Notion of multiple crisis and feminist perspectives on social contract

Adelheid Biesecker and Uta von Winterfeld

Gender, Work and Organization, 2018, vol. 25, issue 3, 279-293

Abstract: The concept of multiple (economic, ecological, social and political) crisis has arisen from recent tumultuous economic events. This paper uses a feminist perspective to present the concept as a crisis of regeneration of both nature and social reproduction. We intend to go beyond multiple crisis using the notion of a new social contract, to overcome this crisis in a transformative way towards sustainability. A feminist analysis of the concept of social contract is founded on the critique of domination and is based on Carole Pateman's 1998 thesis that the modern social contract is characterized by a ‘separating inclusion’ of women. It also refers to Val Plumwood's critique of the separated and autonomous self, which is part of all classical conceptions of social contract. We argue that overcoming the multiple crisis requires overcoming structures of separation and re†envisioning concepts of the individual, by discussing the German example of a ‘Social Contract for Sustainability ’ (2011). If the notion of social contract is to become a catalyst for transformation processes leading to sustainability, it cannot be overarching but has to be developed as a multitude of small new social and local contracts.

Date: 2018
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