Gender and environment. Introduction to the special issue / Medio ambiente y género. Introducción al número especial

Abstract

This special issue on gender and environment features five contributions: a theoretical review and four empirical studies. The former proposes methodological strategies from the gender perspective and analyses its presence in research in the field of environmental psychology and in the study of people-environment relationships. Three of the empirical studies use qualitative methods and explore gender as it relates to: (a) the perception of risk (linking masculinity and technocentric epistemic conceptions); (b) agroecosystem conservation practices (identifying the underlying motivations in three generations of women in a rural area of south-eastern Spain); and (c) the current sustainable consumption initiatives along with the communication that fosters it in the Community of Madrid. Finally, this monograph is brought to a close with a correlational study that corroborates that femininity predicts ecocentrism. It is hoped that this issue may inspire an appreciation of the potential of the gender perspective, and three aspects that may deserve attention in the future are acknowledged: sustainability, epistemological reflection and different levels of analysis of gender systems dealing with social inequalities.