Chapter 7 Towards the possibility of an ecofeminist political theology: The case of the Con-spirando collective¹

Women’s bodies and Radical Evil

When, in 1994, the Brazilian and Catholic ecofeminist theologian Ivone Gebara declared her support for abortion rights, she never imagined that her ‘punishment’ by the Vatican would be having to repeat her theological studies and maintain a long silence. Gebara – who was influenced by liberation theology and denounced gender injustices from a feminist perspective – was not only censured by the Vatican but also had to repeat her doctoral studies at the Catholic University of Louvain and accept the punishment of thoughtful silence.

Her period of silence and censorship gave birth to her doctoral thesis, published in English as Out of the Depths: Women’s Experience of Evil and Salvation in 2002 and considered one of the most important works in her career. In this book, Gebara offers a novel and innovative interpretation of the problem of God and evil from a feminist perspective, including ‘not the evil we do personally, but the evil that we undergo, that we suffer or endure, something not chosen, the kind of evil present in institutions and social structures that accommodate it, even facilitate it’ (2002, 1). In other words, Gebara replied to her experience of ‘punishment’ and envisioned it as a possibility to speak for women through their experiences of bodily control and oppression.

Clearly, the body is a crucial term in feminist theology, as in other feminisms, to understand patriarchal domination and structures in society. In this regard, it is important to keep in mind that mainstream political theology also relies on the function of the body and its relationship with sovereignty. Indeed, in 1995, Giorgio Agamben’s concept of homo sacer emerged from reflection on the power exercised over the body: ‘The very body of homo sacer is, in its capacity to be killed but not sacrificed, a living pledge to his subjection to a power of death. And yet this pledge is, nevertheless, absolute and unconditional, and not the fulfillment of a consecration’ (1995, 61). From this, one can deduce that the condition of homo sacer is defined by the ambivalence between the sacrificable and the non-sacrificable, as by that between his consecration to the gods and the mortal power over his body.⁶ Agamben’s homo sacer is thus not only defined by the character of exception portrayed by Carl Schmitt but also Ernst Kantorowitz’s notion of sovereignty depicting the king’s two bodies (1981), whose definition of political theology has been broadly discussed in political philosophy and political theory.

However, what is the role of the body in the case of feminist theology? How does it seek to reinterpret women’s bodies from the perspective of spirituality and religious institutions? First, feminist theology has found its place in images and in the resignification of the divine. The question of God the father and the deconstruction of God the father, as well as of the Judeo-Christian tradition as a whole, have been constant themes in its discussion.⁷

To provide a brief summary: within the Judeo-Christian tradition women have, since ancient times, been burdened with the myth of Eve and her guilt, as well as the invisibility of other women in biblical history, with the exception of the figure of the Virgin Mary. Women have been labelled as a source of lust, temptation and sinfulness for men, leading to a primary distinction in how evil has been treated in theology and the sacrifice to be made by women. As Gebara argues, this living on the basis of the sacrifice of obeying the father God has been translated into obedience to men who hold certain social and religious power, such as husbands, brothers and priests (2002, 88). The problem would not only be this absolute obedience to the male figure since our childhood but also how women’s lives have meant a renunciation of pleasure, of their own thoughts, dreams and of their own will, that is, a renunciation of their body in order to put themselves at the service of others or to live according to what others say about them (2002).

From this sacrifice and women’s potential guilt for not complying with the expected canons, women would assume a behaviour of bearing and accepting suffering as part of the fear that is reproduced from our childhood. Thus, from a series of testimonies, Gebara develops her understanding of the primary female experience of evil as women’s ‘lack of ownership’, ‘lack of power’, ‘lack of education’, ‘lack of worth’ and the experience of ‘the evil attributed to skin colour’ (2002, 17–41). In addition, Gebara argues that women’s bodies are subjected to cultural and physical violence because they are women’s bodies. And, over time, women internalise this violence and reproduce these evils, especially in the domestic space. As Gebara states, it is women who ultimately reproduce the patriarchal model in the most fundamental social structures such as the home, the school and the church (2002, 98). A similar logic operates in the public sphere with the entry of women into a mainly male space and where they act oppressively towards other women, thus reproducing patriarchy.

