Knowledge for socio-ecological transformation: Gender perspectives on climate and environmental crises

Feminist and gender studies offer important perspectives for analyzing environmental and climate crises and advancing socio-ecological transformations. In this article, we outline four key pillars, building upon longstanding feminist debates and approaches: (1) Pluralizing knowledge calls for challenging hegemonic knowledge production and recognizing marginalized perspectives. (2) Transformative research methods emphasize participatory and practice-oriented approaches to foster innovative knowledge generation. (3) Expanding gender concepts highlights how nuanced gender analyses can address gaps in socio-ecological crisis research, drawing on examples from fields such as queer ecologies, critical masculinity studies, and the gender-climate-migration nexus. (4) Enabling engaged research advocates for a strong connection between theory and practice, alongside structural changes within academic systems to support transformative research. We argue that feminist approaches provide indispensable insights for holistic examinations and strategies to address environmental and climate crises. The article concludes by introducing the context and contributions of this special issue.