Dear POLLEN Members and Friends,
There are lots of updates to share this month, including an introduction to the POLLEN node at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, CfPs, publications from our community, opportunities to join workshops, teaching resources on political ecology, and much more.
We would like to hear from nodes who are keen to feature their work in the upcoming newsletters – please drop us a line at politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com if your group is interested. We also welcome contributions to the POLLEN blog – we had some great spontaneous offers over the last month and would like to keep these coming! Please write to us at the same email address if you are interested in contributing.
On a final note, we have noticed that some of our node contact details are bouncing – please keep us posted about any changes to your node contacts at the POLLEN email address above.
With regards from your POLLEN Secretariat:
Sango Mahanty | Sarah Milne | Ratchada Arpornsilp
IMPORTANT! To get the best view of this newsletter, please enable the media content at the top of the e-mail.
Getting to know your fellow POLLEN members
Each monthly newsletter includes a brief introduction to one of the many POLLEN nodes to help build connections across our community. This month we would like to introduce you to the Political Ecology Working Group of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s POLLEN node
Overview
The Political Ecology Working Group of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa brings together faculty, researchers, and graduate students from across the university for seminars and other events. A number of unique characteristics of the university contribute to the forms of inquiry into political ecology engaged by the group. Principal among these is the importance of issues relating to the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander experience, and to questions of sovereignty and the colonial pasts of Pacific places. The university’s engagement with Asia and its centrality within discussions of coastal and oceanic environments also contribute to the nature of conversations about political ecology taking place there, as does the importance of tourism to the state’s economy. Members of the group have been known to go surfing together.
More information can be found in:
Website: http://www.politicalecologysurfers.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PolEco_Surfers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/politicalecologysurfers
Node members
Mary Mostafanezhad is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her work is broadly focused on development and socio-environmental change in Southeast Asia. Her current National Science Foundation-funded research examines the political ecology of seasonal air pollution in northern Thailand. She is the co-editor-in-chief of Tourism Geographies: An International Journal of Tourism Space, Place and Environment and a co-editor of the Critical Green Engagements Series of the University of Arizona Press.
Jonathan Padwe is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research looks at the relationship between social and environmental change in the highlands of mainland Southeast Asia. This work is based on several years of fieldwork in Cambodia’s northeast highlands, along the border with Vietnam, as well as on archival research conducted at Cambodia’s National Archives and at the Archives Nationalesd’Outre-Mer, the French colonial archive in Aix-en-Provence.
Carolyn Stephenson is a professor in Political Science, where she teaches Global Environmental Politics, international relations, peace studies, and conflict resolution courses. She did her BA at Mount Holyoke College, MA, and PhD at Ohio State. She has written on the development of peace studies and environmental studies and on environment and women’s issues at the UN. A founder of the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association in 1977 and was its chair in 1985-89. She serves as a mediator and taught conflict resolution as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Cyprus in 2002. She directs the Hawaii Model UN.
Olivia Meyer (she/her) is an incoming Geography and Environment PhD student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and is currently completing her M.A. in Geography at the University of Kentucky. Her research centers on power and environmental discourses as they relate to plastic waste in Thailand. As such, she is particularly interested in feminist political ecologies, feminist and Marxist critiques of ‘expertise,’ environmental subjectivity, and critical Thai studies. She served as Conference Chair of the 10th Annual Dimensions of Political Ecology Conference and has master’s research and horticulture work experience in Bangkok, Thailand.
Jaimey Hamilton Faris is Associate Professor of Art History and Critical Theory and affiliate faculty in Pacific Islands Studies, International Cultural Studies, and Environmental Humanities at the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. Her research focuses on global infrastructures, ecologies, and creativities including Uncommon Goods: The Global Dimensions of the Readymade (2013); a special issue of Art Margins on Capitalist Realism (2015); a volume of experimental eco-criticism, The Almanac for the Beyond (2019); and the exhibition, Inundation: Art and Climate Change in the Pacific (2020). She is currently working on a book project about contemporary “water art” practices.
Michelle Harangody is a PhD candidate in the Geography and Environment department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her work engages with political ecology, STS, neoliberal conservation, and critical tourism studies through analyses of coral conservation and restoration. Her dissertation research, supported by the Fulbright US Student Program, examines the political ecology of coral restoration in Thailand at the conservation-tourism nexus. She received a B.A. and M.S. in Marine Affairs and Policy from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and an M.A. in Geography from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Laura Williams is a PhD candidate in the Geography and Environment department at the University of HawaiʻiMānoa. She is interested in the relationship between shifting agrarian environments and processes of capital accumulation, urban development, alienation, and increasing rural inequality. Her dissertation is looking at these themes on the island of Kauaʻi through the analysis of alternative agriculture and its related activism. She has previously worked on university and community college sustainability programming, farming, and outdoor recreation projects. She received her MS in Geography and Environmental Resources from Southern Illinois University.