Although the so-called ‘women’s evils’ denounced by Gebara are a reality experienced by women whether they are Christians or not, the deconstruction of the image of the divine provides one answer as to how to live in another possible way. According to feminist theology, one of the great discoveries of women who experience their spirituality through feminism is that overcoming the figure of the Judeo-Christian male God makes way for a love of the divine within themselves. In that sense, it means opening up to the symbolism of the Goddess as an affirmation of women’s power, women’s bodies, women’s will and women’s bonds and inheritance.⁸ Or as Carol P. Christ asks: ‘Is the spiritual dimension of feminism a passing diversion, an escape from the difficult but necessary political work, or will this emergence of the Goddess symbol among women have significant political and psychological implications for the feminist movement?’ (1994, 159). In other words, what feminist women theologians raised at that time not only refers to a reinterpretation of biblical readings, but also to new ways of understanding the divine that would have consequences for their actions and understanding of being a woman in the context of the Christian church.

With the spread of Christianity, female figures have taken a secondary role. An exceptional case has been Mary, as the mother of the Messiah and a virgin, who acquires her importance through her role as a mother and the extraordinary gift of being conceived without sin. However, of the other women disciples such as Mary Magdalene or Martha, we know only what tradition has taken care to disseminate: Mary Magdalene is frequently understood to be a prostitute and sinner who finds salvation, while Martha is the hostess of the house ultimately distracted by housework in the presence of Jesus, and chastised for that same distraction (Luke 10: 38–42). This invisibilisation would have cost women the subjugation of their bodies and a ‘disposition of mind to trust in male salvific power and distrust of female power in herself and other women, considering it inferior and dangerous’ (Christ 1994, 161). In this sense, it is a disposition that would be transformed into a motivation that becomes a social and political reality, especially in institutions and the public sphere.⁹ Therefore, the significance of the Goddess within women contemplates an affirmation of their bodies, as it is from there the cycle of life emanates, as opposed to the taboos that women have been burdened with in life such as menstruation, childbirth and menopause (1994, 165). What is interesting about this image of the Goddess is that she does not need an external image, nor a temple or dogmas under which much of the Christian tradition has been built, but the Goddess is in each woman, she lives and conceives her as such as she experiences a connection with her body and with others in community.

In one way or another, this vision of feminist theology breaks with the foundations of a traditional political theology based on the notion of the sovereign, which legitimises the concept of authority and hierarchy characteristic of monotheistic religions. Although this is a first approach to what could be called a new form of feminist political theology, it is necessary to introduce the concept of ecofeminism and its drift from resistance in order to understand its potential in a post-secular understanding.

Ecofeminist answers to a post-secular world

The critical theologies of Latin America that began to develop from the 1960s onwards have undergone an evolution from that moment until the present day. As a result of a new way of thinking about theology in dialogue with Latin American reality and the option for the poor, liberation theology emerged from the work of theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff and Rubem Alves. In this context of criticism of ecclesiastical authority and based on a grassroots Christianity, feminist theology was born in Latin America with representatives such as Elsa Tamez, Ivone Gebara and Mary Judith Ress. Its development can be broadly divided into three stages: an initial stage (1970s) involving the identification of women biblical scholars and theologians with the methods and practices of liberation theology, where they saw themselves and other women as subjects of history and protagonists of liberation. A second stage (1980s) involving a growing awareness that liberation theology contained a patriarchal mentality that made them uncomfortable, which led them to produce theological resources creatively expressed in liturgy, art and poetry, as well as beginning to dialogue with other women’s movements in the region and with feminist theologians in the First World.¹⁰ And finally, a third stage (1990s to the present) that challenges the model of patriarchal anthropology and the cosmology of liberation theology by calling for a reconstruction of theology from a feminist perspective. In other words, what Ivone Gebara has called a ‘holistic ecofeminism’ (cited in Ress 2012, 15–20).

It is from this notion of holistic ecofeminism that we will trace what I would view as a new understanding of political theology in a post-secular world. This concept of holistic ecofeminism has meant a very radical – and even post-Christian – restructuring, which is, nonetheless, a source of both great significance for poor Latin American women, and of passion and joy (Ress 2012, 120). However, how does this critical drift emerge, in turn, from a critical interpretation that in itself was constituted within liberation theology? According to Gebara, as summarised by Ress, although liberation theology questioned the hunger, injustice, dictatorships and destruction of entire peoples in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, it had not challenged the anthropology and patriarchal cosmology of Christianity (2012, 121). In addition to the situation of dictatorships in the region, ecofeminism emerged as a response to feminist and ecological movements that were beginning to develop in the wider world.¹¹ Such movements would begin to challenge the so-called ‘hegemony of the patriarchal empire’ (Gebara 2000, 17), although there are intellectuals and women who oppose linking feminism and ecology as common struggles.

