Presentation short abstract

Quilombola experience report that discusses how body and territory are articulated in the practice of labor and environmental care, revealing strategies of resistance, dignity, and ecological justice in the face of the global crisis.

Presentation long abstract

In the face of contemporary ecological, political, and social crises—marked by intensifying climate change, economic inequality, and the commodification of nature and labor—Quilombola communities in Brazil affirm themselves as spaces of resistance and creators of civilizational alternatives. This experience report proposes a reflection grounded in political ecology and in the category of body-territory, seeking to understand how Quilombola ways of life articulate labor, dignity, and sustainability as inseparable dimensions of a collective struggle for ecological justice. Drawing on my personal experience and on collective ethnographic records, I discuss how labor in Quilombola communities is conceived not merely as a means of subsistence but as a practice of ecological re-existence, in which body and territory mutually constitute one another. Forms of cultivation, communal land management, and practices of environmental care express a relational and ancestral ethic that counters the capitalist logic of exploitation and productivity. By situating these experiences within broader debates on social reproduction and environmental justice, I highlight epistemologies grounded in the relations between humans, non-humans, and ancestral presences. Quilombola practices reveal an ecology of reciprocity, where everyday care and collective labor sustain life in its fullness. This report proposes an understanding of quilombismo as a political and ecological project of the future—a horizon of dignity, resistance, and mutual flourishing in the face of the global crisis of life.

Presentation short abstract

Violent and alienating forms of labour offered by the avocado industry in Michoacán, Mexico, have been countered by Cherán’s community project to center socio-ecological reproduction and overall well-being.

Presentation long abstract

This paper engages with a territorial conflict from the perspective of labour. In the P’urhépecha Plateau in central Mexico, on the one hand, avocado production enjoys a monopoly of export to the U.S., which enables producers to render huge profits, while workers face insecure, violent conditions, in which both organized crime and multinational corporations play a decisive role.

At the heart of the Plateau, on the other, the community of Cherán has forbidden avocado plantations and developed a communal form of government to secure their social reproduction and keep organized crime and multinational corporations at bay. Such a system is rooted in intense community dialogue as a form of decision-making and rotative executive positions which discourage the formation of hierarchies and facilitate community learning and participation regarding public affairs. Through this, they have also restored the balance of their ecosystems: they have reforested their territory -previously ravaged by organized crime to make room for avocado plantations-, secured their water supply through the construction of a rainwater collection system and deployed a trash recycling facility.

Despite their efforts, Cherán still faces threats: geopolitical disputes increase the ruthlessness of organized crime, and financialization and climate change still endanger the health of their forests. With data coming from both the avocado agri-business and Cherán, this presentation focuses on the main tenets and complexities of this territorial conflict which, at the core, implies a re-conceptualization and re-organization of labour: from a way to contribute to capitalist production, to a way to secure social reproduction.

Presentation short abstract

This presentation explores crofters’ caring relationships with their animals in the Scottish Highlands. I emphasise the importance of broader political economic factors in shaping these relations, while considering how they also sustain the more-than-human assemblages comprising local landscapes.

Presentation long abstract

This presentation draws upon ten months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Skye and Lochalsh region of the Scottish Highlands (Gàidhealtachd). My doctoral research explored the diverse ways people in this region cultivate caring relationships with their natural landscapes, viewing them as both spaces for recreation and labour. Here I draw upon interviews and participant observation conducted with crofters, smallholders who are required to make purposive use of their land under the 1993 Crofters (Scotland) Act. Crofting has been at the heart of various debates regarding land use in the Gàidhealtachd, particularly regarding environmental conservation. In this presentation, I focus on crofters’ relationships with their animals, examining the interspecies affective encounters they engage in. I also consider how such relationships are fundamentally shaped by broader questions of political economy and capitalist integration. I explore the history of crofting as a form of social reproduction, with particular reference to the Gaelic concepts of dùthchas and tuath, and use the framework of "ecosocial reproduction" to describe how crofters sustain the human and more-than-human assemblages that comprise local landscapes. I discuss the corncrake, a bird whose conservation is deeply intertwined with crofting, to illustrate how such forms of more-than-human communal renewal can promote ecological justice in an otherwise ecologically devastated region.

