The Plot is on Fire: Care Struggles after Progress, Plantation and Patriarchy

Book conversation with author Manuela Zechner and discussants Salvatore Paolo De Rosa and Sophia Wathne.

As grand narratives of progress and modernisation come undone in the relentless polycrisis of our time, how do we strengthen other plots – in community, practice and struggle? How do we come together as movements for earthcare?

Join us for the launch of a book that speaks to our crises and questions, showing that there is more than one plot and plan, and many possible alliances. Learning from peasant, Black and indigenous, hacker and transecofeminist practices and struggles, this book points beyond progress, plantation, and patriarchy. Recovering and repurposing old and new technologies, breaking down the division between rural and urban, centering logics of care, and channeling unlikely alliances and ancestries: this is a story of futures that don’t reek of petrol and burnout, or green extractivism and tech dystopia.

Alongside writers like Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler, this work of radical political theory raises critical questions about technology and storytelling, as matters of care and community. Join us for this book launch to share stories, strategies and a snack, with author Manuela Zechner in conversation with Salvatore Paolo de Rosa of Undisciplined Environments and Sophia Wathne of Collective Against Environmental Racism.

The event will be followed by a reception with some light refreshments, where it will be possible to purchase the book.

Sign up for the event.

Bios

	Salvatore Paolo De Rosa is a writer and a researcher working at the intersection of anthropology, political ecology, and environmental humanities. His research has focused on waste metabolisms, environmental conflicts, grassroots organizing, and climate justice movements. He's a founding member and editor of the collective Undisciplined Environments, and a collaborator of the independent media Napoli Monitor.
	Sophia Wathne earned her PhD in political science and sociology from Scuola Normale Superiore, through a Participatory Action Research project with the Kenyan Peasants League. Her work focuses on prefiguration, climate justice, agroecology, and food sovereignty. Sophia is active in Collective Against Environmental Racism and Københavns Fødevarefællesskab.
	Manuela Zechner is a researcher, facilitator and organizer, working at the intersection of care, commons, and ecological struggles. She produces the Earthcare Fieldcast and coordinates the Common Ecologies School. Apart from 'The Plot is on Fire' she is also the author of 'Commoning Care and Collective Power' (Transversal 2021). She has been a fellow traveller of Center for Applied Ecological Thinking as a postdoc and associated researcher.