Ideas
Season: Strange Natures
Future Natures
Publications
Comic: Future Natures
Future Natures
Introductory comic from Future Natures about modern crises and the radical potential of commoning.
From the Network
What happened to the global land grab?
Future Natures
Ian Scoones discusses the aftermath and legacies of the ‘global land grab’ ahead of a major international conference on the topic.
Stories
Strange Natures: Black Water Crossing
Future Natures
An excerpt from a comic that explores a fantastical journey to a strange island in the Andaman sea.
Stories
Strange Natures: The pale glade
Future Natures
In this mythical tale by Callum Aitken, a storyteller undergoes a transformative experience.
Stories
Photo story: Xolobeni – A Commoning Success Story
Hali Healy
Photo story about the struggle by people in Xolobeni to protect and develop their commons against extractive interests.
Stories
Strange Natures: Singing bullfrogs of Sanjay Van
Future Natures
A story about a strange encounter with singing frogs in a South Delhi forest, and the possibility of communication between species.
Stories
Strange Natures: BRICKS
Future Natures
A short experimental film by Ceri Nicholls about the strangeness of human-centred worlds, isolation and nature.
From the Network
Strange Natures: The Value of a Voice
Future Natures
A short story from the deep ocean by Sara Stoudt.
From the Network
Strange Natures: Volatile ecologies and shifting islands
Future Natures
Photo story by Sampurna Das about the shifting river islands of eastern India.
From the Network
Strange Natures: Zine – ‘Strange Realism’
Future Natures
A zine by Francis Gene-Rowe about poetry, the self, time, stories and nature.
From the Network
Strange Natures: The haunted floodplains of San Felipe
Future Natures
Stories
Weird seas of the climate crisis – birds as eerie revelation
Future Natures
Stories
Strange Natures: Scarification
Future Natures
From the Network
MINERIA: An animation about mining, energy and justice
Future Natures
Climate change is leading to changing demand for minerals for renewable energy storage, with impacts for people and land in Latin America.
Stories
Strange Natures: Compost
Future Natures
A short series of drawings by Marion Bessol in response to the theme of ‘Strange Natures’.
Stories
Strange Natures: Podcast – Folk horror and English commons
Future Natures
Andy Thatcher discusses how he uses film to appreciate English commons, and the uses of folk horror, the ‘weird’ and the ‘eerie’ in exploring contested histories.
Stories
Strange Natures: Podcast – Forgotten places and the field of memory
Future Natures
From the Network
Strange Natures: PLOT – A film by JT Roane
Future Natures
From the Network
Strange Natures: Common Place
Future Natures
Common Place, a film by Andy Thatcher, is a hauntological exploration of access and climate crisis at a common in Devon. Common Place was filmed as part of a series of explorations around the Pebblebed Heaths National Nature Reserve in East Devon. Andy writes: I spent the month around the solstice 2023 filming in the […]
From the Network
Strange Natures: Clouties – a ghost story
Future Natures
Short film by Andy Thatcher set in Grovely Wood, a registered common and former Norman hunting forest in southern England.
Stories
Podcast: Mining and Resistance in Covas do Barroso
Future Natures
Future Natures podcast episode about resistance to lithium mining in Portugal.
Publications
Comic: Map, Territory, Story
Amber Huff
The second comic from Future Natures explores the abuses of maps and the myth of the so-called ‘tragedy’ of the commons.
From the Network
Climate uncertainty and the arts
Future Natures
Jo Walton discusses how art, games and other creativity can help to open up alternative futures.
From the Network
Comic: People Power – Smart Local Energy Systems
Future Natures
Stories
More than a pub: the story of The Bevy
Future Natures
How a pub in Brighton became a centre of social life, learning and mutual support for a community.
Learning
Online archive: East London Big Flame
Nathan Oxley
Explore an online archive of documents from political activism in London in the 1970s and 1980s.
Stories
Recommended podcast: Changing Currents
Nathan Oxley
Ideas
To think, feel and see otherwise: a report and a mini-zine from POLLEN23
Nathan Oxley
Publications
Photo story: Views of Mpox in Nigeria
Future Natures
Based on research in Nigeria, this story explores how mpox is felt and understood by different people – including those with symptoms, the wider community and healthcare workers.