Presentation short abstract

This contribution critically examines permaculture, focusing on its ethical principles (earthcare, peoplecare, fairshare) and its relation to Enlightenment's separation structures. Findings reveal how practitioners mediate the challenges to create social and ecological justice.

Presentation long abstract

Permaculture is a socio-ecological, international, agricultural and design approach through which practitioners aim to mitigate and adapt to the climate- and ecological crisis. Despite the fact that permaculture is currently a niche practice, a more thorough examination of the implementation of its ethical principles, earthcare, peoplecare and faireshare, may provide a profound understanding of the challenges and learning effects that occur when practitioners aim to prioritize reproduction in times of multiple crisis.

The crux of potential challenges pertains to the Western_Northern conceptualization of separation and mediation structures between dualisms, including but not limited to, nature/society, female/male, and reproduction/production. These are not neutral, as they are historically intertwined with power dynamics.

Based on the (Re)Productivity approach (Biesecker/Hofmeister), and a situational analysis (Clarke et al), this contribution is based on data of various qualitative methods which was collected in international permaculture contexts in Germany.

The findings reveal the extent to which permaculture practitioners face problems and challenges such as cultural appropriation and precarious labor conditions. They also mediate between the dualistically separated categories in alignment with the permaculture ethics. The findings of this research highlight the necessity for a nuanced comprehension of these dynamics, which helps to understand why solely natural-science based solutions may not work as crisis solutions as long as capitalist societal structures continue to persist.

Presentation short abstract

A Marxian political ecology study of the sponge iron belt in a central Indian state, showing how deregulation and extractive capitalism deepen metabolic rifts, create toxic labour ecologies, and provoke worker–community resistance for ecological and social justice.

Presentation long abstract

This paper examines how labour precarity and ecological degradation are co-constituted within the sponge iron belt of Chhattisgarh, a region central to India’s neoliberal industrialisation. Situating the analysis within a Marxian political ecology framework, it argues that the region’s integration into neoliberal extractive capitalism has deepened what Marx (1976) theorised as the “metabolic rift” a historically specific rupture between capitalist production, human labour, and socio-ecological systems (Foster 1999; Burkett 1999). Since the early 2000s, deregulation, cheap land acquisition, and state-led facilitation of private capital have enabled an unprecedented proliferation of sponge iron and power plants across Raigarh, Korba, and Durg districts of Chhattisgarh. This industrial belt has generated what Moore (2015) terms “cheap nature” and “cheap labour." Drawing on workers’ experiences, the study shows how polluted air, hazardous shopfloor conditions, and degraded forests embody what Malm (2016) describes as the coercive ecological violence inherent to fossil-fuel capitalism, where the labouring body is systematically exposed to harm as a condition of value extraction. Workers inhabit toxic ecologies where illness, debt, and dispossession become routine conditions of life, revealing the deep entanglement of ecological harm with labour regimes structured by informality and caste-class inequalities. The paper also foregrounds grassroots resistance from trade unions such as the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha to local environmental campaigns to demonstrate how workers and communities articulate alternative ecological and political imaginaries. By centring labour as an ecological relation, this paper contributes to broader debates on climate crisis, environmental injustice, and the uneven geographies of capitalist development.

Presentation short abstract

Based on ethnography in the Andaman Is., I focus upon the non-waged labour of fisherwomen which is left out of value in the process of capital accumulation. I rely on blue injustices to highlight the intertwining ‘reproductive’ and ‘productive’ work of women in (re)producing the fish economy.

