Abstract

As international environmental research for development organizations and their funders continue to build a requirement to 'mainstream' gender equality into their programming, disquiet surrounding gender expertise has emerged among those who bring reflections from feminist political ecology into professional development contexts. The perspective offered here builds from our earlier exploration alongside 'gender experts' of the uneasy navigation of epistemic and practical dilemmas necessary in environmental research-for-environment and development (R4ED) settings in the Global South. We consider the deeper trouble that comes from the embedding (and shaping) of gender expertise within the colonial project of development. Earlier postcolonial feminisms have demonstrated the difficulty in dislodging a hegemonic gaze on the "Third World woman", that has aligned a particular kind of feminism with international development's "civilizing mission." We suggest that gender expertise in professional environment and development contexts may be subsumed in the neutrality and universality of Eurocentric scientific knowledge, which has the effect of marginalizing non-Western perspectives and indigenous ways of knowing. Thus, the 'technocratization' of gender expertise for managerial purposes depoliticizes and blunts the potential for achieving the goals of social justice. We show how these issues take particular form in technical settings, where knowledge hierarchies, funding models and everyday exchanges may be shaped by coloniality. We argue that this amplifies the coloniality of gender, narrowing transformative agendas to those based around individualized entrepreneurial freedom, crowding out the generative and care-full possibilities offered from a plurality of contextualized and situated ecological feminisms. We conclude by considering "openings" in gender transformative thinking and action ('praxis') as waymarks for those navigating the complex ethics and politics inherent in professional feminist political ecology, built around the enduring salience of 'gender expertise.'

Keywords: Feminist Political Ecology, gender expertise, coloniality, development praxis

How to Cite:

Elmhirst, R. & Resurrección, B. P., (2025) “The coloniality of gender expertise in professional environment and development contexts”, Journal of Political Ecology 32(1): 5960. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5960