Ecowomanism at the Panamá Canal

Sofía Betancourt

doi:10.5771/9781793641397

Summary

In Ecowomanism at the Panamá Canal: Black Women, Labor, and Environmental Ethics, Sofia Betancourt constructs a transnational ecowomanist ethic that reclaims inherited environmental cultures across multiple sites of displacement. Betancourt argues that women in the African diaspora have a unique understanding of how a moral refusal to compromise their humanity provides the very understanding needed to survive what was once an inconceivable level of environmental devastation. This work is guided by the experiences of West Indian women, imported to Panamá by the United States from across the Caribbean, whose labor supported the building of the Panamá Canal—the so-called silver men and women who faced mud, mosquitoes, and malaria while building a literal pathway to the American empire.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-4138-0
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-4139-7
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 150
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. List of Figures No access
3. List of Figures No access
4. Acknowledgments No access
1. Scope of the Project No access
2. Mother Wit Meets Sabiduría in Intercultural Knowledge Production No access
3. Emergent Ecowomanist Ethics No access
4. Methodology No access
5. Ecoautobiography No access
6. “Little Trinkles of Water”: Why the Panamá Canal No access
7. Limitations of the Project No access
8. Selection of Terms No access
9. Chapter Summaries No access
10. Notes No access
1. Transnational Ecowomanism as a Decolonizing Force No access
2. Terra Nullius and Ferae Bestiae No access
3. Tropical Triumphalism and the Jungles of Panamá No access
4. Sex Work in the Porno-Tropics: “The Morals of All the Women in Camp Are Good” No access
5. Notes No access
1. Macwalbax and the Doggerelization of the West Indian Woman in Panamá No access
2. 1. “Reaping the Sweets”: Inherited Environmental Culture in Their Own Words No access
3. Notes No access
1. Ecowomanism, Moral Anthropology, and the Need for New Epistemic Approaches No access
2. Justice at the Foundations of Ecowomanist Thought No access
3. Obeah as Diasporic Religious Epistemology No access
4. A Humanity Worth Holding On To No access
5. Notes No access
1. Note No access
Bibliography No access Pages 117 - 124
Appendix A No access Pages 125 - 132
1. “Carnival Days in Panama”1 No access
2. “Panama’s Market Place”2 No access
3. “The Wash Lady”3 No access
4. “The Banana Lady”4 No access
5. Notes No access
Index No access Pages 143 - 148
About the Author No access Pages 149 - 150