Fee’s talk is called “‘Being’ Emplaced: Restorying Earth-Felt Belonging”
Writer, psychologist and mythologist Sharon Blackie observes that for many people living in contemporary neoliberal societies, “our relationship with place has become demythologised—a fact which is both an explanation for and a consequence of our sense of alienation from the world around us” (2020, np). She argues that processes and practices that remythologize place are not only “an interesting intellectual exercise, but an act of radical belonging” (2020, np). Heeding Blackie’s (2020) call to remythologize place, I restory what I call Earth-felt belonging.
Drawing on Elspeth Probyn’s (1996) emphasis on the ontological ‘beingness’ of belonging and Donna Haraway’s (2003) theorising of ‘natureculture’, I situate Earth-felt belonging through embodied, relational and emplaced entanglements that nurture a sense of interconnectedness alongside recognition and respect for the agency and vitality of Mother Earth and her Earth-kin (Matthews, 2011). More specifically, this presentation examines longing and belonging through intimate engagement with storied meaning making processes. It draws from fieldwork undertaken on Darkinjung Country (Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia) with five women (myself included) living in Australia’s colonial and patriarchal present. Together, we restory what it is to belong, through inhabiting the mythic landscapes of a Selkie folktale from the Outer Hebrides.
About Fee
Fee Mozeley is an environmental feminist who lives in Mulubinba (Newcastle) on Awabakal Country. She designs and facilitates feminist-popular-education workshops and retreats for self-identifying women on story-making, transformative leadership, and intuitive approaches to social change. Her research brings together more-than-rational ways of knowing and being in the world, lived praxes that actively challenge and dismantle patriarchy, and the agency and social power of stories and storytelling.