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Papers by Kelly Dombroski
Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Feb 16, 2022
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Feb 6, 2020
Journal of Cultural Economy, Jan 29, 2018
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Jun 15, 2017
Emotion, Space and Society, Feb 1, 2018
Encyclopedia of Motherhood, Oct 5, 2012
Geographical Review, May 3, 2021
Journal of Cultural Economy, Apr 25, 2016
Asia Pacific Viewpoint, May 6, 2015
This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in The handbook of diverse economies edit... more This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in The handbook of diverse economies edited by edited by J.K. Gibson-Graham (Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Australia), Kelly Dombroski (University of Canterbury, New Zealand), published in 2020, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/the-handbook-of-diverse-economies-9781788119955.html The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only.
New Zealand Geographer, Mar 9, 2020
Gender Place and Culture, Aug 22, 2019
Case studies in the environment, Dec 31, 2019
Dialogues in human geography, Jul 1, 2013
Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Feb 16, 2022
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Feb 6, 2020
Journal of Cultural Economy, Jan 29, 2018
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Jun 15, 2017
Emotion, Space and Society, Feb 1, 2018
Encyclopedia of Motherhood, Oct 5, 2012
Geographical Review, May 3, 2021
Journal of Cultural Economy, Apr 25, 2016
Asia Pacific Viewpoint, May 6, 2015
This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in The handbook of diverse economies edit... more This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in The handbook of diverse economies edited by edited by J.K. Gibson-Graham (Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Australia), Kelly Dombroski (University of Canterbury, New Zealand), published in 2020, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/the-handbook-of-diverse-economies-9781788119955.html The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only.
New Zealand Geographer, Mar 9, 2020
Gender Place and Culture, Aug 22, 2019
Case studies in the environment, Dec 31, 2019
Dialogues in human geography, Jul 1, 2013
An interactive book review of Miranda Joseph's book, Debt to Society.
Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, Jan 1, 2009
Structured Abstract for International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Purpose The article ... more Structured Abstract for International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy
Purpose
The article uses a case study of an online parenting forum to theorise how mothers’ everyday
environmental and caring labour is a form of environmental and social activism in the home, that
while not organised as such, is still collectivised in a ‘hybrid activist collective’.
Design/methodology/approach
Using ethnographic data and content analysis from an online parenting forum for the nappy-free
infant hygiene practice known as ‘elimination communication’, the author compares the matters
of key concern arising for this group of mothers with economic activist concerns as identified by
Gibson-Graham, Cameron and Healy (2013) in their community economies work.
Findings
The article finds a high degree of resonance between the key concerns of the elimination
communication forum members with the key concerns of community economies. Furthermore,
the author identifies the components of what might comprise a ‘hybrid activist collective’ of
mothers and others undertaking direct action for environmental and social change.
Social implications
Mothers and others acting for social and environmental change in the home environment should
be encouraged and recognised for their important environmental and caring labour.
Originality/value
The article proposes the ‘hybrid activist collective’ as a way of understanding the human and
non-human elements that gather together to act for environmental and social change in
collectivised, but not formally organised, manner.
In order to mitigate the worst forecasts of climate change, many of us need to make drastic adjus... more In order to mitigate the worst forecasts of climate change, many of us need to make drastic adjustments to how we live and what we consume. For Kelly Dombroski, these changes must also happen in the home: in rethinking routines of care and hygiene that still rely on disposable and plastic products. Caring for Life examines the remarkable evolution in Asia-Pacific hygiene practices and amplifies the creative work of ordinary people guarding human and more-than-human life in their everyday practices of care.
Dombroski develops the concept of “guarding life,” a viewpoint that counters homogenous cultural practices and imposed sanitation standards and instead embraces diverse hygiene practices that are networked across varying wisdoms and bodies. She traces how the Chinese diaper-free infant toilet training practice of baniao has traveled to Australia and New Zealand, and she explores the practice of elimination communication, in which babies learn to communicate to their caregivers when they need to eliminate, thus removing the need for diapers. A mother herself, Dombroski conducted ethnographic research while mothering to examine how collectives of mothers draw on Chinese knowledge and their own embodied practices of childcare to create new hybrid forms of infant care.
