Carlotta Molfese

Biography

PhD Student in Human Geography and scholar-activist.

PhD working title: Going back-to-the-land in the Anthropocene: a scholar-activist journey through more-than-human anarchist geographies

My PhD looks at the back-to-the-land movement as a radical social movement of individuals that have chosen to adopt a primarily agrarian lifestyle as a political choice, as a way to challenge and confront some of the social and ecological injustices arising from a globalized, industrial food system and capitalist modernity. It focuses on their agricultural practices, alternative domesticities and wider networks of relations (e.g. Alternative Food Markets) to explore the ways in which theses ‘radical peasants’ resist capitalist ways of being and doing, and create alternatives pathways to sustainability. However, it aims to do so by employing post-humanist theories that take the relational agency of non-human nature seriously in order to start conceptualizing practices of resistance and activism in "more-than-human" terms.

As a back-to-the-land farmer myself, the project employs a scholar-activist and autoethnographic perspective to consider the messy and everyday realities of these bottom-up "green initiatives", paying particular attention to the politics and ethics of more-than-human co-existence and resistance on back-to-the-land farms and associated sites.

First Supervisor (DoS): Dr Kim Ward

Second Supervisor: Dr Paul Simpson

Third Supervisor: Prof Geoff Wilson

Qualifications

PhD Candidate in Human Geography with 1+3 ESRC scholarship, Plymouth University 2017-2021

MSc Human Geography Research, Plymouth University, 2017-2018 (Distinction)

MSc Sustainable Environmental Management, Plymouth University, 2015-2016 (Distinction)

BSc Marine Biology and Oceanography, Plymouth University, 2010-2013 (First)

Research

Research interests

Active research interests: Social movements (particularly rural/peasant movements), environmental policy and politics, political ecology, plant and more-than-human geographies, agriculture and farming, anarchism.

Other research

Before embarking on my post-graduate journey in human geography, I specialised in human impacts on the marine environment with a particular interest in fisheries, aquaculture and marine ecosystems change over time.

Grants & contracts

Economic and Social Research Council 1+3 scholarship at Plymouth University

Publications

Journals

Molfese C, Beare D, Hall-Spencer JM (2014) Overfishing and the Replacement of Demersal Finfish by Shellfish: An Example from the English Channel. PLoS ONE 9(7): e101506. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0101506

Conference Papers

Skinner J, Bailly D, Le Coz M, Dodds W, Fletcher S, Glegg G, Glenn H, Herry L, Molfese C, Sewell J and McQuatters-Gollop A (2014). Pathways for effective governance of the English Channel. PEGASEAS, Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, Plymouth, UK, 50pp.

Internet Publications

Written interview with South Devon Fish regarding sustainable fishing in the UK (August 2014). Available at http://southdevonfish.net/plymouth-university-marine-biology-dept/

Marine Biodiversity Indicators Project (MarBIP) blog for the Devon Wildlife Trust (DWT). Available at http://www.devonwildlifetrust.org/blog/category/marine-biodiversity-monitoring/

Performances

Molfese C and Hall-Spencer JM (13/03/2015) Overfishing and the replacement of demersal finfish by shellfish: an example from the English Channel. South West Marine Ecosystem conference (SWME15), Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, UK.

Molfese C (02/07/14) Overfishing and the replacement of demersal finfish by shellfish: an example from the English Channel. PEGASES conference, INTERREG IVa cross Channel project, University of Caen, Caen, France.

Molfese C, Palmer M, Marshall S. (20/03/14) Marine Biodiversity Monitoring in Devon. COASTWISE North Devon Seminar Series, Barnstaple Public Library, Barnstaple, UK.

Other Publications

Molfese C. (2017) "The political ecology of hemp (Cannabis sativa): discourses of multifunctionality and 'semi-legal' practices in Italian agriculture" Unpublished MSc Dissertation, University of Plymouth

Molfese C. (2016) "Traveling folk and nature: a visual narrative of a counter-cultural reality". Unpublished MSc Dissertation, University of Plymouth

Personal

Reports & invited lectures

Molfese C (2019) The end of Nature and Politics in the Anthropocene: anarchist traces and possibilities. RGS-IBG 2019 Conference, session: Environmental and Ecological Justice: Anarchist Contributions and Perspectives, London, UK.

Additional information

While I conduct my PhD research, I also help co-manage a small-scale ecological restoration and farming project in the South of Italy with my partner. Our more-than-farming project "Niter" has been built on principles of agroecology/permaculture, energy and water self-sufficiency and what I call "ecological mutual aid". Hence, unlike the focus of organic farms and practices on 'bio' and non-human entities generally understood as "living", we extend our efforts to ecological relationships between bio and geo, including soils, energy and water.

Profiles

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (Faculty of Science and Engineering)