Sarah Jewitt, School of Geography, The University of Nottingham, UK
'An important work which uses patient fieldwork to establish the variegated nature of institutional ecologies in Jharkhand and which robustly challenges the more reductive approaches of rural populism and ecofeminism.' Stuart Corbridge, Professor of Geography, LSE, UK and Professor of International Studies, University of Miami, USA 'Women's role in nurturing local knowledge about farming and forests and the connections between traditional and modern technology, have both become crucial themes in studies of development and globalization.A What Sarah Jewitt does in this path breaking study is to put flesh on to the bones of this debate. In so doing she dispels much of the myth and sentimentality which has clouded our academic views about gender and the environment.' Tim Bayliss-Smith, Senior Lecturer, University of Cambridge, U.K 'Sarah Jewitt has usefully brought experiences from...different research fields into correspondence with development research in her book...Environment, Knowledge and Gender is a strong argument against not only eco-feminism but against all analyses that tend to romanticise tribal people in the forests as noble and eco-friendly, gender-balanced savages...the book is an important contribution to debates on local development in resource-poor forest regions.' Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography '...interesting in its own right...but far more significant in its attempt to explode the myth of ecofeminist and populist models of development...In my opinion she has succeeded in showing that the ecofeminist, populist approach is romanticized and undifferentiated...' Ecotheology