I have a PhD in Geography and Environment (2021) from the University of Western Ontario. My PhD dissertation explored the relationship between people and urban bees with a focus on urban, hobbyist beekeeping and pollinator gardening. I examine how these practices allow people to engage in sensuous, concrete human activity through ‘playful work’. I also explore how these practices, when practised collectively in shared spaces, can help to create multispecies urban commons in which people, bees, and other beings can flourish.
I am the author of Capitalist Agriculture and the Global Bee Crisis, published by Routledge Press, about the harm caused by capitalist agriculture to pollinators.
My research interests include political ecology, Marxist theory, sustainable food systems, commons and commoning, beekeeping, urban agriculture, multispecies ethnography, and social reproduction theory.
Academic Publications:
Please note, most of these publications require an academic affiliation to access. Email me if you can’t access them and I’ll send you a PDF!
- Social reproduction, playful work, and bee-centred beekeeping. 2022. Rebecca Ellis. Agriculture and Human Values.
- ANIMAL FUNCTIONALITY AND INTERSPECIES RELATIONS IN REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE. 2020. Tony Weis and Rebecca Ellis, in Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems, Routledge Press
- From a free gift of nature to a precarious commodity: Bees, pollination services, and industrial agriculture. 2020. Rebecca Ellis, Tony Weis, Sainath Suryanarayanan, and Kata Beilin. Journal of Agrarian Change.
- Save the Bees? Agrochemical Corporations and the Debate Over Neonicotinoids in Ontario. 2019. Rebecca Ellis. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism.
- Second thoughts about a third wave. 2001. Rebecca Ellis. Canadian Women Studies.
The Re-enchantment 