Us, our allies and referents

Common Ecologies is

…a movement school, a platform for movement learning. We organize courses, discussions, encounters, co-learning processes and programmes, and make podcasts and publications. We work with people, groups and movements that struggle for socio-ecological transformation and justice. Our work is based out of different locations in Europe, linking to a network of allies, collaborators and referents across Europe and beyond. We strive to build movement ecologies, care and socio-ecological justice.

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Common Ecologies is a movement school without walls (yet?), or in other words a platform for movement learning. We organize courses, discussions, encounters, co-learning processes and programmes, and make podcasts and publications. We work with people, groups and organizations that struggle (or want to struggle) for socio-ecological transformation and justice. Our work is based out of different locations in Europe, linking to a network of allies, collaborators and referents across Europe as well as in Abya Yala, North America and Africa. We are driven by a great desire to translate – between geographical contexts as well as spheres of thinking, living and struggle – and to stengthen – ties, shared affective grounds, knowledges and practices. In short, our work is about movement ecologies, the cultures of care and justice that hold the environmental and the social together.

We currently operate 5 working strands, which constitute a powerful cocktail of actors and issues that we consider key to socio-ecological transformation. Those are: the Earthcare strand, where we work on eco/feminist justice and agrarian struggles; the Eco-Social Curriculum Strand, where we work with teachers, parents and students from all over to learn, exchange, strategize and mutually support each other in the work of bringing the ecosocial crisis into schools; the Magazine strand, where we are building a slow moving platform for movement debates and reflections, common notions and stories; the Ecosyndicalism strand, where we work on the alliances between workers, unions and environmental, climate and ecological movements in a perspective of a good life for all; and the Movement Spaces strand, where we investigate forms of building physical movement infrastructures for learning, exchange, rest and refuge. Throughout all our strands and work, it matters a great deal to us to have anti-racism, feminism, labour struggles, ecological movements, the right to the city and village, agrarian struggles, educational struggles, decolonial and queer perspectives, and other dimensions of eco-social justice close to us.

It matters to us that our work is situated and that we share common spaces of embodied encounter close to where we live, but we’re avid internationalists and many of us are diasporic subjects with a need for building bridges between social and geographical contexts as well as spheres of thinking, living and struggle. We work mostly in English but love to put energy into translating useful knowledges, currently mostly between English and Spanish. We understand ecology as a common terrain of struggle, shared across a myriad communities and movements, not a single issue, which is why we want to foster common notions, perspectives and infrastructures. We started in 2020 and have since been growing and evolving, in an open-ended process that will lead us down many experimental paths and collective processes, with our aim being to find sustainable forms of working and learning without turning into an NGO. We’re a core collective with a growing community of collaboration and support, brought and held together by our strands.

Who we are

At its core, Common Ecologies is a collective that builds, dreams up, coordinates and sustains the activities and infrastructures you find on this site. It’s supported by a community of acompañantes, who collaborate in strands and accompany us in some processes. Our core people sometimes shift into acompañante roles for half a year or more, depending on their needs, and we also have new people coming in via strands from time to time, which is why the list below may not always be 100% updated (last update: jan2024).

Core team:

Adriana Eysler – Adriana (she/her) is a teacher and movement participant/organiser in renters and cultural and university worker struggles in the UK. She’s active in the Eco-social Curriculum strand.

Bue Rübner Hansen – Bue (he/him) is a researcher, teacher and theorist interested in questions of ecology, social reproduction, and movement tactics and strategies. He occasionally serves as a strategic advisor, and loves to develop and teach concepts and mapping tools that can enhance people’s own capacities to analyze situations and think strategically. Bue is a part of the editorial collective of Viewpoint Magazine. He’s a founding member of Common Ecologies and mostly active in the Magazine and Ecosyndicalism strands.

Jana Ahlers – Jana (she/her) is a Berlin-based grassroots activist, organizer and facilitator, dedicated to creating translocal transformative learning spaces to strategize for system change. She’s active in the ecosyndicalism and movement spaces strands.

Joris Leverink (he/him) – is an ex editor of RoarMag and activist, co-driving the Magazine strand.

Laura Mendoza Sandoval – Laura (she/her) is a plant lover, amateur cook & (de)formed anthropologist born and raised 2.600mt closer to the skies in Bogotá. Currently based in Florence, writes a dissertation about prefigurative politics of agroecology in Andalusia. She’s active in the Earthcare and Magazine strands.

Lea Loretta Zentgraf – Lea (she/her) is a Berlin-based activist-researcher working with food movements on socio-ecological tranformation(s) of the food regime in Germany and Brasil. Currently doing her PhD in the project Food for Justice (Heidelberg University) and co-producing knowledge(s) and practices with/in the Berlin Food Council. She’s active in the Earthcare strand.

