Abstract

This talk uses the concept of surviving well to understand how to respond to climate breakdown in Western Sydney. The theory of community economy (ToCE) understands surviving well as a collective capacity exercised through the “negotiation of the conditions of our shared interdependence.” ToCE positions surviving well in dynamic relation with the potentiating force of surplus and exchange, the use and care for commons, and investment in a common-future enrolled in what Lauren Berlant called the "difficult" and sometimes "inconvenient" work of co-convening a shared world. Surviving in times of climate breakdown entails both the physical-work of embodied practice and the psychic-work of loss––forgetting forms of life that no longer serve.

Working with colleagues on the question of "climate readiness" in Western Sydney, where 1 in 10 people in Australia resides, brings the question of how to survive well front and centre. Much of the region is predicted to become uninsurable in less than a decade. Surviving well in the context of climate break down requires what Berlant describes as "hacks" to existing forms or what Vanessa Machado de Oliveira terms "improvisation." In this case, improvisation involves both adapting the built form, and the pattern and cadence of life but also, as a consequence, the (psychic) work of forgetting/losing forms of urban-life that no longer serve. Here, the psychic-work of loss, what Pilehvar refers to as the affirmative power of forgetting, may be a key aspect of our capacity to survive well.