The coloniality of neoliberal biopolitics: Mainstreaming gender in community forestry in Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract

Abstract Gender mainstreaming in forestry and forest conservation has become a prominent strategy to address the challenges and obstacles indigenous and campesina women face in terms of equitable inclusion in community forest governance. Drawing upon feminist and poststructuralist political ecology, this article examines how this strategy, expressed through community forestry and forest conservation interventions, directs indigenous and campesina women to conduct themselves in a particular manner to transform themselves into “productive and entrepreneurial” subjects. Based on interviews and ethnographic research methods conducted in the Southern Sierra of Oaxaca, Mexico, the article illustrates how biopolitical and colonial techniques of government are articulated within these gender equity projects and the everyday practices they encourage. In developing this analysis, the article demonstrates how gender, racial/ethnic and class categorizations intersect in fostering or abandoning specific bodies and populations as well as regulating the work in, use of, and access to forests. Based on this discussion, the article questions whether gender mainstreaming in community forestry is becoming yet another attempt to remotely control the interactions between gendered and racialized human populations and nonhuman nature via a technical “toolkit” of neoliberal environmentality.