Eleanor Finley

Eleanor Finley

Eleanor Finley

Affiliate Faculty

social movements, democracy studies, social and political ecology, anthropology, Kurdish studies.

Eleanor Finley is a political anthropologist and ethnographer who studies themes of social ecology, radical municipalism, and direct democracy. She has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her book Practicing Social Ecology: From Bookchin to Rojava and Beyond (Pluto Press (2025) blends ethnography, history, and personal memoir to examine the theory and practice of the global social ecology movement. Eleanor has held various roles at George Mason University's Next System Studies since 2023. She is also a board member at the Institute for Social Ecology and a member of the Virginia Solidarity Economy Network.  

Selected Publications

(Forthcoming) Leila Faghfouri Azar, Eleanor Finley, Omer Pacal. "A Constitution Beyond the State: An examination of the Social Contract of Rojava." In Global Social Challenges Journal. 10.1332/27523349Y2026D000000089. 

2025. Eleanor Finley. Practicing Social Ecology: Democratic Experiments from Burlington to Rojava and Beyond. London, Pluto Press. 

2023. Linda Quiquivix. Danni Knoll, Haley Roeser, and Eleanor Finley. "Municipalism: A Critical Review." REPORT. One Project.

2021. Eleanor Finley and Aaron Vansintjan. "The Lay of the Land: Municipalist Movements in the US and Canada". REPORT. Mimim Observatory.

2020. Eleanor Finley. "Solidarity Under Lockdown" in Italy. In Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid During the Covid-19 Crisis. June 2020. London. Pluto Press. pp138-153.

2018.  Eleanor Finley. "Beyond the Limits of Nature: a social-ecological perspective of degrowth as a political ideology." In Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. Vol 23(1). 

2017.  Eleanor Finley. "The New Municipal Movements." ROAR Magazine. July 20, 2017.

2017. Eleanor Finley.  Reason, Creativity, Freedom: the communalist model.  ROAR Magazine. Feb 11, 2017.

Expanded Publication List

2025. Eleanor Finley. Practicing Social Ecology: Democratic Experiments from Burlington to Rojava and Beyond. London. Pluto Press.

2020. Eleanor Finley. Solidarity Under Lockdown in Italy. In Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid During the Covid-19 Crisis. June 2020. London. Pluto Press. pp138-153.

2018. Beyond the Limits of Nature: a social-ecological perspective of degrowth as a political ideology. In Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. Vol 23(1). 

2017. Book Review Review. Janet Biehl, Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin. Reviewed by Eleanor Finley and Federico Venturini. Anarchist Studies: Vol. 25(1)

2017. Eleanor Finley, Revisiting Epistemologies of Freedom: An Interview with Cihad Hami. Journal for the Critique of Science, for Imagination and New Anthropology (Časopis za kritiko znanosti). Rethinking Revolutions: Marking 100 Years Since the October Revolution. (Mislimo Revolucije). October 2017. Vol. 45(2)

2017. Beyond the Limits of Nature: a social ecological critique of degrowth. In Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. Virtual Symposium. Institute for Environmental Science and Technology [Instituto de Ciencia i Tecnologia Medioambienal] (ICTA), Autonomous University of Barcelona.

2016. Ethnography and Activism in the Basque Anti-fracking Movement. In Practicing Anthropology.  Reflection: Challenges and Lessons. Summer 2016, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 28-47. Corrie Ellis Grosse, Gregorio Ortiz, Thomas Loder, Katie Geddes, Tristan Partridge, Carol MacLennan, Eleanor Finley, Martin Espig, Kim de Rijke, Sarah A. Grady, Valerie M. J. Hall, and Sarah N. Janesko (2016)

 

Non-Peer Review Publications

2023. Linda Quiquivix. Danni Knoll, Haley Roeser, and Eleanor Finley. Municipalism: A Critical Review. REPORT. One Project. 

2021. Eleanor Finley and Aaron Vansintjan. The Lay of the Land: Municipalist Movements in the US and Canada. REPORT. MIMIM Observatory.

2021. Eleanor Finley and Aaron Vansintjan. Where are the Municipalists in the US and Canada? REPORT. MIMIM Observatory. Nov 23, 2021.

2021. “Don’t Panic! How Italian Municipalists tackled Covid-19”. MINIM Observatory. April 29, 2021.

2020. Eleanor Finley. Solidarity Under Lockdown in Italy. In Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid During the Covid-19 Crisis. June 2020. London. Pluto Press. pp138-153.

2020. Human Nature: Resources for a better future. Uneven Earth. June 1, 2020.

2019. The Stories We Need: Pan-African Social Ecology. ROAR Magazine. November 4, 2019

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-11-04/the-stories-we-need-pan-african-social-ecology/

2018. “The Revolution will be Ecologized”. The Ecologist. July 17, 2018.

2018. Beyond the Limits of Nature: a social-ecological perspective of degrowth as a political ideology. In Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. Vol 23(1). 

2017. Today’s Revolutionaries Must Go Beyond Marxism. In In These Times. October 26, 2017. November issue. http://inthesetimes.com/features/debate_socialism_organizing_working_class.html

 

2017. Reportback on Challenging Capitalist Modernity III. Blog Post. Institute for Social Ecology

 

2017. The New Municipal Movements: Reflections on a Revolution (ROAR) Magazine. July 20, 2017

 

2017. Reason, Creativity, Freedom: the communalist model. Feb 11,2017. ROAR Magazine. https://roarmag.org/essays/communalism-bookchin-direct-democracy/

 

2016. Sur: against state violence in Turkey - an interview with former mayor Abdullah Demirbas. Abdullah Demirbas & Eleanor Finley. Open Democracy. July 18, 2016.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/abdullah-demirbas-eleanor-finley/sur-against-state-violence-in-turkey-interview-with-former-mayor-ab

 

2016. Fruit on the Tree of Mankind: the Bookchin-Ocalan Connection. Jihad Hammy and Eleanor Finley. The Kurdish Question.

 

2017. Reportback on Challenging Capitalist Modernity II. Institute for Social Ecology.

 

2015. Rural and Urban Solidarity Rises Against Istanbul Megaprojects. European Network for Political Ecology (ENTITLE) Blog. July 27, 2015. http://entitleblog.org/2015/07/27/rural-and-urban-solidarityarises-against-istanbul-megaprojects-2/   

 

2015. Social Ecology, Kurdistan and the Origins of Freedom. The Kurdish Question. July 10, 2015. http://entitleblog.org/2015/07/15/social-ecology-kurdistan-and-the-origins-of-freedom/  

 

2015. Energy from Below: the anti-fracking movement. Eleanor Finley & Claire Fauset. ROAR Magazine. July 7, 2015.  http://roarmag.org/2015/07/frackanpada-anti-fracking-movement/  

 

Education

PhD, Anthropology. University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

MA, Anthropology. University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

BA, Philosophy. Virginia Commonwealth University.

Recent Presentations

2023 Next Systems Speaker Series. Rojava, Democratic Confederalism, and the U.S. George Mason University Center for Social Science Research. April 11, 2023.

In the Media

SRSLY Wrong Podcast. Social Ecology & the Critique of Hierarchy (Pt 1).  PUBLISHED .

This is Hell! Radio. Episode 971 “City/State”. https://soundcloud.com/this-is-hell/episode-971-citystate. September 22, 2017.