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The Political Ecology Reading Group Cycles are part of the activities of the Ecology and Society Workshop, ECOSOC, and aim to discuss reference texts in the field, deepen the analysis of social and environmental connections, and strengthen and expand our work and solidarity networks.

The texts discussed are interlocutions between Political Ecology, Environmental Humanities, and Social Sciences and aim to project critical reflections on the Anthropocene, Epistemic Justice and Environmental Justice, Ecofeminism, Colonial-Modern, Post-Colonialism, Nature-Cultures, among others.

This 2nd Cycle of the Reading Group covers four axes: Atmospheres, Waters, Lands, and Fire.

Researcher and artist Katerina Martina Teaiwa highlights how, in the present time, our options for producing a thought that is decolonial, transversal, and pluriversal “begin with actions rooted in kinship, terrestrial, oceanic and celestial landscapes.” Thus, starting from categories that, at first glance, seem closed in on themselves, our goal is to break them apart.

The proposal is to stop looking at the four axes as forms of thought, classifications, ideologies of Western and colonial political conceptions, seen as isolable, inert categories, subject to private appropriation and commercialization, or as goods that can be exploited until exhaustion. The readings and discussions will bring alternative references to the antagonisms between humanity and nature, debating non-dual conceptions and relational forms of interaction with the four elements of nature. It includes, for example, kinship and ancestry, cosmologies, knowledge, and techniques, or even forms of sharing and care that conceive them as inalienable common goods.

About the sessions

The Cycle is organized into five sessions, four of which are dedicated to each of the axes, and a final session to close the first year of this Reading Group, celebrating the authors we studied and evaluating the work with the participants from a theoretical-methodological point of view.

The sessions will be hybrid (online and in-person, held at Room 2, CES | Alta), lasting one hour, followed by a meeting between the people in person in another non-academic space (e.g., the Botanical Garden/UC, the Parque Verde de Coimbra, a café, a restaurant, etc.), in order to facilitate conversations, exchanges, and partnerships that strengthen our network. We invite researchers, students, activists, and other interested parties to participate.

The 2nd Cycle of the Reading Group will run from September to December 2024, and those who register will receive a version of the articles or chapters to be worked on before each session.

Coordinators: Flora Pereira da Silva (florasilva@ces.uc.pt), Ananda Martins Carvalho (anandamartins91@gmail.com) and Eliane Sebeika Rapchan (esrapchan@gmail.com), with ECOSOC.

About the Reading Group

The 1st Cycle, held in the first half of 2024, had a plural and multifaceted character in relation to the theme of political ecology, with the texts chosen based on interests motivated by the different trajectories of the group integrants. The 2nd Cycle is linked to the 1st, giving continuity to it since it remains aligned with Political Ecology and Environmental Humanities. It also revisits some themes, such as fire and land, and the debates around economic decline, climate coloniality, and literature through science fiction.

About ECOSOC

The Ecology and Society Workshop (ECOSOC) is a CES Working Group that aims to articulate society and ecology through a transdisciplinary approach and promote collective constructions that address the climate and ecological crisis based on a critique of the inequalities inherent to the capitalist system and from the perspective of environmental and climate justice.