Book Review - Staying alive

Staying alive is one of the best books written by Vandana Shiva. It was published in 1998.
Vandana Shiva is considered as one of the notable environmental activist and radical scientist
in the world. She has spent her life in advocating the diversity and indigenous knowledge. She
wrote many books about the agriculture and food. She was involved in the many campaigns
against the development in the agriculture through genetic modification. She also got “Right
Livelihood Award” in 1993 which is also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize.

Staying Alive is one of the fundamental books of the ecofeminism. She defines that how
ecological crisis, patriarchy, colonization and oppression of the women have a strong link
together. This book talks about the feminist perspective in the human interaction with nature.
She looks at the history of the development and talks about how it's not neutral and biased
towards the men. She also called this development as mal-development which did not respect
diversity, interconnection and interdependent nature of the environment instead it led the
foundation for the exploitation, injustice, and inequality. This book is very important to
understand how women played a significant role in the past and also provide the history of the
long struggle of women for the environment.

In the starting of the book, she questions the basic concept of the development. She neglected
the modern science and economics-based development. She argued that this development is
not developing the society. It has reduced to the continuous process of the colonization which is
purely based on the exploitation and exclusion of the women. It always sees forest merely as
the resource for the industries not as the system which is essential for the living. She also
argued that history of development entails the destruction of nature, women and culture for
which third world women, tribal and peasants are still fighting. She further argued that how
modern science and economics assumptions of western patriarchy has main aim of only profit
for which they destroyed the whole ecology and created disbalance in nature.

In the second chapter, she finds that neutrality and universality of the modern science is a myth.
She claimed that this development is the project of the patriarchal men to displace women and
nature from the productive work. She described that how modern science and economic
progress is violent in nature and it is the political need of the capitalist whereas feminine
principle is very non-violent in nature which allows interconnection and diversity. Modern
science is used by men only to slave women and nature. Other than this modern science denies
the traditional knowledge and values the of women and tribal communities. She talked about the
reductionist nature of the modern science and economics which are also violent to the women
and nature.

In the third chapter, she tried to portray that women have a major role in the human survival.
She provided the evidence to prove that survival of the mankind is much more about the human
gathering then man as the hunter. Further, she talked about both the philosophies and practices
of the women help in the production and renewability of the life.

She also talked about the how men made the tools for destruction and also provided the
evidence that in the present time also about 80% researchers are working in the defense
research which is also a portrayal of that science used mainly for the destruction not the survival
of humankind.

Contrast to this woman of sustenance economies was producing and reproducing things for the
daily use without the exploitation of nature. They have been expert of the holistic and ecological
knowledge of nature. She also mentioned that people have conserved and sustained the nature
with their traditional knowledge and system. But the traditional knowledge and system is
destroyed in a few decades by the patriarchal thoughts. They destroyed the traditional intimate
relationship between human life and nature. They declared nature and women workers of
produce and reproduce life as unproductive. The feminine principle is a response to all the
deprivation and domination on the women.

Chapter 4 talks about the forest and living methods of women and tribal. She talked about the
women expertise in the forestry but brothers came with the act of 1878 a 1927 and denied their
expertise. They came with the scientific forestry which was again based on the profit
maximization. They removed women and tribal from the forest which was their means of
survival. In response to that, there were many ecological movements which were led by women.
She further described two paradigms of the women one is the life-enhancing paradigm that
emerges from the feminine principle and talked about sustainability and other is life destroying
which only care about profit maximization.

In chapter 5, It was discussed how women have a very important role in food gathering. They
consider forest as their mother because forest feeds them, provide fodder for livestock, wood for
burning and many herbs for medicinal use. Whereas patriarchal development see forest as
independent from the human life. They see forest as only the means of extracting valuable
natural resources.
She also talked about the how male history writing excludes women’s economic and scientific
contribution.

In chapter 6, she Talked about the water crisis which is threatening the survival of animal, plant
as well as human life. These conditions arose due to the reductionist nature of science by which
we choose the high yield crops which require more water rather than our local crops which were
suitable for our environment.

The concluding chapter talks about the rationale behind the modern science and development
view that is responsible for the current economic and ecological crises whereas feminine
principle has the solution for the crisis and it will be a non-violent, non-gendered and human
inclusive alternatives. Also talked about the third world women have conserved the traditional
sustainable methods by different ecological movements.

