WEGO-ITN, Author at WEGO-ITN

Register now for the “Despite Extractivism” online exhibition

The Despite Extractivism online exhibition assembles expressions of care, creativity and community from diverse sites of extraction and geographical contexts. Extractivism is characterised by the violent accumulation of resources, which often devastates and disrupts affected communities and the natural world. Collectively, the works in this exhibition illuminate and explore ways of questioning, subverting and resisting the logics and impacts of extractivism.Can artistic interventions help foster new sensibilities and solidarities with distanced extractive contexts? Can sites of extraction be a fertile ground for alternatives?

Accompanying the exhibition, our events series is an unfolding opportunity for collective learning and solidarity building with artists, activists, academics, communities and active audiences.

Between an online launch event and a closing event, three webinars will explore the stories, ideas and practises of the Despite Extractivism contributors and the communities they engage with. The events, featuring performances, presentations and discussions, focus in turn on expanding but intersecting scales, from the body to the global. Presenters and further information to be announced.

Check out the exhibition’s program

Welcome
Thursday 20th January |12-1.30pm (UK)
The curatorial collective will be joined by contributors to launch the website and open the exhibition to the public. Together we will take a guided journey through the online exhibition spaces, meet the artists and explore the themes and questions at the heart of the exhibition.

Embodiment
Thursday 27 January |12-1.30pm (UK)
Embodied, sensory or emotional experiences can evoke (new) sensibilities to extractive realities at a personal level. In this webinar we will explore how particular kinds of creative practises and strategies not only portray such experiences but also motivate embodied persistence or resistance , because of – or despite – extractivism.

Community
Thursday 3 February |12-1.30pm (UK)
Communities of place are often at the centre of stories about impacts and resistance to extractivism. When we ask what persists ‘despite extractivism’, the question also invites us to think about what we mean by ‘community’ in our stories.

Worlding
Thursday 10 February |12-1.30pm (UK)
Extractivism describes a singular and toxic way of being in and relating to the world. Each Despite Extractivism contribution invites us to relate and act ‘otherwise’ in different ways and through different registers. Working with the Zapatista definition of the pluriverse – ‘the world we want is a world in which many worlds fit’ – this webinar provides a common space to share stories and conversations across our differences.

Closing
Tuesday 8 March – International Women’s Day (Time TBA)
This event will bring together the collective learning of the exhibition and accompanying events. Rather than marking the end of the project, the event will consider what new ideas, connections or questions have unfolded and how we might cultivate these.

Human Rights and Transition: The Ombuds(wo)men and their contribution to the future

In early December, the Latin American Institute of Ombudsmen (ILO) held its 12th Annual Assembly and Seminar. ILO is a Latin American and Caribbean network that brings together Human Rights institutions and Human Rights defenders in the region, promoting the creation of these institutions, the strengthening of their role and institutionality, and the promotion and full exercise of Human Rights.

Due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, the Assembly and Seminar in 2021 were held on line for the second year in a row. In this occasion, it was named ‘Berta Caceres’, a Lenca indigenous woman from Honduras, a human rights defender, murdered in March 2016 in her home for her permanent struggle for the rights of the Lenca people, the protection of the territory and the natural environment. ILO chose to come together remembering Berta Caceres in a historical moment where the defence of Human Rights necessarily implies a defence of Life in its diversity, and because the daily reality in Latin America and the Caribbean, where there is the highest number of murders of environmental defenders around the world – mostly women -, reminds us of the centrality of that struggle in order to imagine a truly just, equitable and sustainable future. In this sense, the focus of the meeting, based on the learnings of the responses to the pandemic, was to think collectively about the transition and to do it from a perspective of rights anchored in the protection of our natural environment.

It was also decided to dedicate some of the presentations to analyze women’s rights in the region, taking into account that the encounter took place within the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. Other groups specially considered during the seminar, also in coincidence with international days dedicated to highlight their rights, were the elderly, people with disabilities, as well as victims of various forms of slavery and human trafficking. Several women with roles in these institutions in charge of promoting and defending women’s rights and other collective rights, from several countries of the region, shared their experiences, views and proposals during the seminar.

All sessions had an artistic expression representing some of the sub-regions. This was done recognizing the importance of culture and cultural expressions for the construction of just and democratic societies which value and respect diversity.

