Home Economics

Catalog description

In contemporary capitalist societies we’re more likely to buy than to produce the basics of life necessary for survival. As food, water, shelter, clothing, and care work itself (e.g., cooking, childcare, and emotional labor) have become commodities for sale, skills once considered necessary to acquire are no longer, making us ever more reliant on the market to meet our basic needs. The Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic have laid bare the vulnerabilities and vagaries (economic, ecological, emotional and social) of this system and in their wake, a growing number of people have sought to learn these homemaking skills. Whether it be learning to make sourdough bread or “living off the land”, many seek to create a domestic economy in which production of the necessities of life takes precedence over consumption. In Home Economics we examine how it is that market relations became the principle means through which we meet our most basic needs. We explore the consequences of this for our relationships to work, land, our selves and each other. We ask how contemporary trends that seek to recalibrate the excesses of capitalism (e.g., “modern homesteaders”, back-to-the-landers, permaculture) rely on access to land and draw from indigenous practices. We examine in what ways living from, off, and away from land intersects with practices of colonial domination. We learn home production skills such as knitting, fermenting, preserving, seed starting, and breadmaking.