Ecological Feminist Hermeneutics

Abstract Ecological feminist hermeneutics emerged in the wake of ecofeminist theory and women’s environmental activism in the second part of the twentieth century. While relatively few explicitly ecological feminist readings of biblical texts have appeared, feminist hermeneutics have informed ecological hermeneutics. The trend in ecological feminist hermeneutics is toward multidimensional approaches that recognize the complexity of situation and the persistence of worldviews that support antiwomen and anti-Earth perspectives. Rather than evolving from a normative biblical text or being applied normatively to biblical texts, ecological feminist hermeneutics open spaces for pneuma (breath/spirit) to “breeze through” in biblical interpretations where Earth has agency in the reading process. Bodies, matter, and habitat become important themes in ecological feminist readings oriented toward a decolonizing shift in dominant worldviews.