Seeing and being seen: Intersectional ecofeminism, methodological insights, and women’s embodied experiences with nature in the UAE

Abstract

This article is a reflexive piece that draws on the methodological application of intersectionality in understanding women’s material relationship with nature in the highly urbanised context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Drawing on situated knowledge and the deconstruction of binaries, such as nature/culture and green/desert, the article emphasises the importance of attending to embodied ways of knowing. Feminist research practices are adopted to explore what it means to be both subjected to the gaze and a constructor of the gaze, investigating the various perspectives that emerge when women guide the gaze. The article draws on a subset of four qualitative semi-structured interviews selected from a broader sample of 18 interviews conducted with young adult and middle-aged Emirati women. This article aims to discuss the value of integrating feminist thinking into studies of women and landscape, while also highlighting how situated and grounded experiences can contribute to and expand on existing theoretical feminist concepts. This piece contributes to contextualising methodological approaches to the application of intersectionality and ecofeminist theory into a non-Western, highly urbanised setting, and advocates towards a more nuanced and situated ecofeminism