Urban Commoning, the Anthropocene, and Peripheries of Attention

Description

Amager Fælled is a former common and recreational green area 15 minutes from the townhall of Copenhagen. It is also the habitat of multiple species – frogs, the great newt, dears, the skylark. It is currently subject to urban development in which habitats of the skylark and the great newt will be developed into Fælledby - “Commons City”. The Northern Harbour of Copenhagen is similarly under rapid development expanding land by dumping tons of (polluted) soils from other development areas into the sea. Both projects illustrate how urban development both in practice and politics, is greatly undergirded by an ontological human exceptionalism with a modernist celebration of the city and its economical and human-centred understanding of livability. Several feminist environmentalists argue that humans and other species are interconnected, and that more-than human companionship is necessary for restoring life in capitalist ruins (Tsing 2016, Shiva 2015, Singh 2017, Federici 2018, H). This can also apply to the ruins left by accelerated urban development.

This presentation gathers voices of a variety of more-than human environmental justice claims. Through a short poetic film, we explore the inequalities, the destructiveness of urbanization and how it is entangled with the life-giving landscapes of the soil depository and Amager Commons. By bringing in an artistic and sensory approach, we seek a reparative connectedness - an 'arts of noticing' (Tsing 2015) with the skies, the waters, the darkness and the multitude of species living in urban commons.

Period	4 Dec 2021
Event title	Justice, Imagination and Transformation: Enabling Environmental Humanities in Northern Europe
Event type	Conference
Location	DenmarkShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International