Craft and the Ethics of Consolation: Slow Organizing in the Anthropocene

This article develops the concept of slow organizing to explore how communities can respond to irreversible ecological loss in the Anthropocene. Drawing on ethnographic research with textile artist Birgitta Nordström, who weaves shrouds for stillborn children, we examine how time-sensitive, materially embedded and emotionally attuned practices can facilitate collective mourning. Rather than treating grief as a private or individual pathology, we argue that slow organizing turns mourning into a shared, generative and practical labour. By attending to the embodied, relational and anticipatory dimensions of this work, the article demonstrates how slow organizing can cultivate forms of care and responsibility that sustain communities facing ongoing planetary change.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘The biosphere in the Anthropocene’.