Drawing on a familial oral history from a family farm in Maine (mine!), this paper, co-authored with Alessandra Del Brocco at the University of Kentucky, examines how women continue to be excluded from decision making about the farms they work on and care for. Read the full article, published in the Graduate Journal for Food Studies, here.

Abstract

The concept of a “just transition” away from fossil fuels and toward green energy alternatives captures the social implications of large-scale adaptations to the climate crisis and the importance of centering equity in these processes. To date, there is little research on regions receiving green energy that consider the gendered power dynamics undergirding the expansion of these technologies, particularly rural agricultural areas. In this paper, we interrogate the possibility of a “just transition” by presenting a case study highlighting the gendered nature of farmland loss as solar expands across central Maine’s “dairy belt.” We begin with a timeline of the land to demonstrate how patterns of settler-colonial expropriation and extraction persist in one of Maine’s poorest counties through economic and political maneuverings paving the way for solar energy production. We then explore the experiences of women tied to a fifth-generation family farm who returned to the farm later in life but had been, and continue to be, excluded from decisions around the future of the land. This exclusion is the latest form of reification of heteropatriarchal, colonialist systems of land management that puts capitalism first and community last. We assert that any approach to “just” energy transitions must break from ongoing cycles of dispossession and point to “feminist energy systems” as a potential path forward.