Presentation long abstract

The blue justice call for action towards safeguarding small-scale fishers from marginalisation, over time has expanded to incorporate injustices experienced by the Other. Consequentially studies have argued that small scale fishers bear an inequitable burden of coastal and marine harms, which can be corrected through environmental justice. Extending the gaze, women engaged in the fish economy are recognised for their roles played in preharvest and postharvest activities. Deemed vital to their economic empowerment, the demand is for eliminating constraints. However, this emphasis on economic production is based on a narrow understanding of labour, as it assumes that vulnerability of fisherwomen is a consequence of their scale and site of production alone. Overlooking the social capacities such as birthing and raising children, caring for family, maintaining households and communities, and sustaining connections, which play a critical role in the persistence of the fish economy. Classified as non-waged labour, incorporation of reproductive activities into the realm of labour, not of value , becomes intrinsic to capital accumulation in the economy. Therefore, the paper, based on ethnography in the Andaman Islands, focuses on the invisible economies of care. Relying on blue injustices it seeks to highlight the intertwining ‘reproductive’ and ‘productive’ work of the women in (re)producing the fish economy. To argue that blue injustice against women is the intersection of diverse marginalisations that render them vulnerable.

Presentation short abstract

Investigación en fase inicial que busca abrir el debate sobre las tensiones entre el avance del extractivismo verde en Galicia y las dinámicas de reproducción social que sostienen el marisqueo en la Ría de Arousa, atendiendo a sus implicaciones socioecológicas.

Presentation long abstract

En un contexto de creciente presión sobre los territorios costeros, este proyecto —actualmente en una fase inicial—propone abrir un debate sobre las tensiones socioecológicas que atraviesan la Ría de Arousa (Galicia) ante la convergencia de la crisis productiva del marisqueo y la proliferación de iniciativas extractivistas asociadas a la transición verde. Desde un enfoque que articula la economía política crítica y la ecología política, la investigación explora cómo estas dinámicas transforman el territorio, los regímenes de valor y las condiciones que permiten la continuidad del marisqueo en una de las zonas más relevantes del litoral gallego.

El estudio se centra en las mariscadoras, cuyo trabajo—históricamente feminizado y fundamental para la sostenibilidad social y ecológica de la ría—permite observar cómo la actividad marisquera se ve afectada por políticas europeas orientadas a la transición verde para la sostenibilidad que, lejos de ser neutras, generan nuevas desigualdades ambientales y laborales. La ría se configura así como un espacio donde confluyen escalas globales de transición energética, economías locales y conflictos históricos sobre el acceso y manejo de los recursos.

Más que ofrecer resultados, este trabajo propone un análisis preliminar que sitúa el caso en un debate más amplio sobre las contradicciones del capitalismo verde y las múltiples “sostenibilidades” en disputa. Al poner en diálogo los impactos del extractivismo verde con las prácticas situadas de trabajo, cuidado y conocimiento ecológico local, el proyecto busca contribuir a una reflexión crítica sobre los futuros posibles para las comunidades afectadas en contextos de crisis ecológica y económica.

Presentation short abstract

This presentation articulates how a present-day interrogation of Maria Mies’ and Val Plumwood’s ecofeminist thought can pave the way towards more just and sustainable forms of labour and ecological relations in a moment of socioecological reproduction in crisis.

Presentation long abstract

It is increasingly recognised that the current historical conjuncture represents the culmination of multiple overlapping and intersecting crises, inaugurated by an interpellation of overlapping forms of oppression and injustice constitutive of capitalist racist patriarchy. There has been a resurgence of interest in perspectives that combine an understanding of the destructiveness of capitalism with foci in the environmental and social background conditions of this mode of accumulation. In this theoretical and political context, ecofeminist scholarship and activism provide a rich repository of ideas, strategies and concepts that specifically speak to the joint exploitation and commodification of human labour and the environment. To this end, this presentation will involve a discussion of the current quagmire of crises from the perspective of two seminal, yet different ecofeminist theorists, Maria Mies and Val Plumwood, with a core focus on socio-ecological reproduction, its exploitation, and its transformative potential. Our contribution operates across the boundary of political economy and ecology to explore how insights from Mies’ anti-imperialist, socialist ecofeminist work on the one hand, and Plumwood’s foundational philosophical critique of the master model of modernity on the other, pose a radical challenge to the contemporary oppressive configuration of ‘the forces of reproduction’. Through our collaborative dialogue, we articulate some key suggestions on how revisiting Mies’ and Plumwood’s respective theoretical contributions – notably concepts such as housewifisation of labour, as well as hierarchical dualism as the logical structure underwriting colonisation – can pave the way towards more just and sustainable forms of labour and ecological relations.

