The Covid-19 pandemic, lethal as it is, is instrumental to capital’s assault on the living world. Looming through the terrors unleashed by free-flying strands of DNA are gargantuan infrastructural projects, including medical, green and digital. These are intent on destroying […]
On Ukraine and the failed Pax Capitalis
During the previous three decades, a particularly new and ahistorical view of the world has arisen in the modern, “civilized,” capitalist West. Famously elaborated by an advisor to Ronald Reagan and later repeated by both liberal and conservative politicians, theorists, […]
Indigenous and feminine wisdom: an interview with Ella Noah Bancroft
Ella Noah Bancroft is a descendant of the peoples of the Bundjalung nation (in present-day Australia) and has bloodlines to England, Poland and Scotland. She is an Indigenous artist, storyteller, mentor and active advocate for The Decolonization movement. She is […]
Collecting seeds to restore prairie grasslands
Laughter and the chirping of grasshoppers mingled on a mild August morning as several young women, members of the Aaniiih and Nakoda tribes, searched for sweetgrass, running vegetation through their fingers as they tried to determine whether they held satiny sweetgrass or […]
Why we are boycotting the UN Food Systems Summit
In September this year, the United Nations will host a Global Food Systems Summit in New York. The organisers of this summit are pitching it as a crucial debate of the decade which is to define the future of agriculture. […]
Young farmers in Ladakh: the future of our food
Ladakh – high on the Tibetan Plateau at the northern extreme of India – is the place we call home. The vast majority of Ladakhis are villagers, who have, for centuries, provided for most of their physical and emotional needs [...]
Community-oriented life at human scale
The documentary Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh (John Page, Chris Breemen, Helena Norberg-Hodge & Eric Walton, 1993) provides an excellent introduction to the local, human scale traditions in Ladakh, and how local communities have been affected by the industrialised notion […]
Lockdown in Ladakh
I returned to my village in Ladakh when the Prime Minister announced the first lockdown in late-March. I ended up spending the whole lockdown period in the village assisting my family with various agricultural and pastoral tasks. This was the […]
In Peru, ancestral values shine during COVID-19 crisis
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peruvians are facing exceptional challenges as individuals and communities throughout the country confront job losses and food shortages in addition to the virus itself. However, these difficult times have an upside, in that […]
What does self-reliance really mean? Amazing stories from India’s villages
Not so long ago, Dalit women farmers in Telangana used to face hunger and deprivation. Today, they have contributed foodgrains for pandemic relief. Farmers on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border have been sending organic produce to Bengaluru even during the lockdown. […]
