Shireen Hassim, professor in the department of political studies at Wits University, and Beth Goldblatt, associate professor in the law faculty at the University of Technology Sydney, recently wrote a research paper looking at how gender and climate justice struggles intersect in the Eastern Cape village of Xolobeni.
Shireen Hassim and Beth Goldblatt's research centres around a case brought against the South African government and an Australian mining company seeking to secure titanium open cast mining rights in Xolobeni. The case was brought by local resident Duduzile Baleni.
See the Hassim and Goldblatt research paper here.
Hassim and Goldblatt look at "the Xolobeni opposition to the proposed mining to highlight the links between environmental justice struggles and feminist efforts to overcome the gendered structures of production and reproduction underpinning capitalism".
Their research paper asserts that "the Xolobeni struggle points to important links between efforts to overcome gendered structures of production and reproduction and environmental destruction that offers insights for feminist struggles for climate justice".
Speaking at a webinar discussion hosted by the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, Hassim said it was necessary to look at ways to make sense of how women are often at the forefront of...
