Becoming Earthbound
Several years ago, I began a research project exploring intentional community and eco-village movements in Europe and North America. The project developed out of some of my previous research in environmental political theory, but was also deeply personal as I begin to recount in my first post.
What I have been discovering is an emergent and mottled patchwork of communities, foundations, cooperatives, activists, alliances, online education, campaigns, rallies, social movements, spiritual movements, and mutual aid networks which I have begun to call collectively the “Earthbound.” I borrow the term from Bruno Latour, but I am not wed to it. I particularly like Donna Haraway’s argument for calling them “Terrans.” In any case, what I am trying to describe–what Haraway and Latour are both trying to describe too–is not a definite object. It is movement, it is social movement, it is aspirational as well as positivist, it is emerging, becoming. We are not yet sure what it will become. There is risk, but also hope. This is why I think it is important that we study the Earthbound, that we hear and tell and share their stories, that we observe and participate and think critically with them in love.
One year ago, I began a European Research Council-funded grant (EU Horizon 2020 MSCA Grant Agreement No. 101031071) that allowed me to really immerse myself in the study of the Earthbound. The grant has given me the money, space, and time to really try to ”become my phenomenon,” to become Earthbound. There have been ups and downs, moments of joy, moments of doubt, awkwardness, times of loneliness, times of intense community, a lot of inner work, a new awareness of my body, a deepening connection to nature, and the list could go on. This blog is a place for me to tell some of these stories about my research into Earthbound culture and politics and reflect on this process. These are not my stories, but they are becoming my stories, they are stories for the Earthbound.
–ZLR
1 September 2022
Leiden, Netherlands