The Politics of Sustaining Life – Ecofeminism, Rights of Nature and Agroecology
~ An Agroecology @ SDU event ~
Symposium, book launch and network gathering
29 October 2026 · 09.30–15.30
Room M, Agora · SDU Campus Odense
The Politics of Sustaining Life:
How might ecofeminism, Rights of Nature and agroecology change how we understand politics, work, care and our relations with the more-than-human world?
This symposium brings together researchers working across feminist and ecological political thought, Rights of Nature and agroecology.
It also celebrates the publication of Husholdningens politik: feminisme og økologi by Anne-Sofie Dichman and Geneviève Pruvost. (See further info below.)
Through short talks, collective discussion and an afternoon network session, we move from household and subsistence to legal and political subjecthood, farming and more-than-human relations — and conclude by asking what stronger ecofeminist connections and collaborations in Denmark might look like.
Max. 25 participants / There’s no such thing as a free lunch, engagement expected!
| Want to participate? Then get in touch: maped@sdu.dk |
Programme – The Politics of Sustaining Life
09.30–10.00 · Arrival, coffee and informal gathering
10.00–10.15 · Welcome and framing
Lars Tønder, Department of Political Science and Public Management, SDU
Nina Isabella Moeller, Agroecology @ SDU
10.15–10.45 · Mapping the room: Who is here, and what brings us together?
Participant introductions and a first mapping of interests, practices and connections in the room.
10.45–11.15 · Book launch: Husholdningens politik · Anne-Sofie Dichman, Assistant Professor, SDU
Politics of the Household: Ecofeminism and Subsistence
Short talk followed by questions and discussion.
11.15–11.30 · Coffee, conversation and stretching legs
11.30–12.00 · Maria Kaalund, Phd-studerende, Aarhus University
Rights of Nature: Political and Legal Subjecthood Beyond the Human
Short talk followed by questions and discussion.
12.00–13.00 · Lunch
Book table and signing of Husholdningens politik.
13.00–13.30 · Nina Isabella Moeller, Associate Professor, Agroecology @ SDU
Subsistence Matters: Life and Death on the Farm
Short talk followed by questions and discussion.
13.30–14.00 · Connecting the threads
Ecofeminism, Rights of Nature and Agroecology
A moderated conversation across the three contributions, followed by discussion with the room.
14.00–15.00 · Where do we go from here?
Building an ecofeminist network in Denmark
A participatory session on existing connections, missing voices, shared questions and possible forms of future collaboration.
15.00–15.30 · Closing coffee, book signing and informal networking
(This is an English translation of the text on the publisher’s website🙂
The Politics of the Household: Feminism and Ecology
– by Anne-Sofie Dichman and Geneviève Pruvost
How can we organise our households in “new” feminist and ecological ways? To do so, however, we first need to dismantle the conventional understanding of the household. Why? Because it produces a hierarchical and gendered division of labour while disconnecting itself from the natural resources on which its life depends.
The book’s ecological argument is that household work is performed by multiple species and materials: by the plants we eat, as well as the trees and stones from which our furniture and other objects are made. The household is thereby placed within a perspective of sustainability and resource use, prompting us to rethink relations between humans, nature and materiality. Its feminist argument is that household work concerns people of all genders and is therefore more than the “women’s work” it has often been treated as since the emergence of the modern ideal of the housewife. The book thus challenges historical understandings of reproductive labour and contributes to contemporary debates about gender equality.
The book argues that when we learn about — and experience bodily — the labour required to produce the food and things that sustain our households, mass consumption, environmental destruction and the devaluation of manual labour become increasingly difficult to accept.
The Politics of the Household brings together selections from the French sociologist Geneviève Pruvost’s influential and award-winning books Quotidien politique (2021) and La subsistance au quotidien (2024), connected by texts written by Anne-Sofie Dichman, PhD and Assistant Professor of Political Science.
Geneviève Pruvost (b. 1973) is a sociologist at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She also has a background in literary studies and training in permaculture. She is one of France’s leading contemporary ecofeminist thinkers, particularly within the tradition of subsistence feminism.
The Politics of Sustaining Life – Ecofeminism, Rights of Nature and Agroecology
~ An Agroecology @ SDU event ~