But what is ecofeminism? In Gebara’s words:

Ecofeminism as a thought and social movement basically refers to the ideological connection between the exploitation of nature and the exploitation of women within the hierarchical-patriarchal system. From a philosophical and theological point of view, ecofeminism can be seen as a wisdom relegated by the patriarchal system, and particularly by modernity, to being a force of labour reproduction – ‘blessed wombs’ – as nature became an object of domination for the growth of capital. As Carolyn Merchant rightly recalls, modernity – even if historians do not talk about it – begins with the torture of witches and the establishment of a new scientific method. Witches were seen not only as symbols of evil, but also of the violence of nature, capable of causing storms and disease, of killing children. The association between women and nature was clear. That is why unruly women and nature was clear. That is why unruly women and nature in disorder needed to be controlled. (Gebara 2000, 18)

From this quotation we can rescue several elements that will allow us to define the outline of holistic ecofeminism. First, the basis of ecofeminist thought is related to a cosmology linked to nature. It is not by chance that ecofeminism alludes to Mother Earth as that mother – and even Goddess – whose connection transcends the earthly, reaching a new spirituality. Along these lines, ecofeminism also questions modern rationality, the expression of which has been capitalism, which oppresses not only humanity, but also nature itself, that is, the mother. This is why Gebara’s critique of liberation theology itself alludes to the reconsideration of a holistic cosmology. In other words, a critique of capitalism and an option for the poor is not enough if there is no critique of the androcentrism and anthropocentrism inherent in the system in question. And finally, it brings us back to what was discussed in the previous section about the ‘evil of women’ and its expression in the witches, where they were responsible for the damage caused by nature, due to their intimate connection. That said, Gebara’s assertion that women have been made the bearers of guilt and are condemned as being responsible for evil in the world is, once again, confirmed.

At this point it is necessary to highlight the specificity of ecofeminist thought. Unlike liberation theology, which focused on the preferential option for the poor as a socio-economic condition, ecofeminism alludes to the triple discrimination of being a woman in a Latin American context, incorporating gender, class and racial discrimination. While Gebara developed her ideas within the liberation theology tradition, she questions the extent to which liberation theology promotes a new epistemology that breaks away from the dualist tradition of Christian theology.

According to Gebara, epistemology in Christian theology (particularly within the Catholic Church) relies on natural reason as promoted by the philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas: ‘While natural reason can prove the existence of God, it cannot demonstrate the existence of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection. Those truths of the faith can only be learned through revelations from the Bible’ (2000, 63). Considering this epistemology, Gebara continues, the Catholic Church opposed modernism and a dialogue with issues from this world. Thus, the problem with this epistemology is that Christian theology cannot formulate human values differently to the ‘unquestionable truth’ proposed by natural reason. In other words, Gebara writes that the dualist perspective is still rooted in ‘eternal truths’, which makes it impossible to introduce the feminist reflection on that perspective based on the experience of women (2000, 65).

Although the Second Vatican Council opened the Church to the real problems of the world, the dualist epistemology did not change. Instead, following Gebara, liberation theology proposed the conciliation of an antique and medieval epistemology with a modern one. However, there is no new epistemological proposal. As Gebara continues, there is, instead, an attempt to ‘harmonize two epistemological universes without removing either of them’ (2000, 66). In her work Intuiciones ecofeministas, Gebara acknowledges the contributions of liberation theology in introducing the perspective of the poor into theological foundations and birthing a new spirituality rooted in liberation from various oppressions. Similarly, she recognises that liberation theology also championed the historical figure of Jesus and addressed social injustices in Latin America (2000, 65). However, as she argues, the core of liberation theology is still rooted in an anthropological and androcentric perspective:

It is about God in the history of men, a God who ultimately remains the Creator and the Lord. From there, all Thomistic tradition about God, about the Incarnation, is, in a way, reclaimed. There is no need to revisit the cosmological and anthropological foundations of the formulation of the Christian faith (2000, 67–8).

