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A
Tracing its diverse meanings and practices across history and political movements, rather than a single notion, autonomy emerges as plural — encompassing struggles that challenge capitalism, industrialism, western modernity, and patriarchy. Distinguishing autonomy from individualist libertarianism and state-centric socialism, this entry focuses on autonomic movements that prioritize collective self-governance and radical democracy. Drawing from Indigenous, feminist, and anti-capitalist struggles, these movements go beyond formal democracy, seeking to dismantle the state while constructing grassroots power based on the principles of Mandar Obedeciendo. Autonomy also challenges economic society’s premise of scarcity, replacing it with sufficiency, and disassociates from western modernity’s values, embracing pluralism and relational understandings of personhood. Feminist autonomies center care, dignity, and life itself. Highlighting examples such as the Zapatistas and Mexico’s National Indigenous Congress, the essay presents autonomy as a global, ongoing process of reimagining social, political, and economic life from the ground up. +
B
The related term bioregion was first elaborated by Allen Van Newkirk and then popularized by Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann, who described a bioregion as both a geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness—a physical place and a way of knowing how to live well there. Epistemologically, bioregionalism is a critique of abstract, universal, state-centric and capitalist planning: it insists that valid knowledge is situated, embodied, and place-based, emerging from ongoing interaction with local ecosystems and communities, and it advances a prefigurative politics that seeks to “grow a new society in the shell of the old” through concrete, localized practices rather than primarily through top-down reform. +
E
Eco-territorial internationalism is a concept and a praxis that emerges from the convergence of social, ecological, and territorial struggles across borders. Drawing from the definition developed by Sabrina Fernades and Breno Bringel, it articulates experiences of resistance and transformation—such as democratic energy, agroecology, food sovereignty, workers’ control, and housing justice— by connecting local roots to a global horizon of systemic change. These are not isolated or merely “local” efforts; they embody a global sense of place and foster transnational solidarities grounded in justice, autonomy, and care. In the face of green colonialism, ecological imperialism, and systemic polycrises, this new internationalism reclaims the radical legacies of anti-imperialism while expanding the political imagination toward just transitions and ecological expressions of sovereignty. It challenges the dominant models of extractivist development and resists greenwashed capitalist transitions that reproduce sacrifice zones, particularly in the Global South. Eco-territorial internationalism does not abandon the state but goes beyond statist approaches, promoting multiscalar articulations and a biocentric politics of scale—from the body, to rivers and ecosystems. It is already in motion, through networks that articulate grassroots movements and resistances confronting the root causes of the crisis and shaping pluriversal futures. +
Eti uwem is a concept in Ibibio, one of the several languages in Nigeria, which literally means good life or good living. Within it is the idea of living in harmony with nature and all peoples. It incorporates dignity, respect, rectitude, integrity, solidarity and contentment. Within this concept are the key principles of social justice, power relations and citizens’ and communal ownership and control of local resources. It objects to speculation, exploitation, expropriation and destructive activities and, very importantly, no monetary price can be placed on life and nature. A close concept is sumak Kawsay of the Kichwa people of Latin America, which is sometimes also captured as similar to buen vivir.
Eti uwem is both reflective and practical. It manifests in community practices such as shared resource management, agroecology, respect for sacred ecosystems, and intergenerational responsibility. It also serves as a critique of systems that produce environmental injustice, displacement, and inequality. In a world facing intersecting crises climate change, biodiversity loss, and social fragmentation Eti uwem offers a pathway toward regenerative futures.
This concept invites individuals and communities to imagine and enact alternatives that prioritize life over profit. It is not a fixed destination but an ongoing process of living rightly within the web of life. +
La palabra eutopía proviene del griego eu (bueno) y topos (lugar), y significa literalmente “el buen lugar”. A diferencia de la utopía (ou-topos, “no lugar”), que remite a una promesa futura e inexistente, la eutopía alude a lugares reales, ya existentes, donde se prefiguran formas de vida alternativas al orden dominante. +
L
While Land Back has many promising elements to it—including its democratic and accessible use—there are growing concerns that non-Indigenous people and settler state actors may take up the term Land Back in ways that diminish its original intent and salience. Still, Land Back continues to serve as a prominent political framework for many Indigenous people and breathes new life into an age-old belief: Indigenous people have a right to their territory and a right to conduct life on those territories in ways they see fit—whether or not non-Indigenous people agree. +
O
Ogonize is a concept and call to action inspired by the historic resistance of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta against environmental destruction and political marginalization. It represents a strategy of collective organizing, rooted in community solidarity, ecological consciousness, and nonviolent resistance. To “Ogonize” is to mobilise communities to defend their environment, assert their rights, and challenge systems of exploitation.
The concept draws from the legacy of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and the broader struggle against oil extraction that has devastated the region. Ogonize extends beyond Ogoniland, offering a framework for communities worldwide facing similar injustices. It emphasizes grassroots organizing, documentation of environmental harm, legal advocacy, and global solidarity.
In today’s context of escalating ecological crises, Ogonize serves as both a historical lesson and a contemporary strategy. It underscores the power of people-led movements in confronting entrenched systems and advancing environmental justice. By connecting local struggles to global networks, Ogonize transforms isolated resistance into collective action. +
R
Relationality is a concept, practice, ethics, and politics that challenges the dominant modern ontology of separation underpinning capitalism, colonialism, and state power. Rooted in Indigenous cosmovisions and expanded by activist and scholarly debates, relationality posits radical interdependence among humans, non-humans, and earth-beings as the foundation of reality. +
T
Rooted in ancestral belief systems, customary institutions, and livelihood practices, Ta Madok Maka underpins Karen cultural life through acts of solidarity, empathy, and collective care. It extends beyond human-to-human relationships to encompass balanced and harmonious coexistence with sacred lands, waters, forests, wildlife, and guardian spirits, reinforced by complementary values such as Ta Kwamoo Kwakheh Hlotha (“caring for each other for collective survival and wellbeing”). This principle is expressed in rotational farming, cultural ceremonies like Lar Ku Ki Sue, and the protection of spiritual territories such as Day Por Htu (umbilical cord forests) and Htee Meh K’lar (water mirrors), which integrate ecological stewardship with spiritual obligations. +
U
Ubuntu is a radical Afrikan philosophy and cosmology that conceives personhood not as an individual attribute but as a condition realized through moral, spiritual, and communal relationships. It affirms that being human means living in reciprocity, dignity, and accountability within a shared order of justice, care, and restoration. Rooted in ancestral, ecological, and relational ethics, Ubuntu locates humanity within an interdependent web that includes land, ancestors, and the cosmos. It is not a liberal ideal of harmony or interdependence but a decolonial ontology of being that resists domination and reclaims Afrikan epistemologies of balance and liberation. Ubuntu insists that justice and community are inseparable, and that genuine personhood requires restoring right relations disrupted by colonialism, patriarchy, and racial capitalism. As such, it offers both a philosophy of ethical life and a revolutionary framework for rebuilding collective futures grounded in Afrikan cosmological and moral principles. +