As a result of the rich exchange throughout the three days of the seminar and assembly, a final declaration was issued where among others, the following topics were highlighted:

Concern about the worsening of the human rights situation in the region because of the pandemic and the inadequate and unequal policies implemented in response to it, including racist and discriminatory approaches.
Concern about the impact that the pandemic has had on structural problems in the region, such as gender violence (including the growing number of feminicides), discrimination against women and the LGBTIQ + population, mistreatment of children and adolescents, limitation of rights to population groups such as people with disability, elderly, groups in a situation of human mobility, indigenous peoples, and lack of public policies in response to these situations.
Condemnation of the refusal by industrialized countries, based on economic interests, to take measures in order to reduce the effects of climate change; it also expressed its condemnation of the high number of human rights and environmental defenders, who have been pressured, threatened or assassinated, again, in order to defend economic interests associated with the extractivist model.
Concern about the impacts in people’s lives and intimacy resulting from surveillance capitalism; in line with this, it highlighted the current weakness of democratic institutions calling for broader and deeper participation of civil society in political life.

The declaration provides a roadmap for ILO and its members for the work to be implemented in 2022, with the aim to contribute to strengthen the respect of human rights in the region.

Ana Agostino
(First Vice-president of ILO and Ombudsperson of WEGO)

Degrowth and Feminist Political Ecology and Decoloniality: Reflections from the WEGO network

Organized under the theme ‘Caring Communities for Radical Change’, the 8th International Degrowth Conference (August 24-28, The Hague), brought together nearly 900 activists, academics, and artists to discuss how to confront the contradictions between endless economic growth and the ecological boundaries of our planet.

You can read the full text here.

In 2018, at the 6th International Degrowth Conference in Malmö, the Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance (FaDA) was launched to shape the degrowth movement from within. Feminist and decolonial thinking and doing was embedded as a fundamental approach throughout our conference weaving through many of the discussion and other key conversations as well. Nonetheless this is an ongoing process in-the-making which requires us to continuously and critically question both our political visions and everyday doings as we try to give meaning to the idea of caring communities and radical change.

‘… [understanding] care as central within degrowth and at the core of our economies and societies.’

These questions begun in Malmö were matured in The Hague discussions on Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) and Decoloniality throughout the sessions. FPE looked at feminisms, relations of care and wellbeing, with a focus on how we can understand care as central within degrowth and at the core of our economies and societies. In what way can economies be rearranged in terms of provisioning that care, taking into account health, aging and ability, whilst degrowing? And how do different strands of feminism such as feminist science and technology, decolonial and eco-feminism contribute to degrowth? Decoloniality discussions aimed to promote coalitions between degrowth movements and with individuals and collectives at the frontline of decolonization struggles in the Netherlands and Europe with workshops on the process of unlearning and relearning, looking at responsibility, debt and reparations as well as sessions to stimulate alternative imaginations and re-learning with others.

The FPE conversation argued how important it was to have a feminist perspective on degrowth. Because a movement for social and environmental needs must include diversities: diversities of gender, race, class, disability and sexual identities; and these diversities need to be analysed in meaningful ways. Because including these diversities is the only way to counteract and dismiss colonial, oppressive and exclusive continuities of our consumption patterns. Because a limit-full desirable inclusive future has to be shaped on reciprocity and responsibilities, to care for one another and for the planet that we are all part of. In this regard, the FPE Key Conversation also stressed the importance of learning from communities that are already practicing degrowth; communities, movements, collectives (and we heard many stories and experiences during the conference) that refuse to align themselves to the logic of capitalism and growth and of centralized oppressive market-oriented states; communities that are fighting every day for environmental and social justice, or simply for their own well-being and survival on earth.

You can read the full text here.

Video: “Climate action and training for gender equality”, with UNWomen

Our researcher Eunice Wangari-Muneri participated in December 13th 2021 in a webinar organized by United Nations Women. The session, “Climate action and training for gender equality” is part of a series of Virtual Dialogues by the United Nations that aims to explore climate action and gender justice.

Eunice was joined by Dharmistha Chauhan, an economist with over 20 years of experience in the field of gender and community-led sustainable development; Mairi Dupar, Research Fellow of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the Gender and Social Inclusion Lead and Managing Editor of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN); and Dr Lucy Ferguson, specialist in gender equality and women’s empowerment. Dr Ferguson will moderate the talk.

