Hot Girl Summer: Climate Planning and Ecofeminism in the City

Hot Girl Summer: Climate Planning and Ecofeminism in the City

Presenter(s)

Eleanor Yates-McEwan

Comments

9:40-10:00, Kennedy Union 310

Description

This paper investigates ongoing climate planning using ecofeminist philosophical grounding, particularly inspired by Donna Haraway’s work, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. An active comparison of socialist, Marxist, and Haraway’s self-ascribed ‘compostist’ (a cousin to post-humanist) ecofeminisms evaluates the state of city climate planning in relationship to self-narrative and ideals of flourishing. I use qualitative content analysis on ten Midwestern city Climate Action Plans (CAPs), identifying the presence or absence of commitments similar to ecofeminist projects and analyze the distribution of commitments across those ten CAPs. I found that very few cities are practicing storytelling as Haraway’s theory would recommend, rather demonstrating commitments reflecting aspects of socialist ecofeminist and occasionally Marxist ecofeminist projects. These commitments tend to stack in a “yes, and” pattern, suggesting these theories run as a spectrum, progressively adding requirements for flourishing. Radical philosophies provide helpful tools for the project of city climate planning, ever an exercise in storytelling and relationship. But radical projects are not intelligible unless a city has a standing commitment to similar ideals. This suggests climate practitioners should meet cities as they are on the spectrum to most effectively promote projects of flourishing.

Publication Date

4-23-2025

Project Designation

Course Project - SEE 490 P1

Primary Advisor

Zachary A. Piso

Primary Advisor's Department

Philosophy

Keywords

Stander Symposium, College of Arts and Sciences

Institutional Learning Goals

Practical Wisdom; Scholarship; Vocation

Hot Girl Summer: Climate Planning and Ecofeminism in the City

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