Abstract:
Ecology, along with women’s liberation and radical democracy, is one of the major pillars of Democratic Confederalism, a new political paradigm developed by the Kurdish Freedom Movement through the voice of the PKK’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan. Scholars attribute the greening of the Kurdish agenda to the impact that the founder of Social Ecology, Murray Bookchin, had on Öcalan’s ideology. Without denying the veracity of this argument, the following article analyzes the influence that Maria Mies, a pioneer of socialist ecofeminism, had on the philosophical elaboration of Öcalan. Examining the theses exposed in his prison writings with the most relevant aspects of Mies’ thought, this article shows the limits, challenges, and strategic use of the Kurdish ecofeminist perspective. This approach provides an original understanding of the emancipatory horizon opened up by Democratic Confederalism and particularly by Jineolojî, the “science of women and life,” spearheaded by the Kurdish Women’s Movement since 2011.