You can now watch the full discussion online!

More on the event:

Climate change is the defining crisis of our time. We know that the climate crisis is not gender neutral. The impacts of climate change are gendered; that is, they impact people in different ways based on their gender. Women face higher risks and greater burdens from the impacts of climate change in situations of poverty, and the majority of the world’s poor are women. As Christina Kwauk of the Brookings Institution puts it, “Climate change exacerbates existing structural and social gender inequalities in ways that’s really led [women and girls] to experience climate change the worst and first.” Gender-based violence skyrockets in the aftermath of natural disasters, while the food shortages and financial hardship wrought by climate change can increase violence against women and LGBTQI people. Gender inequality limits the resilience and adaptive capacity of women, families and communities.

How to participate:

From UNWOmen:

You can take part in this Virtual Dialogue in two ways: by participating in the live Webinar (in English) on 13 December 2021 and/or contributing to the CoP discussion forum (6–23 December). After our panellists deliver their presentations during the Webinar, you can ask questions using the ‘questions’ feature, which the moderator will pose on your behalf. We will post a recording of the Webinar on the CoP platform and the Training Centre’s YouTube channel. Everyone who participates by asking questions in the Webinar or posting in the forum will be credited in the Virtual Dialogue’s final report.

Deadline extension for POLLEN 2022

From POLLEN website:

The Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) organising committee for POLLEN 2022 has made the decision to shift the conference to a virtual format. This decision takes into account the unlikelihood that the international participants will travel under prevailing Covid conditions, and also under advice from the host University of Kwazulu-Natal, in Durban South Africa, in terms of capacity restrictions under Covid protocols for an in-person event on campus.

The Pollen conference will be a fully virtual, interactive event and while we can’t replicate the in-person experience, we can maximise the virtues of technology to ensure we can still gather together in a virtual space to continue to share insights and grow the network. We will be adapting the programme to suit the virtual format and will include a variety of opportunities for interaction – among attendees and between attendees and speakers. The conference will also be extended from a three to a 4-day event, running from the 28 June – 1 July 2022.

Extended submission deadline for completed organised session proposals

In anticipation of further interest in the amended format, we have extended the call for organised session proposals till 31 January 2022.

The POLLEN 2022 Organising Committee is pleased to announce the second Call for Proposals for Organised Sessions, and an extended deadline for submission.

This Call encourages proposals for Organised Sessions in a variety of both conventional and novel formats, aspiring to bring together perspectives and ways of sharing from across disciplines and geographic traditions, and welcoming contributions from within and outside the academy.

To this end, this Call encourages proposals for Organised Sessions in a variety of both conventional and novel formats, aspiring to bring together perspectives and ways of sharing from across disciplines and geographic traditions, and welcoming contributions from within and outside the academy.

You can read the full Call for Proposals here.

“Ecología política feminista y ciudades vivibles: Diálogos transatlánticos” is now available online

If you missed the transatlantic edition of our series of “Feminist Political Ecology”-Dialogues, worry no more. Both sessions are now available online in our YouTube channel. The presentations and debates were held in Spanish.

The event, held online in November 4th, with scholars, activists and local government actors from Spain, Mexico, Chile and Uruguay discussed critically on the theme of “livable cities” from a feminist political ecology perspective and with a focus on socio-environmental justice. Topics such as water politics and integrated management, urban greening, food sharing and the commons, urban and planetary health in times of pandemic, and ‘right to the city’ approaches were discussed throughout two sessions: “Gobernanza y políticas públicas rumbo a las ciudades vivibles” and “Flujos entre territorios: el caso del agua”.

A few of the speakers at “Ecología Política Feminista y Ciudades Vivibles: Diálogos Transatlánticos” were Silvana Pissano (mayor of Municipio B in Montevideo), Amaranta Herrero Cabrejas (strategic coordinator of Proyecto Barcelona Capital Mundial de la Alimentación Sostenible 2021), Blanca Valdivia (founding partner of Col·lectiu Punt 6). WEGO-ITN Early Stage Researchers Marlene Gomes, Nick Bourguignon, Anna Katharina Voss also presented their work, as well as our Panagiota Kotsila (BCNUEJ) and Sergio Villamayor Tomás (Autonomous University of Barcelona).

