Common Ecologies is a movement school and a platform for movement learning, alliance-building and co-research. We organize discussions, encounters, co-learning processes and courses. These happen either online or in one of the many different sites we are located or allied with. We produce, circulate and activate analysis in the form of podcasts, texts and publications. In our work, there is often a focus on translation across languages, places and contexts.
We work with people, groups and movements that struggle for socio-ecological transformation and justice in a way that favours long-term organising, meaningful engagement and honest alliances. Our work is based out of different locations in Europe, linking to a network of allies, collaborators and referents across Europe and beyond. We try to combine online translocal activities with embodied and place-based engagement in meaningful and sustainable ways.
We currently operate via three strands: Earthcare, Ecosocial Education, and Ecosyndicalism. They work on socioecological justice and transition across the fields of agriculture/food, education and labour respectively. For us, a key point is to articulate these with one another in different concrete ways: they’re our common ecologies.
Get in touch
We’re always excited to meet new compas and co-conspirators to explore new collaborations and exchange ideas. If you want to get in touch, email us at: info [at] commonecologies [dot] net, or register for any of our ongoing activities. We’re always happy looking for support with web development and maintenance, design, translations, social media and general planning and organizing.
Who we are
We’re organised in different layers, with a collective of more or less ten people at the core, working with a layer of collaborators called acompañantes in each strand, as well as with a wider network of advisors and allies.
The Common Ecologies collective currently consists of Manuela Zechner and Laura Mendoza Sandoval (project and programme coordinators), Bue Rübner Hansen, Joris Leverink, Nadine Gerner, Lea Zentgraf and others. We’re based across Austria, Germany, Italy and the UK with strong ties to Spain, Denmark, Colombia, Chile, Brasil and beyond. We’re a mix of researchers, facilitators, organisers and text- as well as cultural workers. Our group naturally fluctuates as people move in and out of being in the core collective and acompañante roles.
Common Ecologies acompañantes are key people we work with in strands. They include Nelly Alfandari as co-coordinating the Ecosocial Education strand alongside Manuela Zechner, as well as Amerissa Giannouli, Raúl Almendro, Martina Huber Kriegler, Déna Jansen, Julija Petrovska, Alexandros Kioupliolis, Nancy Serrano, Burcu Meltem Arıik and Evie Kouroumaki in that strand. In Earthcare they include Lina Hansen, Sarah Gorenflos, Maggie Schmitt alongside the core collective, and in Ecosyndicalism they include Jana Ahlers, Daniel Gutiérrez. Note that this list is not necessarily complete/updated.
Our advisors and key allies include Andrea Ghelfi, Christos Giovannopoulos, Amaranta Herrero, Panagiota Kotsila, Sarah Schilliger, Katharine Ainger, Valery Alzaga, Camille Barbagallo, Stefania Barca, Kylie Benton-Connell, Nic Beuret, Kevin Buckland, Uli Brand, Carlos Delclos, Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Janna Graham, Liz Mason-Deese, Tomislav Medak, Keir Milburn, Jason W. Moore, Rodrigo Nunes, Dimitris Papadopoulos, Nora Räthzel, Isabelle Saint-Saëns, Rosalie Arendt, Attila Szocs amongst many others.
There are many collectives and platforms we frequently collaborate with in our strands, too many to name here. For translations we often collaborate with la Laboratoria, for our graphics we often collaborate with Amanda Priebe.
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