What forms of enclosure threaten today’s commons? How have these processes extended the reach of privatization, dispossession, and control into new realms? How are they experienced unevenly and can they be resisted? This panel reflects on these questions, investigating new enclosures as a foundation for understanding the possibilities and constraints of sustaining future commons.

PANELISTS

Julie Klinger (Assistant Professor in Geography and Spatial Sciences, University of Delaware)

Julie Klinger is an Assistant Professor of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware. She studies the dynamics of global resource frontiers and space-based technologies with particular emphases in China, Brazil, and the United States. Klinger's research agenda centers on three thematic areas: critical minerals supply chains, global space politics, and community survival strategies. Her 2017 Book Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes was awarded the Meridian Book Prize for its “unusually important contribution to the art and science of geography.” Her current book project, Capitalizing the Cosmos, examines the resurgent space race built around reconfiguring outer space as a site of exclusive power, militarization, and extractive accumulation.

Andrea Marston (Assistant Professor of Geography, Rutgers University)

Andrea Marston is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on the material politics of resource extraction. Working at the intersection of political economy, science and technology studies, and the cultural politics of nature, Marston explores the relationship between the grounded practices of resource extraction and the reproduction of racialized, colonial, and gendered national politics. Her forthcoming book manuscript examines the history and politics of tin mining cooperatives in highland Bolivia, and her new project explores the growth of new mining frontiers across Latin America in response to the global renewable energy transition. 

heath pearson (Assistant Professor in Anthropology, Georgetown University)

heath pearson is assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Georgetown University. His first book, in search of El Chapo: domination, defiance, and disorder in an American prison town, is forthcoming from Duke University Press. His current book project, Streaming Man: Online Movies & the Myths of Masculinity, explores contemporary propaganda by tracing the logics of white masculinity and patriarchy across various online streaming platforms like Hallmark, Disney+, and HBO. His writing has also appeared in NBC News, Vice News, and The Atlantic. He can often be found following his partner through the nearest patch of woods.