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Eleanor

Kurds and supporters gather in Hamburg

Internationalizing Democratic Modernity : A report from Challenging Capitalist Modernity III

by Eleanor Finley

From April 15 – 17, 2017 in Hamburg, Germany the Kurdish freedom movement held its third instantiation of Challenging Capitalist Modernity, the biennial conference dedicated to ‘democratic modernity’ and the ideas developed by imprisoned Kurdish political leader Abdullah Ocalan.

On the first day, over 1,200 activists, scholars, and students packed into a vast lecture hall, the University of Hamburg’s Audimax, with seven interpreter booths and two balconies. Outside, blossoming trees and vivid new grass lined the walkways, [...]

By |April 24th, 2017|Article Archive, Author, Eleanor Finley, Social Ecology Blog|1 Comment|
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Reason, creativity and freedom: The communalist model

On the unique relevance of communalism in this historical moment. By Eleanor Finley, originally published by ROAR Magazine.
By |February 13th, 2017|Article Archive, Author, Current Movements, Eleanor Finley, Featured, Political Theory: Anarchism, Communalism & Libertarian Municipalism, Social Ecology Blog|0 Comments|
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  • Permalink In this photo taken on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016, a family leave the Sur district in Diyarbakir, Turkey. The family are among tens of thousands displaced by fighting raging between Turkish security forces and militants in the southeast after a peace process collapsed in the summer. (AP Photo/Murat Bay)Gallery

    Sur: A neighbourhood of history, hope, and resistance: An interview with former mayor Abdullah Demirbas

Sur: A neighbourhood of history, hope, and resistance: An interview with former mayor Abdullah Demirbas

From 2004 until 2012, Abdullah Demirbas served as mayor of Diyarbakir (or Amed), Kurdistan's central Sur District, which has been largely destroyed in recent months by Turkish military assault.
By |July 21st, 2016|Anthropology, Current Movements, Eleanor Finley, Featured, Social Ecology Blog|0 Comments|
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  • Permalink The city of Urfa, northeast of Kobane on the Turkish side of the border.Gallery

    Epistemologies of Freedom: Interview with a young Kurdish revolutionary

Epistemologies of Freedom: Interview with a young Kurdish revolutionary

Interview with a young revolutionary from Kobane, also a careful student of Ocalan’s thinking. He offers a brief account of his experiences as well as reflections on the Rojava Revolution, social ecology, and Turkey’s recent betrayal of the Kurdish Movement: "Unless the Middle East overcomes the nation-state, it can never be a peaceful region."
By |August 27th, 2015|Article Archive, Eleanor Finley, Featured, Social Ecology Blog|6 Comments|
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On Europe’s anti-fracking movements

From an article posted to ROAR Magazine by ISE board member Eleanor Finley and UK climate activist Claire Fauset:

… The threat of fracking and its nakedly undemocratic geopolitical context lays bare the bankruptcy of capitalism and the state as its attaché. For this reason, we are beginning to see that the global anti-fracking movement is more than just a “not in my backyard” movement. Ordinary people around the world are beginning to question a political-economic system which, even in the face of global climate collapse, claims that there are [...]

By |July 14th, 2015|Article Archive, Author, Eleanor Finley, Social Ecology Blog|0 Comments|
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Social Ecology, Kurdistan, & the Origins of Freedom

Reflections on a recent visit to Turkey and North Kurdistan. Many Kurdish revolutionaries describe their struggle as one of organic society against authoritarian society and have forged a unique role in the continuing evolution of human freedom.
By |June 25th, 2015|Anthropology, Article Archive, Current Movements, Eleanor Finley, Political Theory: Anarchism, Communalism & Libertarian Municipalism, Social Ecology Blog|2 Comments|
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Hamburg conference features scholars & Kurdish activists

Reflections on Challenging Captialist Modernity, Hamburg, Germany
Report by Eleanor Finley

In Kurdish, “roj” means sun. Rojava is the land to the west, where the setting sun of freedom and possibility lays to rest and renew itself. Last week, I spent three days at Hamburg University as part of Challenging Capitalist Modernity, a conference hosted by a network of organizations within the Kurdish Freedom Movement. Each evening, the sun shone down brightly through a tall glass wall into the conference lobby. There hundreds of people gathered from all over Europe [...]

By |April 12th, 2015|Author, Current Movements, Eleanor Finley, Social Ecology Blog|0 Comments|
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Social ecologists in Colombia

El Collectivo Ambiente de Tabanoy (CAT): Social Ecologists in Columbia link indigenous medicine, permaculture, and the call for communal politics.
 

The Collectivo Ambiente de Tabanoy is a popular education project dedicated to sharing social ecological principles in Cristobol, Columbia.

Cristobol is a suburb of the capital city of Bogota with many indigenous, peasant and worker communities. For over six years, these edukadores de kalle [street educators] have been organizing education and cultural programs which link social and ecological issues. Through these programs, the CAT serves as a watershed for activism throughout the region.

One of the CAT’s main issues is local [...]

By |April 9th, 2015|Eleanor Finley, Social Ecology Blog|0 Comments|
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2015 ISE Summer Intensive

“Beyond Strategy: Building Visions for a Free Society” August 15th-20th The Watershed Center Millerton, NY
By |February 13th, 2015|Events Archive|1 Comment|
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“To Revisit Spain,” by Eleanor Finley

“The silence that gathers around Spain, like a bad conscience, attests to the fact that the events are very much alive.” – Murray Bookchin, To Remember Spain. In the late 1960’s, social ecologist Murray Bookchin traveled throughout Spain and Catalonia collecting the history of Spanish anarchism. Though the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War was highly-publicized throughout the “democratic” west, few accounts ever dealt seriously with the social revolution that took place within in. Furthermore, no definitive history existed of the Spanish anarchism that fueled these events, a political movement dating back to the mid-19th century. Murray set out to write this history and, in the process, shed light on the development of revolutionary Left theory and practice.
By |January 26th, 2015|Article Archive, Eleanor Finley, Social Ecology Blog|0 Comments|
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