Resources
As a union of researchers, UCRF celebrates the open sharing of knowledge. In this section of the site, we present collections of resources to support learning and discussion.
EXPLAINERS
The following resources have been curated by our UCRF membership to shed light on the planetary conditions to which our manifesto responds. We have included a variety of perspectives and voices. It is intended to serve as a starting point for further exploration and will evolve over time.
Path breakers and Path finders
One of UCRF’s goals is to create an ‘activist knowledge ecology’, and as part of this we wish to also acknowledge the ‘path breakers’ of our field. However, while it is tempting to “stand on the shoulders of giants,” we also want to stand, sit and lie down elsewhere. The UCRF aims to acknowledge the multitude of ways sustainability in fashion must be studied and practised.
The landscape of sustainability is rich and diverse, and UCRF wants to push for a variety of paths to experience and explore these vistas. We want to put special focus on marginalised and silenced voices and perspectives. If we only have an epistemic monoculture that cuts through the field, this will neither answer the many needs of diverse cultures nor the needs of the planet.
We need a multitude of paths and journeys led by local guides. The ‘path breakers and path finders’ initiative acknowledges the many voices who have inspired and guided our collective work over many years.
In celebrating path breakers, we want to avoid the programmed tendency to have a reading list where men cite men about men, or NGOs and government agencies writing reports about other NGOs or government agencies. We want to challenge citation practices as a narrow reproductive technology of our field, centring the whole world around certain normative behaviours, bodies, cultures and consumption habits. This is what Sara Ahmed has pointed out as “Creating Feminist Paths”. In Living a Feminist Life, Ahmed points out; “Citation is how we acknowledge our debt to those who came before; those who helped us find our way when the way was obscured because we deviated from the paths we were told to follow.” (2017: 17)
We must cite accurate sources, but references and citations can also petrify a discipline. Acknowledging and establishing more inclusive genealogies is crucial for addressing a more diverse development of a field. Living and promoting a sustainable life must also mean performing pluralist and convivial academic practices.