Continuing her critique, Gebara highlights that the ethical stance of authors like Gustavo Gutiérrez remains grounded in an Aristotelian-Thomistic epistemology that ecofeminism opposes.

In essence, ecofeminism seeks to broaden the epistemological perspective beyond the Aristotelian-Thomistic binary and formulates a theology that recognises new epistemologies beyond traditional dogmatisms. One of these is the private aspect of politics. To liberate everyone unconditionally implies acknowledging the public and private as theological elements. For example, as van Andel notes (2021, 58), Gebara introduces new topics dismissed by the first generation of liberation theology, such as the division of labour, informal economy, domestic violence and sexual ethics. She also brings visibility to Gebara’s epistemic contributions by focusing on the bodies, emotions and rationality of women in their quest for liberation as poor and Christian women. In other words, Gebara challenges the taboo of Christian epistemology by acknowledging essential aspects of theological reflection in relation to personal and socio-political analysis.

Nevertheless its emphasis is on the condition of being a woman. Gebara insists that liberation and new understanding has to occur equally in men and women within the cosmos in order to reconstruct notions of divinity. In that sense, re-situating individuals within – not above – the universe and calling for a new relationality that, in Gebara’s words, ‘is the basic reality of all that is or can exist. It is the underlying fabric that is in continuous movement within the vital process in which we are immersed’ (cited in Ress 2012, 123). In other words, it advances an ethical possibility of opening up spaces of relationship between humanity and nature.

This ethical response would oppose the notion of a hierarchy of power that Christianity has taught us about the individual relationship with the divine. This is why woman and nature have always been approached from a vision of subjugation and domination that begins in Genesis, where rational man is above the world. In other words, man is presented as a god. It is striking that this notion of man’s power is seen as a power of subjugation to another, insofar as it is an external power that needs to be exemplified by hierarchies and authority, that is, by the need to manifest this sovereignty. However, when we refer to power relations in ecofeminism, we find a notion that does not require such a manifestation. According to Primavesi, when speaking of ecofeminism and ecology, we find other forms of power: power-from-inside and power-with, bringing together spirit and body, humanity and nature, God and world (1994, 478). In this way, a sovereign would not be needed for its possibility, but rather the relationship with oneself, with others and with nature. In this way, we return to the importance of the personal body and its connection to the earth. In saying that there is a power-from-inside, this is often unknown or repressed by women themselves. It is part of a spirituality that needs a connection with the earth and with the meaning of the body for women, which is given by the natural cycle of life. One of its expressions is through dances and rituals that allow women to connect with this little-explored aspect. To speak from this spirituality means to loosen the Goddess that is within each one of us through creation, symbols and rituals. However, it is a path that is made in community with others, where women can relate and share experiences as well as new spiritualities. A good example of this and of how ecofeminism has influenced Latin American women is the Con-spirando collective, which emerged as an alternative and possible source of resistance to traditional political theologies.

The case of the Con-spirando collective: an ecofeminist alternative in a post-secular world

The Con-spirando collective was born in the early 1990s in Chile as an alternative space for feminist women in search of new visions in the fields of spirituality, feminist theology and ecofeminism. According to Mary Judith Ress, the women who participated in the collective in those years were strongly influenced by liberation theology, only later identifying themselves as ‘ecofeminists’ (2006, xi). Regardless, from the beginning they have been called together by politics, the universe, the body, culture and everyday life. They consider themselves part of the feminist and other social movements.¹²

In Gebara’s words, there are five contributions of the collective to women’s development and a new spirituality:

1. Faith is in the wisdom of our bodies and the priority of knowing through our corporeality in relationship […]; 2. Efforts to seek non-hierarchical ways of being that model ‘power with’ rather than ‘power over’; 3. The sharing of new ways of celebrating, new rituals that nourish our emerging spiritualities and our commitments; 4. The re-examination of those foundational myths on which Western Christian culture is based, in order to revitalise them and to seek new myths that can nourish our emerging spiritualities, theologies and ethics; 5. Everyone is my kin, from the people in the neighbourhood to the animals, to the mountains, to the rivers. (cited in Ress 2012, 131–2)