This book provides a very different context of the development. This book tries to look for the
gender issues in the ecological context. She tries to provide the intimate connection of the
women and forest. It is very good for them to understand women role and women struggle in the
environmental issues. She tried to portray development as exclusion project which deprived
women and tribal. She provided the evidences that traditional knowledge and women expertise
did not get value as it should be because the history writers were male and western. And you
can find the phenomena all over the world. History was biased towards elite and men. She
rightly portrays this in her book. Other than this her books talks about the serious ecological
problems which we are going to face in the future. This book is able to show the danger of our
high consumption and profit-driven society. She tries to create a space to the voices of the third
world country in radical way. She talks about the respect the traditions and practices of the
indigenous community. She put this point evidently and that we should not directly deny the
traditional practices without proper research and should not impose a model for all the world.
Her views on the diversity was to the point. Although it provides an alternative way to see the
history through ecological and feminist perspective.

But while reading the book I found that book had faulty interpretations of the history and
fallacies. Her ecofeminism is very conservative and radical in the nature. She tries to
romanticize the life of women and tribes as an ideal without any miseries and also emphasize
that we should follow their living style. She is suspicious about the new rational and scientific
thinking and she denies the human enlightenment and show only the good picture of the forest
living.
She showed a picture that the problems faced by the women and tribal are created by men as
an idea of the development. She found that all the environmental crisis has their root in modern
science and economic thinking which is not true at all. She named modern scientific thinking as
the reductionist thinking and always use with synonyms like patriarchal and colonialism. She
portrayed that only due to modern science, nature and women became subjugate and used the
passive material for the growth. She directly denies the modern science by saying reductionist
hence denies our all achievements in science. ‘Malthus’ in his population theory explained, “as
the population will increase in such a way that we are not able to provide the food to our
population but it was only the science with which we are able to fulfill the demand of our
population”. Now the in new scientific world people are living in the better condition than before
it was proved statistically. She used the wrong analogy to prove science as the controlling
agent like she mentioned that science did control experiment that is why she was not able to
understand how things were working in the real world. But scientist argued that this has to done
to understand the reaction and why to worry if these theories are not going to work in the real
life.

She said that men made tools only for the destruction but it is well proved in the history how
tools became important for the survival of the mankind. She rightly said that gathering of food
was much more important for the eating but she ignored the importance of the hunting. She
used data that 80% of researches were devoted for making the warfare without mentioning the
sources.

The language of the book is easy to understand. Although the book is a little philosophical in
nature. Writer wisely construct her arguments to prove her points but not every time she is able
to provide the evidence. Sometimes she has proved one argument just providing the supporting
argument from any scholar without pieces of evidence. She is very repetitive in the starting of
the book and very selective throughout the book. She uses her own interpretation to prove her
point like She mentioned that Bacon, one of the pioneers of science, promised to create ‘a
blessed race of the heroes and Superman’. She argued that he only talked about the man but at
the time in the literature man was used for the human society. In any philosophical and political
text, you can find this context like Rousseau in his all writing refers to man but actually, he was
talking about the society as a whole.

She has highly romanticized the life of tribal people when she was at the position of the power.
If everything was good and sustainable according to her then why tribal people started the
malpractices like hybrid seeds and pesticides. It was because the traditional ways were not able
to fulfill their basic needs. It is also my personal observation from the field that people went for
some time to the tribal village either they highly romanticized their living or highly criticized their
tradition. Shiva was also criticized by many scholars by saying that he romanticizes the tribal
culture but she does not follow and lives the modern life using all the products provided by the
modern science.

With all positives and negatives, I think, this book should be read by everyone who is interested
in the ecology and gender studies.

References -

1. Mack-Canty, C. (2004). Wave Feminism and the Need to Reweave the Nature/Culture
Duality. NWSA , 16 (3), 154-179.

2. Nightingale, A. (2006). The Nature of Gender: work, gender and environment. Institute of
Geography Online Paper Series: GEO-030 .

3. Saner, E. (2011, March 8th). Top 100 women: activists and campaigners. Retrieved from
theguardian.com: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/08/vandana-shiva-100-
women

4. Shiva, V. (2016). Women, Ecology, and Development. North Atlantic Books.

5. Conrad-Rossi, M. R. (2016, November 19). The Eco-Philosophy of Vandana Shiva A

Critical Review of Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. Retrieved from
GMO Building Blocks: https://fafdl.org/gmobb/the-eco-philosophy-of-vandana-shiva-a-
critical-review-of-staying-alive-women-ecology-and-development/