Caring for Life is a call to action, a theory of change, and a fascinating account of the transformational possibilities of care practices. It shows how experiments in personal care can lead to collective, widespread change, ultimately providing a practical and hopeful vision for environmental action.
The Handbook of Diverse Economies , 2020
The Handbook of Diverse Economies, 2020
Routledge Handbook of Gender and Water, 2024
Hygiene practices, and the sanitation infrastructure built around them, have developed through pa... more Hygiene practices, and the sanitation infrastructure built around them, have developed through particular interactions with particular places. When I first travelled to a mountainous minority ethnic area of China to do research as a masters student in 2004, I had my first experience of mountain latrines. These structures were outhouses built over the side of mountains, with a plank or two removed so one could squat over the resulting hole, feel the breeze on your underside, and watch your stream of waste cascade down the mountain (see Figure 1). Despite being frightened of outhouses as a child, I was by that point comfortable with them generally, having done a lot of vineyard work back in my home country of Aotearoa New Zealand, not to mention 'tramping' (hiking) where simple 'long-drops' (pit latrines) were a step up from the 'bush wee' (open air eliminations, usually behind a bush). But the open-air ultra-longdrop of the Sichuan Tibetan outhouse was new, and to begin with, scary and uncomfortable. Especially the time I peered through the slats of the outhouse and saw a pig far down the mountainside, rummaging about in the waste. But I could immediately see that it worked without too many problems in this remote area, at least until large quantities of disposable sanitary items such as menstrual pads began to be a problem as tourism increased. I learned then that hygiene practices and sanitation infrastructures are diverse, and assembled differently in place and time, and, like any point of difference, we may feel uncomfortable when we interact with hygiene assemblages different from our own. But this does not mean that they are maladaptive.
Key Thinkers on Space and Place, 2024
JK Gibson-Graham is an academic pseudonym of feminist economic geographers Katherine Gibson and J... more JK Gibson-Graham is an academic pseudonym of feminist economic geographers Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham. Writing under the authorial identity of Gibson-Graham, the duo established the field of diverse economies, a theoretically sophisticated feminist poststructuralist economic geography that has transformed debates within, and well beyond, the discipline (Barnes and Christophers 2018). Core to the approach is a consistent refusal of totalising discourses of economy, and particularly 'capitalocentric' representations of economy, a commitment to 'reading for difference', and methodological stance that looks for how the world we live in is always already more-than-capitalist. The single writing persona of Gibson-Graham was born in a dormitory room at a feminist conference at Rutgers University in 1992 (Gibson-Graham 1996, xi) and first appeared in print with the publication of 'Waiting for the revolution, or how to smash capitalism while working at home in your spare time', published in Rethinking Marxism (Gibson-Graham 1993). A series of high-profile articles followed, leading to their first path breaking book The End of Capitalism (as We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy (Gibson-Graham 1996), now on its second edition and published in multiple languages.
A Modern Guide to Wellbeing Research, 2021
Research at the intersection of wellbeing and economy has tried to understand socio-economic ‘dev... more Research at the intersection of wellbeing and economy has tried to understand socio-economic ‘development’ differently. Yet it has often done so by conceiving of wellness in narrowly individualistic terms, easily overlapping with economic modelling based on individual rational economic actors. In this chapter, we reclaim wellbeing as a socio-economic concept based not on individual wellness or happiness, but collective practices of ‘surviving well together’. To do so, we draw from the vibrant scholarly tradition of diverse economies and community economies. The chapter introduces key ‘community economy’ concepts and discusses the implications of undertaking participatory wellbeing research using this approach.