Worldbuilding 155.902
Course lecturer, Rose-Anne Gush
The current conjuncture is dominated by environmental crises spurred by planetary heating and the degradation of ecosystems, AI mechanised wars that expand through skies and across territories, as well as ground swells of struggle and open rebellion for global liberation. This course takes Macarena Gomez-Barris’ The Extractive Zone as the starting point to explore the social ecologies of the extractive paradigm by critically engaging with its traumatic historical roots and its implications for the crisis ridden present. Within the context of Gomez-Barris’ research, the extractive zone refers to a colonial paradigm, worldview and technologies that map a region and its biodiversity in order to convert its life into a capitalist resource. This course will explore the history and meaning of these terms in order to understand their relevance in the present. Central to our inquiry will be Gomez-Barris’ decolonial femme methodology, which propels porosity and undisciplined analysis of the objects and places that she works with. We will think with these methods, while acknowledging our own standpoints and positionalities, aiming to develop sustainable modes of practice that might, in her words, lead out of the ‘deadening impasse that is extractive capitalism’. Starting with The Extractive Zone the course introduces interdisciplinary methods including critical inquiry and questioning; embodied knowledge; field research; artistic methods that aim to shift our view and perception; sitting with difficulty; thinking multiple perspectives at once; close reading objects and texts and their contexts.