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Short abstract:

This contribution explores non-logocentric modalities of participation in what I call eco-reproductive labour. Through an analysis ‘ecological’ everyday care work, it highlights the potential of material and non-discursive forms of participation invisibilised in logocentric political cultures.

Long abstract:

This paper explores non-logocentric modalities of participation in what I call eco-reproductive labour. It examines the daily activities of reproduction and maintenance of life in a moment of already-here ecological destruction. The study focuses on ‘ecological’ everyday care work: cooking a zero-waste dinner, cleaning with vinegar, saving water during bath time,… Through qualitative work with French households, it interrogates what becomes of daily labours of life-maintenance as those unavoidable labours of life also make one participate in/to bio-destructive logics, and what it means to participate in this context. Thus, setting aside the question ‘are the “small gestures for the planet” political?’, this paper asks: how is it that environmental vulnerabilities crystalise in daily reproductive labour? What forms of participation does this crystallisation produce?

Informed by (eco)feminists, environmental and epistemic justice scholars, Rancièrian theories of radical equality, and ecological thinking, I argue that labours of life-maintenance can function as forms of material participation in/to the material devastation. This is of importance in a moment that has something of the unspeakable: in the impossibility of expressing concern, doing care remains (Puig de La Bellacasa, 2017). First, this paper argues that caring labours question the logocentrism of the Western political tradition which subordinates ‘deeds to speech’ (Rollo, 2017). Secondly, this subordination invisibilises other-than-logocentric forms of participation that are shaped by relationalities of gender, class and race/coloniality. Finally, attentiveness to non-discursive forms of participation is critical in a moment of epistemic uncertainty which questions the very possibility of an (expert) metadiscourse on the catastrophe.