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Paper short abstract

What do multispecies alliances look like beyond metaphors? Through a multimodal, collaborative anthropology approach, I’m looking at how bees brought together various actors to imagine concrete forms of resistance against fascism around the world, while imagining socialist beekeeping practices.

Paper long abstract

Bees have been used as metaphors throughout history to support various political ideologies—from monarchy to communism, anarchism to feudalism (Tavoillot 2015), and nowadays democracy (Seeley 2010). In recent years, they also become a mascot for the environment. But one metaphor never faded away: bees would be indefatigable and industrious workers – a damaging metaphor that brought bees to the brink of collapse. But can we build multispecies alliances beyond metaphors, hivebound to socialist practices? More than a decade ago, I created Apian, a self-proclaimed Ministry of Bees. Based on my background as an artist, beekeeper, and multispecies and multimodal anthropologist, the Ministry is responsible for the relationship between humans and all bee species. It is tasked by bees with safeguarding the history of this age-old relationship and does so by producing polymorphous ethnographies. These ethnographies/artworks combine media such as video, sound, photography, and writing to imagine and promote Socialist Beekeeping practices. The Ministry aims to establish a framework for the future of this relationship in the context of climate breakdown – a future free from extractive practices and grounded in ancestral knowledge. My ongoing PhD has led me to collaborate with a few different bee resistance groups, which have allied with bees to fight fascism around the world, from occupied territories in Palestine to a farm in Kent (UK). Brought together by their love for bees, these groups promote Mutual Aid at the local and planetary levels, not as a metaphor but as concrete resistance.