There is a growing recognition that survival in the climate altered anthropocene requires not simply technical reconfigurations of economies, societies and the built environment but also changes in the habits and values of citizens.   Focusing attention on habits, Gibson-Graham and Roelvink (2010) underscores the relationship between material practice, embodied learning, and social transformation.  These embodied practices can range from new forms of collective activities in daily life to financial innovation in securing a common future.  In contrast to what Davidson describes as the palliative fantasies of top-down engineered eco-cities in response to climate change, the embodied learning approach focuses on how new practices both require and produce subjects who inhabit the world differently.  In this paper I make use of Georgio Agamben’s Highest Poverty to develop a conceptual framework to further understanding of the relationship between material practices, habits, embodied learning and the capacity for collective action.