Presentation short abstract

I connect scholarship on marine ecosystems, energy transitions, and gendered relations to understand the division of labour in small-scale fisheries during the introduction of renewables into geographies of conflict (Yemen), combining feminist, blue, and energy theoretical perspectives.

Presentation long abstract

This paper connects scholarship on marine ecosystems, energy transitions, and gendered relations to understand the division of labour in small-scale fisheries during the introduction of renewables into geographies of conflict. It builds on feminist, blue, and energy perspectives on security, sovereignty, justice, and degrowth on a study of international organisations' (IOs) projects in Yemen’s conflict. I argue that IOs treat fish as a commodity in Yemen, which reduces the possibility of phasing out fossil fuels from global cold supply chain, of challenging the traditional gendered division of labour in fisheries, and of securing subsistence for local communities. Based on the analysis of interviews with donors, UN system, and local NGOs, as well as document analysis, I demonstrate that through individual entrepreneurship programmes, IOs assist artisanal fishermen and women smallholders processing fish at the expense of fisherwomen; by excluding fisherfolk from renewable energy support, IOs make them rely on fossil fuels to catch and process fish. I further show that through the rehabilitation of post-harvesting infrastructure, IOs provide hybrid energy systems instead of phasing fossil fuels out of fisheries. While fishermen, SME workers, and women employed in fish processing value chain directly benefit from these facilities, fisherwomen do not have access to them. I also highlight that through the (re)construction of fish exports-processing sites, run on fossil fuels to power the global cold supply chain, IOs promote fish exports abroad at the expense of supporting local subsistence. I address implications of fish commercialisation on energy transitions in the agrarian South.

Presentation short abstract

Applying Veblen’s institutional theory to Korean food system, this paper addresses the structuration and long-term crisis of the capitalist food system. It posits basic income as a short-term self-organising trigger, valid only if linked to his radical theory looking beyond such capitalistic system.

Presentation long abstract

In contemporary-capitalism, deepening various socioeconomic inequalities, it is inevitable to make major adaptations. The fundamental challenge must be institutional: the established-institutions are inadequate, so a greater period-of-experimentation like basic-income is necessary. This is why we should look at the basics of institutional theory especially of Marxist traditions, outside the ruling neoliberal-consensus. However, this literature has weakly connected to radical-theory, particularly of Veblen, on the issue: whether can a basic-income truly act as a trigger to self-organise a new resilient system of food community? This question leads to sub-questions: (1) how the capitalist food-system gets to organisation-structuration in real-world (objectivity); (2) what is its ‘truly deeper-originator’ of crisis; (3) how (whether) can a basic-income (truly) act as a trigger to self-organise, in philosophical-value (i.e. justice) and history; (4) if untruly, what the normative-solutions are, between reformism-vs-radicalism. This paper, defining ‘self-organisation’ as an ‘institutional-process-of-change-with-struggles to reorganise-reconstitute-restructurate an order-out-of-disorder,’ aims to critically-reflect on these questions with the institutional-matrix of self-organisation structurated: market vs. non-market; pro-capital vs. anti-capital, through the application of a deeper-understanding of radical-theory of Veblen into an empirical-case-study (with quantitative-data-analysis) on Korea’s food-system during the last-decade. By doing so, this paper argues: beyond the superficial-issues of market-vs-State, and Keynesianism-vs-neoliberalism, there are deeper-issues ‘structuration’ within capitalist food-system in Korea while a basic-income can act as a trigger to self-organisation which most institutional theory in Marxist traditions have well-addressed. However, these are in turn valid only when truly-connected to radical-theory, particularly of Veblen, which connects ‘basic-income’ with long-term vision, looking beyond such capitalistic-system.