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LP2


Wild collaborations: on communal relations beyond the human [Humans and Other Living Beings Network] 
Convenors:
Giovanna Capponi (University of Roehampton)
Aníbal Arregui (University of Barcelona)
Olea Morris (Central European University)
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Format:
Lightning panel
Location:
Mathematics & Physics Teaching Centre (MAPTC), 0G/005
Sessions:
Tuesday 26 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London

Short Abstract:

We invite short provocations that ethnographically recast the "wild" as a cultivated and collectively enhanced space, one which is oriented by communal relations across species and the common work for more-than-human futures.

Long Abstract:

Mainstream biological understandings of how different species or individuals interact in "the wild" often frame coexistence with other beings as driven by competition - a zero-sum game. By contrast, thinkers such as Kropotkin, and biologists such as Margulis, Lewontin and Simard, have called attention to the ways that collaborative and mutualist interactions underlie evolutionary processes. Relatedly, social science scholars such as Haraway, Tsing, or Helmreich (among others) have written about the potential of symbiotic dynamics not only for reorienting our understanding of how organisms evolve, but also for inspiring unexpected transformations of social, political, and economic premises in the current context of planetary decay.

In this lightning panel, we want to discuss cases in which the relations between humans and non-humans in the wild are not framed as a matter of natural competition but, instead, as constituting "communal relations" that make room for multispecies collaboration, unlikely alliances, and creative challenges of the boundaries between wild and anthropic spaces. We invite short provocations that ethnographically recast the "wild" as a cultivated, enhanced and fostered space, one which is oriented by more-than-human synergies, practical forms of mutual aid, and the work for common futures. From the feeding of wild animals or ecologically-minded forms of hunting, to the performing of alternative practices of conservation, we ask what ethnographers can relate about the production of communal economies, politics, and geographies that function collaboratively both in the wild and across species.

Accepted presentations:

Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -