Val Plumwood (11 August 1939 – c. 28 February 2008), formerly
Val Routley, was an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n
ecofeministEcofeminism 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
ecosophyEcosophy, 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.
Plumwood was active in movements to preserve
biodiversityBiodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems...
and halt
deforestationDeforestation is the clearance of naturally occurring forests by the processes of logging and/or burning of trees in a forested area. There are several reasons deforestation occurs: trees or derived charcoal can be sold as a commodity and used by humans, while cleared land is used as pasture,...
from the 1960s on, and helped establish the trans-discipline known as
ecological humanitiesThe ecological humanities are a recent development by Deborah Bird Rose and colleagues in the humanities which has grown out of the concerns of radical ecocentric political theory. The aim of the ecological humanities is to bridge the divides between the sciences and the humanities, and between...
.
Val Plumwood (11 August 1939 – c. 28 February 2008), formerly
Val Routley, was an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n
ecofeministEcofeminism 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
ecosophyEcosophy, 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 is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems...
and halt
deforestationDeforestation is the clearance of naturally occurring forests by the processes of logging and/or burning of trees in a forested area. There are several reasons deforestation occurs: trees or derived charcoal can be sold as a commodity and used by humans, while cleared land is used as pasture,...
from the 1960s on, and helped establish the trans-discipline known as
ecological humanitiesThe ecological humanities are a recent development by Deborah Bird Rose and colleagues in the humanities which has grown out of the concerns of radical ecocentric political theory. The aim of the ecological humanities is to bridge the divides between the sciences and the humanities, and between...
. She married philosopher Richard Routley, and then separated in the early 1980s. Richard, who died in 1996, changed his name to
Richard SylvanRichard Sylvan, was a philosopher, logician, environmentalist, and anarchist. He was a proponent of "deep ecology", though he was critical of most attempts to articulate this ethic and preferred to characterise his own version as deep green theory. Sylvan was born as Francis Richard Routley at...
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 UniversityThe Australian National University, commonly abbreviated to ANU, is a public teaching and research university located in Canberra, Australia, the federal capital city...
, and in the past had held positions at
North Carolina State UniversityNorth Carolina State University at Raleigh is a public, coeducational, extensive research university located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States...
, the University of Montana, and the
University of SydneyThe University of Sydney is the oldest university in Australia. It was established in Sydney in 1850. It is a member of Australia's "Group of Eight" universities that are highly ranked in terms of their research performance...
.
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
snakebiteA 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 biteA spider bite is an injury resulting from a spider's forced interaction with other than prey organisms that can lead to medically significant complications...
, 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
sexismSexism, a term coined in the mid-20th century, is the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other. It can also refer to hatred of, or prejudice towards, either sex as a whole , or the application of stereotypes of masculinity in relation...
,
racismRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
,
capitalismCapitalism is an economic and social system in which the means of production are privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in a market; profits are distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor...
,
colonialismColonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole...
, and the domination of
natureNature, 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
feministThe term Feminism can be used to describe an academic discourse, or to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing more rights and legal protection for women...
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
hegemonicHegemony is the preponderance of power, and the construction of consent from the powerless through cultural values.-In politics:...
view, but also
postmodernPostmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement'. While "modern" itself refers to something "related to the present", the movement of modernism and the following reaction of postmodernism are defined by a set of perspectives...
alternatives based on a respect for absolute difference and
deep ecologicalDeep ecology is a somewhat recent branch of ecological philosophy that considers humankind as an integral part of its environment. The philosophy emphasizes the equal value of human and non-human life as well as the importance of the ecosystem and natural processes...
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 too are food for animals (as well as complex beings).
External links
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.