An Ecofeminist Critique of Rural Studio

In this article, I apply Australian logician and ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood's Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, specifically its alternative logic of “the dance of interaction,” to a controversial community-engagement program in my home state of Alabama. At Rural Studio, Auburn University students design free housing and public works for one of the poorest regions in the United States, known as the Black Belt. Through the lens of Plumwood's ecofeminist dancing logic, the marginalized source of Rural Studio's survival is revealed to be the resilience of the disempowered majority-Black community. Inspired thereby, I sketch an ecofeminist choreography with three “dancing” concepts (namely Plumwood's “the master model,” Vandana Shiva's “nature's logic,” and Ariel Salleh's “holding”), acknowledging the resilience of the disempowered as a necessary step toward an ethically sustainable aesthetics

Dance · Ecofeminism · Feminism · Resilience (materials science) · Sketch · State (computer science) · Sustainable Living · Diversity and Impact of Dance · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Theatre and Performance Studies