Caring democracy in a degrowth world

: an ecofeminist-republican analysis

Abstract

This thesis lies in the overlap of critical green theory and feminist political thought. It takes ecofeminism as an analytical lens to investigate the intersection of the ongoing planetary crisis and gender injustice. At the same time, the thesis also aims to build on the existing literature of ecofeminism by integrating it with the tradition of civic and green republicanism. This work consists of two broad parts. Taking a critical theory approach, the thesis provides a normative critique of the liberal-capitalist economic system and its ideological roots, which this thesis terms as ‘imagined invulnerability’. This critique is required as a prerequisite to revalue human vulnerability and care work standing as an antithesis of imagined invulnerability, which the thesis diagnoses as an ideological driver of patriarchal and nature-abusing, exploitative and unsustainable liberal capitalism. Based on an ecofeminist-republican conception of care, the second part of the thesis outlines an ecofeminist-republican state in which care work is no longer gendered nor undervalued by the institutionalised logic and practices of a GDP-obsessed capitalist economy. In deconstructing feminised and externalised care work, the thesis reconceptualises care as a practice of vulnerability-oriented green citizenship and suggests compulsory care service, based on the existing illustrations of ‘Part time for All’ and co-production. Then this thesis exemplifies this conception of citizenship at the international level to challenge global ecological unsustainability. In doing so, it draws on a wide variety of empirical evidence from South Korea, Brazil, India, the Egypt-Sudan relations, and so on, and a post-colonial theory of degrowth, which is an important bridge synthesising social and gender justice and ecological sustainability. This post-colonial presentation is necessary so that any future plural heterodox economies do not override one another, which is a key argument of both ecofeminism and green republicanism. Finally, on the basis of post-colonial justification, this thesis proposes a model of an ecofeminist-republican state from a degrowth perspective, focusing on its fiscal viability as well as policy recommendations.

Thesis is embargoed until 31 December 2024.

Date of Award	Dec 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	John Barry (Supervisor) & Keith Breen (Supervisor)