Realities beyond reporting : women environmental defenders in South Africa
Tran, Dalena (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)

Date:	2022
Abstract:	Women environmental defenders continue to face marginalization despite their growing significance in ecological conflicts. The media?s role in empowering or further rendering them invisible is unclear. This study thus examines depictions of South African women defenders in news articles. A feminist critical discourse analysis of 98 media reports about 48 conflicts suggests a typology of the conflicts and the women involved. I argue that media depictions of women defenders can sometimes enact discursive violence by imposing agendas and stereotypes that do not reflect their lived realities. This study identifies two tropes depicting women defenders as desperate mothers or underdogs, which empowers yet silences diverse women in diverse ways. The implications of such archetypes are that reporting may not only oversimplify the complexity of their experiences, but also contribute to pressures on women to be self-sacrificing and docile.
Grants:	"la Caixa" Foundation LCF/BQ/DI19/11730049 European Commission 695446
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Environmental defenders ; Women ; South Africa ; Violence ; Media ; EJAtlas
Published in:	Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 23, Núm. 5 (March 2022) , p. 2152-2169, ISSN 1471-5902

DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2022.2045335

19 p, 763.7 KB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles