Political Ecologies: Nature, Place, Heritage Archive (2017-2018)

• Date(s): Monday, 9/11 5:00 PM to Monday, 9/11 7:00 PM
• Address: 701 S. Morgan St.
• Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
• Contact: Linda Vavra
• Email: lvavra@uic.edu
• Phone: 312-996-6354

Political Ecology as Practice:  A Regional Approach to the Anthropocene

November 3-4, 2017

Location: Jane Addams Hull House, 800 S. Halsted Street

Organized by Ömür Harmanşah, UIC Art History and Molly Doane, UIC, Anthropology

This workshop will investigate the reciprocal relationship and the disjunction between the metropolitan theories of the Anthropocene, climate change, and the global environmental crisis on the one side; and the experience of local ecological conflicts in various micro-regions around the world, on the other. The central research question to be collectively addressed will be whether the current vibrant theories of the academic/metropolitan center derive from or get inspired by the multiplicity of regional ecological conflicts experienced today. Conversely we ask, in what particular ways, these theories impact various human communities in their relationship to their land, its resources, biodiversity, and heritage. The workshop will invite participants to discuss global theories of the Anthropocene and its new ontologies of time and materiality, while investigating their links to regional practices and discourses. The workshop includes presentations by UIC faculty and graduate students who will present comparative studies of place-based politics of the environment in regional contexts, delivering the results from their fieldwork in diverse landscapes. These fieldwork initiatives are developed from existing projects of graduate students and faculty at UIC and the collaborating institution(s).

The workshop is designed in conjunction with a Humanities Without Walls award and a joint invitation to Bruno Latour, leading figure in Science and Technology Studies and Professor at Sciences Po (Paris), by the UIC Political Ecologies Working Group and the UIC School of Art and Art History.  The workshop takes place following a Master Class by Bruno Latour and is meant to complement the conversations and the collaborative work taking place.

• Date(s): Friday, 11/3 9:00 AM to Friday, 11/3 6:00 PM
• Address: Jane Addams Hull House
• Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
• Contact: Linda Vavra
• Email: lvavra@uic.edu
• Phone: 312-996-6354

• Date(s): Monday, 1/22 5:00 PM to Monday, 1/22 7:00 PM
• Address: 701 S. Morgan St.
• Location: Chicago, IL, United States
• Contact: Linda Vavra
• Email: lvavra@uic.edu
• Phone: (312) 996-6354

• Date(s): Tuesday, 4/17 11:00 AM to Tuesday, 4/17 12:00 PM
• Address: 701 S. Morgan St.
• Location: Chicago, IL, USA
• Contact: Linda Vavra
• Email: lvavra@uic.edu
• Website: http://huminst.uic.edu
• Phone: 312-996-6354

Political Ecology in Practice: Fieldworkers Workshop
[A Humanities Without Walls Project]
April 20-21, 2018

Location: The Great Space, Art Building 5th Floor, 400 S Peoria St, Chicago, IL 60607

Supported by the Institute for the Humanities, Political Ecologies Working Group and the Humanities Without walls Consortium grants.

Goal: This workshop will bring together the HWW Project “Political Ecology as Practice: A Regional Approach to the Anthropocene” Project participants and fieldworkers together to discuss field objectives, field methods, and the 2019 Gallery 400 exhibition that will result from them. It will comprise semi-structured presentations of fieldwork that has already happened in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley and Chicago’s urban gardens. Six other field initiative will take place in the Late Spring and Summer of 2018. This is the final chance for the fieldworkers and participants will come together to exchange ideas and compare field research objectives.

We will share: Fieldwork guide (field protocols) booklet with everyone + Exhibition pamphlet draft + Rite in the Rain Field notebooks (for Fieldworkers only)

April 20, 2018  
Friday Morning: (10 AM – 12:30 PM) 

Please note: ONLY Friday AM presentations will be public.

Semi-structured presentations

·   10:00 Presentation of progress on the web publication of Latour’s Master Class- emerging ideas. Summary of wine and white board meeting. (Ömür Harmanşah)

·   10:30 Presentation of the ongoing work on the design of the January 2019 Exhibition and guidelines for fieldworkers (Tamara Becerra Valdez + Pınar Üner Yılmaz)

·   1: 00 Presentation on Pakistan Hunza Valley field season (Javairia Shahid)

·   11: 30 Presentation on Chicago urban gardens fieldwork (Molly Doane)

·   12:00-12:30 Discussion, Q + A

12:30-2 pm Lunch (sandwiches and drinks will be served)

Friday Afternoon (2 PM – 4:30 PM)

2:00 pm. Break into small groups of 7 different field projects. Each group will be chaired by Field coordinators. The groups work on the goals, objectives and methodologies specific for their fieldwork. Discuss practicalities.

4:00 pm Reconvene: Presentation of the Field Guide (Omur + Tamara + Pinar)

4:30 End of day program.

• Date(s): Friday, 4/20 10:00 AM to Friday, 4/20 4:30 PM
• Address: 400 South Peoria Street
• Location: Chicago, IL, USA
• Contact: Linda Vavra
• Email: lvavra@uic.edu
• Website: http://huminst.uic.edu/
• Phone: 312-996-6354