Lina Hansen – Lina Hansen (she/her) is an author, (conference) organizer, garden lover, sociologist and does her phd on ecofeminist solidarity, publishing a primer on Ecofeminism for the German speaking world, together with Nadine Gerner. She’s active in the Earthcare strand.

Manuela Zechner – Manu (she/her) is a researcher and facilitator focused on the intersections of feminism, ecology, micropolitics and institutional transformation. She works across movements, cultural spaces, schools and the university. She writes and edits books and produces the Earthcare Fieldcast. Manu is a founding member of Common Ecologies, does a lot of the core coordination work and is in the Earthcare and Eco-social Curriculum strands.

Max Haiven – Max (he/him) is a writer and teacher and Canada Research Chair in the Radical Imagination. He writes books (most recently ‘Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire’) and is editor of VAGABONDS, a series of short, radical books from Pluto Press. He teaches at Lakehead University in Canada, where he directs the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL). Max is active in the Magazine strand.

Michel Jungwirth – Michel (he/him) is a Berlin-based activist and organizer in antiracist and municipalist movements and occasional facilitator as part of the Werkstatt für Bewegungsbildung. Michel is active in the Movement Spaces strand.

Nadine Gerner – Nadine (she/her) is an ecofeminist activist, writer and organizer engaged in the movement for socialization/communization in Germany (Vergesellschaftung), and just wrote a primer on Ecofeminist struggles together with Lina Hansen. Nadine is active in the Earthcare and Magazine strands.

Current acompañantes:

Daniel Gutiérrez – Daniel (he/him) is a movement researcher and ver.di union organizer, focused on the problem of workers’ organization, power, and strategy. In the US, he was head steward of UAW Local 2865, and since moving to Berlin in 2015, he has been involved in Solidarity City Berlin and Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen. Along with Antje Dieterich, he is an organizing trainer at the Werkstatt für Bewegungsbildung and a co-host of Spadework podcast. He’s in the Magazine and Ecosyndicalism strand.

Maggie Schmitt – Maggie (she/her) is a translator, rural community activist and writer based in a village in Spain, accompanying many of our activities with amazing simultaneous translation between English and Spanish, as well as translating texts. She’s involved in the Ecosocial Curriculum and Earthcare strands, and we all really want her to run an online cooking course based on the wonderful ‘Gaza Kitchen‘ book she co-authored with Laila El-Haddad.

Mariana Calcagni – Mariana (she/her) is an environmental sociologist and activist researcher in socioecological transitions and feminisms. Currently doing a PhD in Sociology (Freie Universität Berlin), working with peasant organizations and food sovereignty in Chile and Germany. She is co-founder of the Chilean CASA – Centro de Análisis Socioambiental – currently based in Germany. CASA – Centro de Análisis Socioambiental – currently based in Germany. Mariana is currently on maternity break, and in the Earthcare strand.

Maria Borràs Escayola – Maria (she/her) is an ecofeminist researcher and activist working on how to walk the transition, convinced that degrowth and collective action will be key to create strong communities. AND :: I’m an enthusiast! I am convinced that collective action and the creation of community is what will support us in the future, as it has been for centuries. Maria is in the Earthcare strand.

Nelly Alfandari – Nelly (she/her) is a secondary school teacher, researcher and community activist based in Barcelona, Spain, where she is also part of Casa dels Futurs, our sister movement school. Nelly co-coordinates the Ecosocial Curriculum strand.

Sarah Gorenflos – Sarah (she/her) is a trained veg grower and sociologist. She’s engaged in agroecological movements, with a special interest in workers’ situations. She’s in the Earthcare strand.

Other/former acompañantes: Antje Dieterich, …

Our advisors

(list in progress)

Katharine Ainger, Port Bou
Rosalie Arendt, Berlin
Valery Alzaga, London
Camille Barbagallo, Essex
Stefania Barca, Santiago de Compostela
Kylie Benton-Connell, Sydney
Nic Beuret, Essex
Kevin Buckland, Barcelona
Uli Brand, Vienna
Carlos Delclos, Barcelona
Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Barcelona
Andrea Ghelfi, Florence
Christos Giovannopoulos, Athens
Janna Graham, Leicester/London
Amaranta Herrero, Barcelona
Panagiota Kotsila, Barcelona
Liz Mason-Deese, US
Tomislav Medak, Zagreb
Keir Milburn, Leeds
Jason W. Moore, Binghamton, US
Rodrigo Nunes, Rio de Janeiro
Dimitris Papadopoulos, Nottingham
Nora Räthzel, Umeå/Catalonia
Isabelle Saint-Saëns, Paris
Sarah Schilliger, Bern
Attila Szocs, Cluj