Researching on Corporeality and Resistance
As the planetary emergency caused by the climate crisis intensifies, the need to imagine a different world becomes more urgent by the day. I want to participate in this re-imagination and exploration as an activist-scholar.
Post-Capitalist Choreographies of the Climate Crisis
Studies and testimonials around the world demonstrate that our current political-economic system based on fossil fuel capitalism is destroying life-sustaining systems and making the life of countless communities unbearable.
In my dissertation, Post-Capitalist Choreographies of the Climate Crisis: International Climate Action Camps as Spaces of Corporeal Resistance, Coexistence and Recovery, I respond to the need to deepen the understanding of the importance of climate action and protest camps as platforms for experimentation of post-capitalist practices. By paying attention to the resisting bodies and the embodied aspects of international climate action camps, I take part in discussions on International Political Economy and International Relations from a corporeal-political perspective. I draw theoretical inspiration especially from the feminist political economy of J.K. Gibson-Graham.
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Instead of anchoring our political hope to an ever-distant climate revolution or the success of complete systemic change in the world, I am curious to explore where and how climate justice is brought in to life already now and here. Therefore, I will research the intersections of climate justice activism and diverse economies in international climate actions camps around Europe.
Choreographies of resistance of the climate activists and post-capitalist alternatives of the international climate action camps call into question the activities of fossil energy companies and seek to stop the destruction they are causing. I am especially interested in exploring what happens in the intersection of resistance and the creation of alternative economies.
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The research builds on the work I began in my master’s thesis on the resisting choreographies for climate justice which was awarded as the best thesis in Political Sciences in Finland in 2021. In this dissertation I will deepen the research through multi-sited ethnography and the development of collaborative choreographic laboratories together with activists and communities affected by the fossil fuel economy.
In this study, I take the empowering experiences of climate activists, the practices of reparative corporeality, and post-capitalist economies seriously, and examine how they are significant in the context of resolving the climate crisis.
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The research is carried out at the Politics Unit of the Faculty of Management and Business at the Tampere University. I also have the honor and joy to be part of the research team of the Assembling Postcapitalist International Political Economy (POSTCAPE) project funded by the Academy of Finland. The dissertation is generously funded by the Kone Foundation.
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