Publications
Comic: Mpox in Nigeria – lessons from diverse experiences
Future Natures
Comic that explores the varied experience of mpox in Nigeria, with suggested lessons for healthcare elsewhere in the world.
Ideas
My body as food, my food as neighbour
Future Natures
Stories
Mapping community gardens in the UK
Nathan Oxley
Ideas
Naming, unnaming and commons
Nathan Oxley
Stories
A Portuguese village on the front line of the ‘energy transition’
Future Natures
Covas de Barroso is facing the threat of an open-cast lithium mine, with just 10 days to respond to a public consultation.
From the Network
Comic: Seeing Conflict at the Margins
Jeremy Lind
A comic explores views of resource conflicts from the perspectives of rural people in Kenya and Madagascar, shared with the help of participatory video methods.
Stories
Film ‘Finite’ documents community resistance against mines
Nathan Oxley
A powerful documentary about people coming together to take action against new mining developments in Germany and the UK.
Stories
Seeding the commons in Argentina
Anoushka Zoob Carter
Podcast episode with Almendra Cremaschi of Bioleft, a seed commoning initiative based in Argentina.
Ideas
Unsettling enclosures
Anoushka Zoob Carter
Ideas
Video: JT Roane on ‘Dark Agoras’ in Philadelphia
Future Natures
Full video of JT Roane’s talk about Black urban placemaking in twentieth-century Philadelphia.
Ideas
How could land in England be reformed for the commons?
Future Natures
Elise Wach explores the proposals from various social movements for changing how England’s rural spaces are governed.
Learning
Food that’s not for sale
Anoushka Zoob Carter
Ideas
Video: Crisis, development & ecologies of the new commons
Future Natures
Watch a discussion about commoning and responses to crisis, drawing on examples from Argentina and the UK.
Learning
Commoning in refugee camps: In conversation with Yafa el Masri
Anoushka Zoob Carter
In this audio interview, Future Natures sits down with Yafa El Masri to discuss commoning and the commons in refugee camps.
From the Network
Geothermal meets pastoral livelihoods in Kenya
Jeremy Lind
The expansion of geothermal power in Kenya has impacted the Maasai and other residents, creating new divisions and tensions.
Learning
Masters in Commons Administration: new taster course in 2023
Future Natures
Details of a three-day taster course on the commons, to be held in January 2023 in North-West England.
Stories
Encountering the commons in The Pluriverse of Eco-social Justice
Anoushka Zoob Carter
The history of enclosure in Portugal can be found in the art world and forest worlds. Connecting the two are ongoing struggles to recommon these spaces…
Toolbox
How to make a mini-zine
Nathan Oxley
This handy guide provides a quick and easy way to make your own mini-zine.
Stories
Call for aid: Cooperation Jackson and the city’s urgent water crisis
Future Natures
Ideas
Hopping over the fence
Nathan Oxley
Ideas
Radical Epistemologies and Future Natures – video recordings
Future Natures
Ideas
Cultivating the garden of your mind
Anoushka Zoob Carter
Podcast episode with Ron Finley about enclosure in cities and the struggle to build an urban food commons against food poverty.
From the Network
Bioleft: open seeds
Future Natures
Bioleft is a community that builds an open seed exchange and breeding network.
Ideas
Trespass, Commons and the Right to Roam
Anoushka Zoob Carter
In this podcast episode, Nick Hayes challenges the inequalities of land ownership and property rights and discusses the Right to Roam movement in the UK.
Ideas
Treating food as commons, not commodities
Anoushka Zoob Carter
Jose Luis Vivero Pol explores new ways of democratising the governance of food systems and how (re)commoning food in society requires challenging dominant norms that value food as a commodity.
Learning
Course: Pathways to Sustainability
Nathan Oxley
Free online course that introduces critical ideas about sustainability, including access to and use of ‘nature’ and ‘natural resources’.
Stories
Seeing Pastoralism
Nathan Oxley
Ideas
On the Promise of the Commons
Anoushka Zoob Carter
Stories
Comic: The Killing Famine
Future Natures
Comic about colonisation, mining and conservation in Madagascar, drawing on the history of enclosures of common grazing lands and forests.
Stories
Comic: Weird Ecologies
Future Natures
Ideas
‘Sedentist’ bias and the pastoral commons
Future Natures