The first of these contributions demonstrates another dimension of ecofeminism in Latin America: the interconnectedness between Christian and Indigenous cosmologies in comprehending the role of women. As I have argued in an article co-authored with Diego Rossello (forthcoming), Latin American Ecofeminist Political Theologies and Ecocriticism (LAEPT) underscore the importance of ecological spiritualities rooted in Indigenous and Afro-descendant cosmologies. LAEPT redefines the connection to the earth, incorporating new concepts such as the planetary, cosmos, common home and Pachamama, which accentuate the distinctions between LAEPT and Christian anthropology. In this regard, Sofía Chipana (2019), an Aymara theologian from Bolivia, contends that colonisers dismissed the knowledge and spiritualities associated with the cycles of the cosmos in the Americas, imposing a dominant hegemonic religion that persists today. Chipana introduces the concept of ‘cosmopraxis’, revealing novel forms of relational practices characterised by co-participation with and in the world. In this worldview, ‘everything possesses life and a place in the Cosmos, where humanity is an integral part of the vast community of interrelations that mutually and complementarily foster life’ (2019, 62). In other words, there is no ecofeminism without the connection between body and the cosmos, as Indigenous cosmologies assert.

In several interviews between 2018 and 2020, Ress, one of the founders of Con-spirando, shared with me that the motivations of Con-spirando included participants getting to know themselves through their bodies, changing the prevailing epistemology of the hierarchical and patriarchal Christian tradition, as well as empowering themselves as women through celebration. This last aspect is particularly relevant because the cause of rediscovering themselves as women was to change the concept of evil that had been attributed to them in the past, and instead of responding with rage, it had to be done through celebration. This celebration did not imply changing faith or churches, which most of the participating women attended, but rather creating new meanings through rites referring to the cycles of nature, the seasons of the year and meetings with their sisters. In this sense, Con-spirando began to constitute itself as a space of resistance and an alternative to the rites offered to them in their traditional ecclesiastical spaces. If in the temple they were forbidden to dance, in the rites they danced; if in the liturgies there were hierarchical and established structures, in the rites there were no structures and they danced in circles; if in the church they did not speak of the Goddess, in the rites they began to celebrate her. In other words, these spaces signified what women longed for and dreamed of, a place of spirituality that gave women a voice and meaning. In a certain sense, they were breaking with the system without knowing that they were doing so. And that breaking with the system implies a change in culture and relationship to the body, as discussed in the second part of this article, as there is no liberation without a paradigm shift. This is why the work of Con-spirando has meant denouncing theological violence towards women, renaming and re-signifying the sacred, developing new methodologies and working with the body, as well as the ecofeminist theological contribution through the magazine Con-spirando, which has published some sixty editions.

In this regard, it seems pertinent to allude to the pedagogical proposal that a collective such as Con-spirando contributes to new understandings of a critical political theology today. Feminist authors such as Saba Mahmood (2005) and Chandra Talpade Mohanty (2003) have questioned the category of ‘Third World women’, mainly because of the implication that they are ignorant, poor, religious and family-oriented (Mohanty 2003, 40). However, that they have managed to build and form communities based on solidarity and religious practices are aspects that both Mohanty and Mahmood have highlighted in their research with women from the so-called ‘Global South’ or ‘Two-Thirds’ of the world. In this sense, both highlight the role of a critical pedagogy, based on rethinking the position of being a woman in the world and in a particular context. In the case of Mahmood, she highlights the importance of rituals in Islam and body postures as a space for learning with other women (2005, 40–117). This learning would open up spaces for linking knowledge, social responsibility and collective struggle in order to challenge spaces of domination and create more equitable public spaces (Mohanty 2003, 201). Although Mohanty makes this proposal in the context of North American universities and academia, her analysis is relevant to the case of a critical, horizontal pedagogy that questions notions of authority and the divine, as proposed by Con-spirando.

Historically, Latin American women have struggled with pejorative notions of being women, especially because of an ‘apparent’ religiosity and lack of questioning of ecclesiastical authorities. However, Con-spirando’s proposal challenges these notions. First, it questions liberation theology as androcentric and anthropocentric. Second, it rethinks a worldview of the divine insofar as it excludes women and the cosmos from full participation in the sovereign body. In other words, the deconstruction of the divine proposed by Con-spirando and ecofeminist theologies is about reinterpreting women’s bodies. And along with this reinterpretation of the body, they also allude to a questioning of the concept of power. As the notion of theological-political sovereignty has argued, ‘power over’ has determined the way politics is done. However, ‘power within’ challenges this notion of sovereignty by locating it in the body of each individual and re-signifying it, in that common pathways and collectivities based on solidarities and sororities are constructed in religious space.

