About the Book

From first edition:
Examining the position of women in relation to nature - the forests, the food chain and water supplies - the author links the violation of nature with the violation and marginalization of women in the Third World. One result is that the impact of science, technology and politics, along with the workings of the economy itself, are inherently exploitative. Every area of human activity marginalizes and burdens both women and nature.

There is only one path, Vandana Shiva suggests, to survival and liberation for nature, women and men, and that is the ecological path of harmony, sustainability and diversity. She explores the unique place of women in the environment of India in particular, both as its saviours and as victims of maldevelopment.

Her analysis is an innovative statement of the challenge that women in ecology movements are creating and she shows how their efforts constitute a non-violent and humanly inclusive alternative to the dominant paradigm of contemporary scientific and development thought.

Commendations

Praise for first edition

'Vandana Shiva is one of the world's most prominent radical scientists ... in Staying Alive she defines the links between ecological crises, colonialism, and the oppression of women. It is a scholarly and polemical plea for the rediscovery of the "feminine principle" in human interaction with the natural world, not as a gender-based quality, rather as an organizing principle, a way of seing the world' - Guardian

'Laced with references to Hindu deities, hard-nosed research into Indian land use and bold attacks on Western science since Bacon, Staying Alive has the go of a big personality behind it' - Observer

'Staying Alive is a book that can change one's way of seeing the world.'- Rumina Sethi, Associate Professor, Department of English, Punjab University, Chandigarh 160014

"A uniquely modern Green mixture of Hindu mythology, social disquiet, dry statisticial tables and assaults on Western "male" science." - Spectator

Contents

New Foreword
Foreword to first edition
Introduction
1 - Development, Ecology and Women
2 - Science, Nature and Gender
3 - Women in Nature
4 - Women in the Forest
5 - Women in the Food Chain
6 - Women and the Vanishing Waters
7 - Terra Mater: Reclaiming the Feminist Principle

About the Author

Vandana Shiva is is a world renowned environmental activist and author. Her many books include: "Staying Alive"; "Ecofeminism" and "Protect or Plunder" and she has authored over 300 journal and scientific papers. Shiva has served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as non governmental organisations, including the Women's Environment & Development Organization and the Third World Network. She is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization and in 1993, and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (1993). Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India ’s leading physicists. She holds a master’s degree in the philosophy of science and a Ph.D. in particle physics.