“Living Ecological Politics”: Thinking with ZADisme @ Climate Commons, Ottawa

Together with Alexis Shotwell, I will have a more in-depth discussion of ZADism and what we can learn from it in eco-politics on Tuesday, the 1st of October as part of the Climate Commons-Research group in Ottawa.

“Living Ecological Politics”: Thinking with ZADisme

With Austrian activist & writer Kilian Jörg and Carleton prof. Alexis Shotwell

Tuesday October 1, 2024: 4 – 5:00 p.m.

Dunton Tower, Room 2017

“ZAD,” or “zone à defender,” has entered the European lexicon as a general term for direct collective action against large-scale development projects that would damage the environment. First coming into prominence in the collective opposition to airport construction in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, the approach and tactic has spread widely.

In this conversation, visiting Austrian activist and writer Kilian Jörg will discuss the practice and theory of the ZAD. Then they’ll be joined by Alexis Shotwell for a conversation about how zadiste praxis offers some interesting provocations for those of us interested in direct action for the environment in Canadian contexts.

In their shared writing, Kilian and Alexis are considering the concrete world-building exemplified in the ZAD as a model for how to be with land differently.  If we think of our values as situated, place-based, as growing out of the earth and the places we live, what forms of collective care and practice would we need to create? We are interested in how zadism practices allow us to become differentiated, non-universal, specific, particular, while at the same time collective and inherently political. Can proliferating autonomous relations to territory, in turn, contribute to pluralizing and proliferating multiple ways to be alive together?

Sponsored by the Carleton Climate Commons & the Punch Up Collective

Take in the Film Screening of a film about Zadiste direct action followed by Discussion with Kilian

“An Island and One Night” (Une Ile et Une Nuit)

Oct. 1, 6:30-9:00 p.m.

St. Paul’s University, Social Innovation Workshop, 195 Clegg St.

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