Despite these contributions, there is no doubt that the greatest impact has been expressed in the testimonies of the many women in Latin America who have been touched, encouraged and empowered by the Con-spirando collective.¹³ Not only finding a welcoming space of joy but also one within which sadness and lament can be shared, and even one in which dreaming of new possible worlds and aligning themselves politically with the new feminist movements that are taking shape in Chile today, is possible. And although its founders worry about the renewal of the collective in the future, they write with hope:

Instead of the predominant ‘power over’, the seed suggests ‘power within’. The seed lies dormant, breaks, sprouts, blossoms, flowers, bears fruit, matures, dries up and falls to the ground again. It will be what it is meant to be. We too are seeds, called to be what we are meant to be. And so is Con-spirando. Let it be what it is meant to be – nothing more, nothing less. (Ress 2012, 144)

Final reflections

It is my belief that Schmitt was not wrong when he stated that ‘all the central concepts of modern state theory are secularised theological concepts’ (2009, 37). However, in writing about political theology and liberation theology, I was troubled by the idea of presenting sovereignty or ‘power over’ as an unquestioned category. New studies on political theologies resist and challenge the mainstream accounts of Schmitt’s idea of power and sovereignty (Orrego Torres 2024, forthcoming; Orrego Torres and Rossello, forthcoming; Rossello 2019; Vatter 2021; Yelle 2022).

Just as we find in theology the foundations for domination and violence, we also find the possibility for redemption and liberation of the oppressed. And in speaking of the oppressed, unlike liberation theology, which can at times seem like it spoke exclusively in terms of socio-economic status, I situate myself with those who suffer exclusion and oppression because of their gender, race, caste and other forms of discrimination today. We could even speak of domination over species and nature, as ecofeminist theology puts it. And we can, moreover, ask whether such an ecofeminist theology is a continuation of, or a break from, liberation theology, especially given the development of both feminist and ecological liberation theologies in Latin America.

The configuration of new understandings of relationships between human beings and towards nature are key to giving meaning to the understanding of political theology and liberation theology today. The challenges refer to living ecofeminism not exclusively in the private sphere of spirituality but as a way of living politically. Ecofeminism invites us to change the paradigm of how we relate not only to other human beings but also to nature. And, today, with the news alerting us to climate change and the consequences of the Anthropocene (which reflects the impact of humans on the earth) and the Technozoic era (focused on the exploitation of resources and the planet through techno-science) it is becoming increasingly difficult to move towards an Ecozoic era (where ecology is the axis) and thus diminish the ongoing devastation. And, for this, the commitment of governments and their authorities is not enough, but the commitment of all through a ‘power-with’ and ‘power-from-within’, as Primavesi put it, provides a way to find ourselves again in community with others, but also with ourselves, with the knowledge of our bodies and the connection with nature.

An ecofeminist approach would allow us to reformulate and broaden known notions of political theology. First, the focus would not be exclusively on state sovereignty. It would make it possible to question the idea of power and authority, situating it in the relationship with the cosmos and new ways of thinking about power. Second, women’s experiences have reaffirmed the importance of re-signifying the role of bodies. In this sense, a body appropriated by women for their own pleasure, as well as for the performance of rituals. Both terms, which in a theological-political understanding of sovereignty have been appropriated by the state or the Church, from an ecofeminist point of view make visible the importance of connecting with oneself through the power-from-inside or the so-called Goddess. Third, the example of Con-spirando, in its desire to constitute an alternative space, promotes what Mohanty calls ‘pedagogies of dissent’. That is, as a space that challenges spaces of domination – such as anthropocentrism and androcentrism – in order to dispute democratic and inclusive gender spaces from an ecofeminist perspective.

This is why, in a post-secular world, overcoming anthropocentric and androcentric notions should be at the heart of the new proposals for political theologies and their readings. Only in this way will we be able to speak of a political theology that not only resists the notion of sovereignty but also integrates those voices and positions that are not incorporated into the discussion and understanding of political theology. In this sense, understanding political theology as an approach that is not necessarily dominant but, rather, one that proposes alternatives from the periphery and rebellion.

