Eating, Indigeneity and the Anthropocene: Lessons from subsistence lifestyles
The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences continues its Without Limits exploration of “the Anthropocene,” the geological era defined by humanity’s impact on the planet, with a look at how the human race might shift to more communal, multi-species ways of living.
The presentation “Eating, Indigeneity and the Anthropocene,” comes from SPURSE, an ecosystem design and consultation collective that counts Department of Art Graduate Coordinator Matthew Friday among its founding members.
Friday and fellow SPURSE member Iain Kerr of Montclair State University host this event on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 5 p.m. in Science Hall 181.
Abstract
For the past several years, the ecosystem design and consultation collective SPURSE has been working with communities that practice communal subsistence lifestyles. In 2011, members of SPURSE collaborated with village elders from Nome to develop a series of events that culminated in the publication of “Eat Your Sidewalk,” a philosophical cookbook. As a culture at the forefront of radical climate change, the Iñupiat provide a radically potent model of ground-up organization, resilience and resistance.
This presentation examines how everyday embodied practices can serve as the basis of a new type of intra-dependent co-composition and solidarity with others, both human and non-human.
Drawing from a sustained study of animist cosmologies, philosophy, and radical art/design practices, SPURSE will discuss several alternative models of tactical engagement that privilege processes of entanglement and intra-dependency. From eating practices to linguistic systems and political institutions, that prioritize a type of multi-species commons, where one joins with and depends upon living processes, while refusing distinctions between nature and culture, SPURSE insists that other worlds are possible.
“Eating, Indigeneity and the Anthropocene” is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences as part of its Without Limits events series, with co-sponsorship from the Geography Department, the English Department, the Environmental Studies Program and Campus Auxiliary Services.
Use this link to learn more about the Without Limits: Interdisciplinary Conversations in the Liberal Arts events series.