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 class room, my paper contributes to on-going dialogues 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 abroader feminist, ecological justice project followed by a conclusion.

Keywords

• feminist political ecology, community economies, gender, postdevelopment, commoning