In this chapter, the intention is to show a possibility of this, through the discussion, visibility and reading of authors who write from the experience and knowledge of Latin America. But also, from the particular experience of Con-spirando as an example of the politics of ‘dissidence’ from an ecofeminist perspective. However, this knowledge is not yet widely disseminated in academic circles. Therefore, to echo Mohanty (2003, 170), the academy as a public space for dialogue, engagement and vision of democracy and justice needs feminism as a political and pedagogical project. But not only that. Doing political theology from the South or from the Two-Thirds would mean making sense of these discourses for an understanding of our socio-political reality and of the approach to new ways of what power and knowledge of our bodies means. As I have argued (Orrego Torres, forthcoming), it is crucial to underscore the significance of recognising religious and spiritual practices originating from ecofeminist perspectives in Latin America. In this context, the global transnational influence of feminism and ecofeminist theology has the potential to decentralise the prevailing notion of political theology, presenting it as a viable political and ethical possibility. On the other hand, it is an invitation to those who read feminism and environmentalism as two separate paths without finding a point of union, since there are more paths that unite than those that distance us.

Notes

1. 1. Many thanks to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and suggestions. I am grateful for the generous, moving and insightful conversations about ecofeminism with Judith Ress and Arianne van Andel. A previous version of this paper was first published in Spanish as ‘Hacia la posibilidad de una teología política ecofeminista’ in Síntesis. Revista de Filosofía 2, no. 2 (2019): 114–41. Translated by Pablo Bradbury.

2. 2. Oyarzún translated works by Benjamin into Spanish.

3. 3. Antonio Gimeno Cuspinera translated the texts for Editorial Pre-textos and Flavia Costa, Edgardo Castro, Mercedes Ruvituso and Rodrigo Molina-Zavalía for Editorial Adriana Hidalgo.

4. 4. Jorge Dotti served as editor of Deus Mortalis until his death in 2018. One of the pioneering editions on the subject in Revista Pléyade in Chile was published in 2011. See: https://www.revistapleyade.cl/index.php/OJS/issue/view/21.

5. 5. The term post-secular has been widely debated in political theory as a category that questions the ‘apparent’ secularisation of the modern era. Some of its proponents have been Jürgen Habermas (2008), Charles Taylor (2007) and José Casanova (1994). In general terms, it is a concept that alludes to rethinking the categories of religion and politics, considering that religion has not been abolished from the public sphere, as liberalism would have suggested. For a critical positioning from the notions of biopolitics and Italian political thought, see the recent article by Vatter (2019b). Despite these initial considerations, my position is aligned with that proposed by Saba Mahmood (2005) and Joan Wallach Scott (2018).

6. 6. On the relationship between the unsacrificable and divine violence, see Orrego Torres (2008).

7. 7. See the anthology edited by Mary Judith Ress, Ute Seibert and Lene Sjørup entitled From Heaven to Earth (1994).

8. 8. There are accounts of the creation of the world in the Near and Middle East that allude to female deities. Certain ancient civilisations to this day keep vestiges of temples dedicated to the goddesses of the earth and fertility, among others. One of the most emblematic is Ashtoreth, considered a ‘pagan’ goddess in the Old Testament, but known in Canaan as the Queen of Heaven. See Stone (1994).

9. 9. As a response to this ‘historical debt’ to female figures in early Christianity, see the recent book by Kateusz (2019), focusing on a new historical interpretation of Mary and other women.

10. 10. Within this schema, it is interesting to note that Natalie Gasparowicz’s chapter in the present volume analyses an important event that stands at the transition from the first to the second stage, pp. 159–78.

11. 11. According to Mies and Shiva, the concept of ecofeminism refers to ‘a new term for an old wisdom’ that was introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As they note, Françoise D’Eaubonne first used the term in the context of social movements and protests against the environmental disasters of the time (2014, 13).

12. 12. More information about the collective can be found on their website: http://www.conspirando.cl.

13. 13. Chapter 4 of Mary Judith Ress’s book (2012) offers a series of reflections on the experiences of Latin American women in relation to ecofeminism.

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