Feminist Political Ecology practices of worlding: Art, commoning and the politics of hope in the class room

Abstract

In the paper I argue that in a world where our lives are intricately interconnected and our environments are rapidly changing, commoning produces ecological imaginaries and understandings of places that could build a sense of global commons based on mutuality, reciprocity, and relationality. In exploring commoning in the international classroom, my paper contributes to ongoing dialogues on community economies and feminist political ecology in the Community Economies Research Network (CERN), and the newly formed EU project Well-being, Ecology, Gender and cOmmunity (WEGO). In the article I first set out how I use commoning in my teaching. In section two I present my methodology, followed by section three where I present the community economies research network. In section four I present a case study of how I employ the community economies iceberg diagram in my teaching process using drawing/ art-making to create an emergent commons-in-practice. In section five I discuss the productivity of bringing community economies and commoning to a broader feminist, ecological justice project followed by a conclusion.

Feminist political ecologies of the commons and commoning (Editorial to the Special Feature)

“…Lastly, Nightingale (2011) challenges the dominant understanding that cooperation within common property debates is 'rational' by showing how emotions expressed through bodies of Scottish fishermen in multiple spaces, from the boats and the community to the meeting room with policy makers, shape diverse and complex cooperation modes. Three contributions to this special issue (Harcourt 2019;Leder et al 2019;Nightingale 2019) explore this line of research further.…”

“…Another line explores commons types beyond the biophysical. Three contributions in this issue (Harcourt 2019;Sato and Soto Alarcón 2019;Tummers and MacGregor 2019) illuminate links between biophysical and non-biophysical commons. Harcourt and Tummers and MacGregor articulate spaces, higher education classroom and co-housing respectively, as a potential site for commoning.…”

“…FPE scholars instead boldly position themselves politically and as feminists in their research, and this positioning is explicit in their writing and analysis (Harcourt and Nelson 2015). In this special issue, we seek to challenge hegemonic masculinist conceptions and practices of knowledge production through in-depth case studies that analyse the implementation of hydropower projects in India (Shrestha et al 2019) to knowledge production in higher education international classrooms in the Global North (Harcourt 2019).…”

“…See Bauhardt andHarcourt (2019). Also Harcourt (2019),Nightingale (2019), and Sato and Soto Alarcón (2019).…”

Spaces for Feminist Commoning? Creative Social Enterprise’s Enclosures and Possibilities

“…Both diverse economies and Marxist feminist scholars including activist and theorist Silvia Federici (2018) call for research on feminist commoning that unsettles colonial gender and race hierarchies (see also Hossein 2018). In this way, feminist commoning often involves strategies to provide non‐commodified and collective modes of social reproduction and care work (Harcourt 2019). Emphasising mutuality, sharing and reciprocity, these practices foster horizontal power structures and intimate connections (Gibson‐Graham et al 2013; Harcourt 2019; Hossein 2018).…”