On the practices of autonomous more-than-human political communities

Abstract

This article analyzes how autonomous more-than-human political communities emerge in practice. We study an agro-ecosystem in the Catalan Sub-Pyrenees, where a peasant land use cooperative runs a regenerative farm. Through interviews and observations, we map and explore different more-than-human alliances, solidarities, and contradictory and conflictual relationships. We discuss the political practices through which this political community is constituted and reproduced, with a specific focus on multispecies care and the harm that it can bear. To complement these empirical insights, we embrace a speculative political ecology to further explore how specific practices of inclusion-exclusion, conflict-harm, and alliances-mutual aid (can) play out in more-than-human political communities. Finally, we discuss the possible types of autonomous political praxis in, for, and with more-than-human political communities in-against-and-beyond capitalism and the state. This article thus proposes an empirical account of more-than-human anarchisms in action, as well as collective and situated speculations on their potential for emancipatory, autonomous, and egalitarian more-than-human collective futures.