Foley Pfalzgraf is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Supported by a Fulbright-Hays award, her dissertation research interrogates the role of nature-based solutions, particularly carbon forest offsetting, in Vanuatu and the extent to which these programs are able to meaningfully provide climate justice. She draws inspiration from theories in Pacific studies, political ecology, and STS. Foley has experience working in community-based economic development in Hawaiʻi as well as at environmental nonprofits. She received her BA in International Studies from American University, an MSc in Nature, Society, and Environmental Governance from the University of Oxford, and an MA in Geography from the University of Hawaiʻi.
Aya H. Kimura is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai`i-Mānoa. Her research is broadly focused on agro-food issues, gender, and technoscience. Her books include Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists: The Gender Politics of Food Contamination after Fukushima (Duke, recipient of the Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society for Social Studies of Science) and Hidden Hunger: Gender and Politics of Smarter Foods (Cornell, recipient of the Outstanding Scholarly Award from the Rural Sociological Society). She is currently conducting a project on agrobiodiversity and fermentation.
Brendan Flanagan is a PhD student in the Anthropology Department at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. His ongoing research project is focused on the politics of forest conservation in Southern Myanmar. He is interested in how different conceptions of the natural world run up against each other and the tensions that arise from those encounters. He is currently thinking about how particular places, understood as intersections of materials, knowledge, and skills, come to be central to people’s ethical and political engagements.
Ci Yan Sara Loh is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Her research broadly focuses on centering indigenous ecological knowledge in the spaces where disaster, development, and social justice collide in the forests of Peninsular Malaysia, where she is from. She has previously worked in social and environmental policy, community development, and heritage conservation in Malaysia. She received her MA in Anthropology of Development and Social Transformation from the University of Sussex and a BA in Music and Development from Smith College.
Leah Bremer is Research Faculty with the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization and the Water Resources Research Center. As a human-environment geographer by training, she views social and environmental challenges and solutions as critically linked and works on a variety of collaborative projects focused on sustainable and equitable water and environmental management in Hawaiʻi and Latin America. She is also cooperating faculty in UH Mānoa’s Departments of Geography and Environment, Natural Resources and Environmental Management, and the Biocultural Initiative of the Pacific, as well as a Research Associate at Fundación Cordillera Tropical, an NGO in Ecuador.
Promoting POLLEN collaboration
Do you write with other members of POLLEN?
To gain visibility for collaborations across our network, we invite you to consider adding something along these lines to your acknowledgments:
“This paper represents collaborative work with colleagues in the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN).”
Books
Beban, A. 2021. Unwritten Rule: State-Making through Land Reform in Cambodia. Cornell University Press.
<https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501754043/unwritten-rule/>
Doig, T. (ed). 2021. Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa. Bridget Williams Books. <https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/living-climate-crisis/>
Horricks, I. 2021. Where we Swim. Victoria University Press.
<https://vup.victoria.ac.nz/where-we-swim/>
Wedekind, J. 2021. Anatomy of a White Elephant: Investment Failure and Land Conflicts on Ethiopia’s Oromia–Somali Frontier, in: Gabbert, E.; Gebresenbet, F.; Galaty, J.G.; Schlee, G. (eds.) Lands of the Future: Anthropological Perspectives
on Pastoralism, Land Deals and Tropes of Modernity in Eastern Africa, Berghahn: New York / Oxford, pp. 167–188.<https://berghahnbooks.com/title/GabbertLands/loc?fbclid=IwAR0gwYuGjwWlHYCWug_RmulYuw1fHwVTvYSJ6mMgr5LM_NBZp-Ua8LB4Ay4>.
Reports
Croft, F. &Farrelly, T. 2021. Tackling Plastic Pollution in New Zealand’s Fin Fishing Industry. London: The Association of Commonwealth Universities [Technical Report].
Blogs
Bretschko, Sarah 2021. Women’s bodies as sites of struggle: resisting the commodification of knowledge about female pleasure. Undisciplined Environments:
<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/04/15/womens-bodies-as-sites-of-struggle-resisting-the-commodification-of-knowledge-about-female-pleasure/>
Chertkovskaya, Ekaterina and Paulsson, Alexander. 2021 On the destructive forces of the capitalist mode of production: Or, how to counter corporate violence with degrowth. Undisciplined Environments:
<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/04/08/on-the-destructive-forces-of-the-capitalist-mode-of-production-or-how-to-counter-corporate-violence-with-degrowth/>
Grinfeld, