Boone Shear

Boone Shear is a Senior Lecturer and Undergraduate Program Director in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He specializes in postcapitalist and ontological politics, community-engaged research, solidarity economies, political ecology, and higher education reform. His work focuses on uncovering and cultivating alternatives to patriarchal capitalist modernity through collaborative projects with marginalized communities.

Shear leads Building Solidarity Economies (BSE), an interdisciplinary initiative bridging academia and grassroots movements. He actively engages with organizations like the Community Economies Collective, Rethinking Marxism editorial board, Worcester Roots, and Massachusetts Solidarity Economy Network. His research emphasizes ontological politics to imagine and sustain pluralistic socio-ecological realities beyond capitalist frameworks.

Publications span solidarity economy theory, neoliberal university critiques, and political ecology, advocating for transformative praxis. He teaches innovative courses reimagining pedagogy as an assemblage of methods to foster solidarity and ecological justice.