Planting & Becoming: Autonomous farming collectives

Originally appeared in Issue #128 of e-flux Journal in June 2022.

The global food system is a violent mess. It is rooted in neocolonialism, manufactured scarcity, and mass alienation. The enclosure of farms and subsistence forms of life has destroyed social and collective knowledges of how to produce and share food. It’s no accident that attempts to create food autonomy and collectivize its production and distribution, even on a local scale, have been met with state violence—ask any Food Not Bombs chapter. We have invited autonomous collectives, farmers, and artists to talk about their projects in short communiques from the garden, forest, or pasture. Spread over much of Turtle Island, they offer tactics to uproot capital and share stories about the lands they inhabit.