by contracting the phrase ecological philosophy.Confusion as to the meaning of ecosophy is primarily the consequence of it being used to designate different and often contradictory concepts by the Norwegian father of deep ecology, Arne...
from the early 1970s through the remainder of the 20th century.
Biography
Plumwood was active in movements to preserve biodiversityBiodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
and halt deforestation
Deforestation
Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....
from the 1960s on, and helped establish the trans-discipline known as ecological humanities
Ecological humanities
The ecological humanities is an interdisciplinary area of research, drawing on the many environmental sub-disciplines that have emerged in the humanities over the past several decades...
. She married philosopher Richard Routley, and then separated in the early 1980s. Richard, who died in 1996, changed his name to Richard Sylvan
Richard Sylvan
Richard Sylvan was a philosopher, logician, and environmentalist.- Biography :Sylvan was born Francis Richard Routley in Levin, New Zealand, and his early work is cited with this surname...
in 1983, and Val then changed her name to Plumwood.
At the time of her death, Plumwood was Australian Research Council Fellow at the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
, and in the past had held positions at North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University at Raleigh is a public, coeducational, extensive research university located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Commonly known as NC State, the university is part of the University of North Carolina system and is a land, sea, and space grant institution...
, the University of Montana, and the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
.
She was found dead on 1 March 2008 and is thought to have died about 28 February. The cause of death was originally thought to be a snakebite
Snakebite
A snakebite is an injury caused by a bite from a snake, often resulting in puncture wounds inflicted by the animal's fangs and sometimes resulting in envenomation. Although the majority of snake species are non-venomous and typically kill their prey with constriction rather than venom, venomous...
or spider bite
Spider bite
A spider bite is an injury resulting from the bites of spiders or other closely related arachnids.Spiders are active hunters and rely heavily on their bites to paralyze and kill their prey before consuming it. They also bite in self defense...
, but her death was confirmed to be the result of natural causes.
Views
Plumwood's major theoretical works are her 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature and her 2002 Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason. She has elaborated her views in four books and over one hundred papers.Plumwood critiques what she describes as "the standpoint of mastery," a set of views of the self and its relationship to the other associated with sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
, racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, and the domination of nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
. She draws on feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
theory to analyze this standpoint, which she argues involves "seeing the other as radically separate and inferior, the background to the self as foreground, as one whose existence is secondary, derivative or peripheral to that of the self or center, and whose agency is denied or minimized." She identifies the human/nature dualism as part of a series of problematic, gendered dualisms, including "human/animal, mind/body... male/female, reason/emotion, [and] civilized/primitive." She argues for abandoning these dualisms, and correspondingly the traditional Western notion of a rational, unitary, Cartesian self, in favor of an ecological ethic based on empathy for the other. In doing so, she rejects not only the "hyperseparation" between the self and the other, and between humanity and nature, involved in the hegemonic
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
view, but also postmodern
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
alternatives based on a respect for absolute difference and deep ecological
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
alternatives based on a merging of the self and the world, in favor of a view that recognizes and grounds ethical responsibility in both the continuities and the divisions between the subject and the object, and between people and the environment.
Val Plumwood was a vegetarian.
Near Death Experience
In her 2000 essay "Being Prey", Val described her near-death experience that occurred during a solo canoe trip she took in 1985 in Australia's rugged bush territory. She was alone on the river and saw what appeared to be a "floating stick" that she soon realized was a crocodile. Before she could get ashore the crocodile attacked her canoe and in her attempt to leap ashore to avoid being capsized, Val was seized by the crocodile. The essay describes the "death rolls" the croc put her through several times, though miraculously she escaped to crawl nearly two miles to a rescue point. From this experience, Val gained a perspective that humans are part of the food chain as well, and that our culture's human-centric view is disconnected from the reality that we also are food for animals.External links
- Val Plumwood & Friends: a blog site set up for friends to share thoughts and information.
- Prey to a Crocodile: an autobiographical account of an incident that, according to Plumwood, changed her life.
- Reply to Janis Birkeland: Plumwood defends her credentials as an ecofeminist.
- Feminism, Nature, and Discursive Ecologies: Review of Feminism and the Mastery of Nature by Stacy Alaimo.
- Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason: Review by Chris Cuomo.
Further reading
By Val Plumwood- Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Routledge, 1993.
- Plumwood, Val. Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason. Routledge, 2002.
- Val Plumwood (Routley) and Richard Routley, The Fight for the Forests: The Takeover of Australian Forests for Pines, Wood Chips and Intensive Forestry, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, 1973.
- Richard Routley and Val Plumwood, "The 'Fight for the Forests' affair," in Brian Martin, C. M. Ann Baker, Clyde Manwell and Cedric Pugh (eds.), Intellectual Suppression: Australian Case Histories, Analysis and Responses (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1986), pp. 70-73.
- Plumwood V, 2004, " `The fight for the forests' revisited", The William Main Forestry Lecture Series, University of California, Berkeley, CA
- Plumwood, Val, The Fight for the Forests Revisited, paper delivered to Win, Lose or Draw: the Fight for the Forests? A Symposium, Old Canberra House, Australian National University, 14 October 2003. http://cres.anu.edu.au/fffweb/plumwood1.pdf
- Radio National references http://www.google.com.au/search?q=site%3Awww.abc.net.au%2Frn++%22Val+Plumwood%22&btnG=Search&num=100&hl=en&rls=RNWE%2CRNWE%3A2005-45%2CRNWE%3Aen
About Val Plumwood
- An essay on Plumwood’s work can be found in 50 Key Thinkers on the Environment (ed. Joy A. Palmer, Routledge 2001, 283-290). Plumwood’s environmental theory and activism also features in Martin Mulligan and Stuart Hill Ecological Pioneers (Cambridge University Press 2001, 274-300). Plumwood contributed some strategic thinking to the Environmental Politics’ 10th year anniversary issue, "Green Thinking? from Australia" Environmental Politics 10(4) 2001, pp 85-102.
- Prest, James (1997) "Protecting Plumwood Mountain" 41(6)National Parks Journal 17. (National Parks Association NSW). Discusses voluntary conservation agreement made under National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 and Wilderness Act 1987 over land in NSW.