A research collective reimagining law and legalities through care, social reproduction and more-than-human worlds

Our research

We face intersecting crises: climate change and biodiversity loss, deepening inequality, the denial of Indigenous sovereignty, ongoing land grabs, unaffordable housing, the spread of unstable financial markets into everyday life, geopolitical tension, rising authoritarianism and a profound democratic deficit. These are closely tied to a crisis of social reproduction, in which growing environmental harm erodes the capacity of households and communities to survive and adapt.

We understand the roots of these crises in extractive capitalism, entangled with colonialism and patriarchy, and in the legal and political systems that concentrate capital in the hands of an elite with no responsibility for nature or future generations. The ongoing enclosure of public and common resources undermines the social supports societies depend on. Surplus is taken from workers and the natural world, while unpaid and under-supported gendered care work sustains life outside the market. Law, between and within States, is a central mechanism of these harms. At the heart of the problem is a failure to centre care, for humans and the more-than-human alike, including in our legal frameworks.

[Collective Name] exists to build our collective capacity to understand these dynamics and to reimagine law in support of new visions of social reproduction and a flourishing more-than-human world. We draw on feminist and ecofeminist thought, Indigenous and non-Western knowledge, and practices of mutual aid and commoning. We ask what a legal system would look like if it were oriented to care and community rather than to the market and individualism.

We welcome scholars, practitioners and community partners who share this concern and want to help shape what comes next.

Research Areas