Activating Care, Shifting Relations is an interdisciplinary collaboratory for intersectionally feminist research. The work of this group privileges affective relations and relational praxis intended as interventions. What does it mean to live and work and die at this particular historical moment? Our current moment is defined by the convergence of crises–both catastrophic and those slowly and ongoingly shifting the landscape. These interventions are both practical and practice-based. They aim to impact policy, and to build more sound relations between humans and more-than-humans, as well as within and beyond the academy by engaging in difficult discussions that too often deny the impacts of lived experiences and caring labours. The core members are Sheena Wilson, Natalie Loveless, and Rachel Epp Buller.
One praxis among several is for the core members to support and engage in theoretical, activist, feminist citational, research-creationist and artistic research activities that inform the three independent book projects. Despite being grounded in distinct disciplines, each project connects across disciplinary boundaries. Acts of Listening: Art and Relational Attunement (Rachel Epp Buller), On Ecological Form (Natalie Loveless), and Deep Energy Literacy: Toward Just Futures (Sheena Wilson) will resonate strongly on issues of what it means to address the root causes of the current crises: the relational rupture of seeing people and the planet as resources to be extracted from.
The formation of this research group is also an invitation to other artists and scholars who are interested in thinking together.
We would love to hear from researchers working on issues of feminist care, feminist ethics and relational ways of engaging with twenty-first century crises around social justice, anti-racist, decolonial, ecological, climate change, and climate justice topics. If interested, please contact Katie at justpowers@ualberta.ca
