Indigenous women, nonhuman world and gender: Comparing the Amazon and Siberia

Project Information

ecofem.indi

Grant agreement ID: 101107342

DOI

10.3030/101107342

Project closed

EC signature date 26 April 2023

Start date 1 April 2024

End date 30 April 2026

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 172 618,56

Coordinated by

Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
Portugal

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ecofem.indi (Indigenous women, nonhuman world and gender: Comparing the Amazon and Siberia)

Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2026-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The overall purpose of the project was to investigate the relations between Indigenous women and the non-human world, with particular attention to women’s traditional ecological knowledge, their ontological relations with animals, landscapes, and other non- human beings, and the extent to which this knowledge affects their status, prestige, and decision-making roles within their households and communities. The project addressed an important gap at the intersection of environmental anthropology, ecofeminism, multispecies ethnography, and political ontology by examining how women’s relations with the environment have often been reduced in the literature to care, subsistence, and vulnerability, while their roles as ecological experts, knowledge holders, and active participants in environmental struggles have received less sustained comparative attention. The project was designed as a comparative and interdisciplinary study across two Indigenous field sites in the Colombian Amazon and northern Mongolia (South Siberia), both of which are central to anthropological debates on animism, personhood, and human– non-human relations, and both of which are experiencing pressure from extractive industries and environmental transformations

The project had two main objectives. The first objective was to understand women’s relations with the non-human world, including animals, sacred landscapes, and traditional forms of knowledge, and to examine whether women and men perceive these relations differently. The second objective was to explore whether women’s ecological knowledge contributes to greater status, prestige, or authority within their household and community.

By combining qualitative ethnography with participatory and visual methods, the project aimed to produce knowledge that is academically rigorous and relevant beyond academia. It highlighted the gendered dimensions of animism and environmental relationships, showing that Indigenous women often maintain deep spiritual connections with the non-human world and that these relations can support roles such as healers, knowledge holders, and spiritual leaders within their communities.
The project is expected to contribute to broader debates on gender equality, Indigenous knowledge, and environmental justice by challenging simplified portrayals of Indigenous women. It shows how women’s ecological expertise shapes social life, decision-making, and collective responses to environmental pressure.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The research began with a literature review and the development of the project’s conceptual framework. This provided the basis for the comparative study and helped refine the main research questions on women’s ecological knowledge, social status, and participation in environmental struggles.

To address Objective 1, I conducted ethnographic research in Colombian Amazons and Mongolia using qualitative and participatory methodologies, including participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups, visual life histories, and participatory visual and digital methods. Since I had already conducted extensive fieldwork in Mongolia in previous research, fieldwork in Colombia constituted the primary new empirical site and therefore received extended field engagement. Interviews in Mongolia were conducted online due to recent climate change- related shifts in seasonal mobility patterns affecting nomadic herders, which limited physical access during planned fieldwork periods.
Activities related to Objective 1 resulted in extensive empirical material, including interviews, visual documentation, and comparative ethnographic datasets, as well as scholarly dissemination through peer-reviewed publications (Journal of Political Ecology; Cultural Anthropology / Fieldsights), conference presentations (EASA; World Anthropological Union), and invited workshops (University of Barcelona; Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca; Universitat Pompeu Fabra).

To address Objective 2, I combined long-term participant observation with ethnographic engagement in everyday household and community settings, focusing on gendered dynamics within domestic life, collective decision-making processes, and community assemblies. This included sustained immersion in family environments and public gatherings in order to observe how women’s ecological knowledge is expressed, negotiated, and recognised in daily practice. In addition, I conducted mixed-gender focus groups to explore community perceptions of women’s roles in environmental knowledge and social organisation, as well as in-depth interviews with Indigenous women leaders and representatives of local NGOs working on gender and environmental issues. Activities related to Objective 2 produced interview datasets, focus group recordings, and ethnographic fieldnotes, which enabled a detailed comparative analysis of how gendered ecological knowledge is embedded in social organisation and cosmological frameworks. These results informed ongoing manuscript development (currently under review in Cultural Anthropology) and were presented at international conferences and workshops (EASA; World Anthropological Union), contributing to a broader comparative framework for understanding gender, knowledge, and authority in multispecies contexts.

In methodological terms, in addition to classicaI methods, I also used participatory action research, audiovisual and visual anthropology methods. The project further strengthened my expertise in sensory, collaborative, and multimodal research approaches. I have created an interactive website (under construstion) and I am currently preparing a methodological article for submission to a peer-reviewed anthropology journal.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project produced new comparative evidence on Indigenous women’s relations with the non-human world in the Colombian Amazon and northern Mongolia. It shows that women are not only affected by environmental change, but also hold ecological, social, and spiritual knowledge that shapes community life and responses to environmental pressures.

The project also advanced participatory and visual research methods, including walking interviews, life histories, and collaborative visual methods . These approaches generated new ways of documenting and analysing Indigenous knowledge and can be used in future research on gender, environment, and social change. It showed how creating collaborative visual outputs makes the research more meaningful for communities.

The main potential impact of the project lies in its contribution to more gender-sensitive and culturally informed environmental research and policy. Further uptake would benefit from continued comparative research, stronger links with Indigenous organisations and policy actors.