Events & Calendars "Poolitics: The Flush Toilet and Struggles for Political Autonomy" with Gustavo Esteva

Activist and community-based intellectual Gustavo Esteva of Oaxaca, Mexico, will reflect on poverty, excrement and collective resistance to economic and state oppressions. The interconnection of these issues has been termed the "politics of shit," and resulting theories point to alternative attitudes and techniques for "developing" the global poor and realizing self-determination for marginalized groups. How do dominant attitudes about "shit," the flush toilet and alternative sanitation manifest in neocolonial development schemes? What is the meaning of "buen vivir" for Mexico’s indigenous peoples, and what has their struggle for autonomy looked like in an urban, contemporary setting?

This lecture is sponsored by the Lamont Fund, the Green Amherst Project and the Architectural Studies Program at Amherst College; by Library Services and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at UMass; and by the Gardening Club at Smith College.

All are welcome.