Multiple ways of sharing (and interacting with) research findings: the “Troubling Waterscapes” project

It all started a few months before the biannual conference POLLEN2020: Contested Natures: Power, Possibility, Prefiguration, that was supposed to be held in Brighton, UK, in June 2020. Irene Leonardelli and Enid Still, two of WEGO-ITN Early Stage Researchers, together with their colleague and PhD candidate Arianna Tozzi, as well as artist Sneha Malani, were thinking of how to present their research findings in an interactive, less academic and more collective way. Soon the idea of an immersive art exhibition emerged, where it would be possible to engage in reflections with the participants, not necessarily by means of traditional panel discussions or roundtables.

Then COVID-19 hit.

After some consideration, they decided to move online. Instead of a traditional art installation, they developed an interactive online presentation, in which virtual visitors could move back and forth through the maps and stories of the fictional village of Pravah, in India, where Irene did her research on women who cultivate flowers with wastewater. Located in a notoriously drought-prone region, the village receives wastewater from Pune for irrigation purposes. As the wastewater reaches Pravah, however, it contaminates existing water resources. There is, of course, a symbolic, troubling, but also somewhat poetic contrast, between this polluted water and the flowers they grow.

The project came to life at the Pollen Conference, which ended up being held in September 2020. Now, their work – called Troubling Waterscapes, based on Donna Haraway’s “staying with the trouble” concept -, has become an permanent and immersive platform: troublingwaterscapes.com

The researches, who work with water and agriculture, explained their website in a blog post for UPE collective:

“We started reflecting together on different ways of being with, understanding, knowing and feeling water. Speaking online from isolation across different parts of the world, we started adding layers to the map in the form of photos, poetry, satirical sketches, reflection and animations. These expressions were sparked by our collective conversations as we further troubled and questioned our engagement with waters and agriculture from multiple perspectives. Together, we reflected on what water infrastructures are (materially and symbolically) about their histories and meanings. We discussed how the people’s experiences and engagements with different waters (groundwater, wastewater, rain water) change throughout time and space, and how these differences are reflected across multiple intersecting identities. We questioned how the very materiality of water, its fluidity, transparency, taste, affects everyday dealings and experiences with water across different waterscapes.”

For more information on the idea behind this WEGO-ITN project, check out the blog post.

And, of course, don’t miss the final results! Welcome to Troubling Waterscapes.

Regístrese ahora: “Ecología política feminista y ciudades vivibles: Diálogos transatlánticos”

¿Cómo podemos re-imaginar las “ciudades vivibles” desde una perspectiva feminista y a través de una mirada anclada en la justicia socio-ambiental?

En este evento en línea proponemos discutir críticamente el tema de las “ciudades vivibles” desde una perspectiva de la Ecología Política Feminista, poniendo énfasis en la justicia socio-ambiental.

Entre los/las invitados/as se encuentran activistas, académicos/as, actores/as gubernamentales y legisladores/as de Barcelona (España), Montevideo (Uruguay), México y Chile que compartirán sus perspectivas sobre este tema e intercambiarán ideas sobre desafíos comunes, visiones progresistas emergentes y estrategias para abordar las injusticias socio-ambientales en las ciudades.

Como investigadores/as jóvenes y senior de la red WEGO (Bienestar, Ecología, Género y Comunidad), enfocada en la Ecología Política Feminista, presentaremos y discutiremos a manera de introducción los hallazgos y experiencias de nuestras investigaciones relacionadas con la justicia social y ambiental desde una perspectiva crítica feminista.

Abordaremos temas como la política del agua y la gestión integrada, el enverdecimiento urbano, los bienes comunes, la salud urbana y planetaria en tiempos de pandemia y los enfoques del ‘derecho a la ciudad’. Temas que hemos estado investigando en Barcelona y en otras regiones de España y de Europa y también en otras regiones del mundo.

Nuestro objetivo es estimular un pensamiento crítico que cuestione y subvierta el imaginario omnicomprensivo de la “ciudad sostenible global neoliberal” impulsado por el desarrollo y el neodesarrollismo. Así, la discusión girará en torno a enfoques radicales, situados y justos del urbanismo sostenible.

