토착지식과 생태 운동 - 에코페미니즘의 미래 -

Abstract

Women’s substantial contribution in the production of scientific knowledgeand the establishment of technology policies has often gone unrecognized. However, in the recent few decades, a new perspective toward the expertise ofthe layperson has been brought to light by critics of science. This paperattempts to criticize ways in which women’s practical and regional expertise hasbeen disparaged as ‘indigenous knowledge’, and in which women’s abilities toserve as professional knowledge-producers have been devalued. The fact that women’s knowledge in agriculture - which was crucial inpreserving and making use of biodiversity - did not receive a fullacknowledgement it deserves can be attributed to gender politics that is verymuch in action in the fields of science. The origin of the belittlement of theecological- and regional- values of women’s local knowledge as merely‘natural’ or ‘indigenous’ kinds can be traced to the system of intellectualproperty the contemporary society upheld that brewed privatization of knowledgeand biodiversity as V. Shiva well argued. It is the system of male-centered science and technology that deterredopportunities for women to be acknowledged as preservationists of plant seeds,management professionals of food, or as producers of biodiversity. Several eeco-feminists state that the male-centered science and technology engenderingmale-centric strategies for nature development are the very roots of today’secological crisis. This paper suggests two new strategies to foster practical ecological90 철학논집(제40집)movements that are based on acknowledgement and utilization of women’s localknowledge and expertise: acquiring (1) a new attitude towards nature and lifeand (2) a new perspective towards food. Such strategies can be deemed aspotential paths that can be taken by the study of ecofeminism. Effectiveeco-localism and food activism may open ways for ecofeminism to expand itshorizon to become more widely accepted and practiced. Via positively reviewingways to construct new alliances between women and nature, as well as womenand food, opportunities could be provided for women, fellow minorities, nature,life, and even things to find linkages to ecofeminism - all of which cantogether comprise a strengthened and vitalized ‘actors-network’ as proclaimed byB. Latour(1987).