Ulysses

Relationality in the Capitalocene: developing a transdisciplinary approach to the ecopolitics of colonised land use through activism, social science, and the arts

This project, funded by Research Ireland/Campus France, is co-led by Catherine Gander (MU) and Monica Manolescu (University of Strasbourg).

Grounded on research evidencing the benefit of collaborative, multi-perspectival responses to the Capitalocene (our current epoch of human and natural history in which the capitalist mode of production has led to the destruction of our planet), this project develops an interdisciplinary methodology connecting arts, media, and social science scholarship, creative production, and ecological activism to deepen and transfer knowledge between communities, disciplines, and countries. The project examines cross-currents between disciplinary approaches to the eco-politics of land use in Ireland and America, specifically, land that’s been colonized, degraded, and extracted from, and from which indigenous peoples have often been violently expelled. Study of the ‘Anthropocene’ (the geologic era marked by humanity’s impact on earth) has produced research siloed within disciplinary boundaries; we argue that a more integrated approach is needed, both to advance an interactive ethics of understanding and care, and to decolonize scholarship on the subject. Preferring the term Capitalocene to Anthropocene for its suggestion of alternative ways of living and thinking, our research is guided by indigenous, ecological philosophies of relationality (all things are connected in reciprocity and obligation). The project models an interdisciplinary relational approach, whereby knowledge is not extracted but shared for the common social good.