Communities of place are often at the centre of stories about impacts and resistance to extractivism. When we ask what persists ‘despite extractivm’, the question also invites us to think about what we mean by ‘community’ in our stories. In this webinar, we invite contributors to share the stories that feature in their work, and to reflect on how they engage the concept of ‘community’
In this webinar, we focus on two ‘communities’. Sharing their stories of community counter-mapping against extractive developments will be Mbak Dewi Sutejo and Pak Moh. Husen from JKPP and Pak Sulaiman from Pari Community, part of Pulau Seribu (Thousand Islands) resisting displacement and extractive tourism in Indonesia, and V’cenza Cirefice and Fidelma O’Kane from Save Our Sperrins resisting gold mining in the Sperrin Mountains, North of Ireland.
For the exhibition, each contribution features the plural creative practice of counter-mapping in their work. Counter-mapping is a diverse strategy of resistance and reclaiming that creates alternative representations of space to contest extractivism and eviction/displacement. For ‘community’, counter-mapping generates tools for community mobilization and prefigures or experiments with alternative visions of representing/relating to/inhabiting spaces. Counter-mapping can help make visible or reimagine regenerative relationships between people, with the more-than-human, with the natural world – despite extractivism
Our starting point for the webinar involves also thinking about what we mean by ‘community’ in our stories, and we invite you to participate in the webinar with these questions in mind:
- How is ‘community’ understood and/or represented in your work? How do communities persist and resist?
- What kinds of relations and between what (people, the natural world, landscapes) are at play?
- What is relatable about ‘community’ in the stories brought together here, and what role does this have in fostering solidarity and connection?
- In your experience, how can we account for but work past differences within and between communities in the journey towards solidarity and justice?
- How do we build community and connection with audiences beyond communities of place?
Due to technical difficulties, the introduction to the event was not recorded. We hope you find the stories shared by the communities in Pari Island and The Sperrins interesting and inspiring.