Fecha: 4 de Noviembre de 2021
Hora: 14:00 – 16:00 & 18:00 – 20:00
Regístrese ahora: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_yLXN892FRvueWXThn-5QSQ

Consulte el programa y las/los ponentes:

Register now: “Ecología política feminista y ciudades vivibles: Diálogos transatlánticos”

How can we re-imagine ‘livable cities’ from a feminist perspective and through a social and environmental justice lens?

With this one-day online event we aim to bring together researchers, activists and local government actors, to discuss critically on the theme of “livable cities” from a feminist political ecology perspective and with a focus on socio-environmental justice. We invite activists, academics, government actors and policy makers from Barcelona (Spain), Montevideo (Uruguay) and beyond, to share their perspectives on these issues and exchange ideas on the common challenges, emerging progressive visions and strategies for addressing socioenvironmental injustices in cities.

We, research fellows from the WEGO_ITN network on FPE will also present and discuss our research findings and experiences relating to social and environmental justice from a feminist perspective. We will touch on topics such as water politics and integrated management, urban greening, food sharing and the commons, urban and planetary health in times of pandemic, and ‘right to the city’ approaches, as those were studied in Barcelona and other regions in Spain, Europe, and beyond.

Our aim is to ignite thinking that questions and breaks away from the all-encompassing imaginary of the neoliberal and growth-driven “global sustainable city”, to open the discussion on radical, situated and just approaches to sustainable urbanism. The discussions will be held in Spanish.

Date: November 4th 2021
Time: 14:00 – 16:00 & 18:00 – 20:00 CET
Register now: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_yLXN892FRvueWXThn-5QSQ

Take a look at the program:

Register now: “Towards Climate Summit-COP26: Capitalocene, Climate Change & Ecofeminism”

ECOFEMINIST LEARNING, October 23rd, 2021

The Anthropocene marks changes in the earth by humans, one of which is the climate crisis. However, the Anthropocene emphasizes that the cause of destruction is “humanity as a whole,” not a force and power system that Moore (2015) calls the Capitalocene. As a result, solutions to climate change are dominated by economic discourse and green lifestyles, not changing the system.

Approaching the 26th year of the Climate Change Summit-COP26 in Glasgow, Ruang Baca Puan invites you to reflect and discuss the relationship between capitalocene, climate change and ecofeminism with:

Fathun Karib (Sociology Lecturer at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Indonesia and Binghamton Ph.D. Sociology Candidate)
Siti Maimunah (Ruang Baca Puan and PhD Candidate, The University of Passau, Germany)

Moderator: Sapariah Saturi from Mongabay.id

This Discussion is open to the public; please register yourself at https://bit.ly/DiskusiRBPmenujuCOP26

If you still have questions, please get in touch with Beng +628970005629

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UNDANGAN NGAJI EKOFEMINIS, 23 Oktober 2021

MENUJU KTT IKLIM-COP26: Kapitalosen, Perubahan Iklim & Ekofeminis

Anthropocene menandai perubahan bumi oleh manusia yang salah satu penandanya adalah krisis iklim. Namun anthropocene menekankan penyebab kerusakan adalah “kemanusiaan secara keseluruhan”, bukan sebuah kekuatan dan sistem kuasa yang disebut Moore (2015) sebagai Capitalocene. Akibatnya solusi merespon perubahan iklim lebih banyak didominasi wacana ekonomi dan gaya hidup hijau, bukan mengubah sistem.

Menjelang tahun ke 26 KTT Perubahan Iklim-COP26 di Glasgow, Ruang Baca Puan mengundang kalian melakukan refleksi dan mendiksusikan hubungan kapitalosen, perubahan iklim dan ekofeminis Bergama:

Fathun Karib ( Dosen Sosiologi FISIP UIN Syarif Hidayatullah dan Kandidat PhD Sosiologi Binghamton )
Siti Maimunah ( Ruang Baca Puan dan Kandidat PhD Universitas Passau, Jerman )

Moderator: Sapariah Saturi dari Mongabay.id

Ngaji ini terbuka untuk umum, silahkan daftarkan dirimu di https://bit.ly/DiskusiRBPmenujuCOP26

Jika masih ada pertanyaan, silahkan hubungi Beng +628970005629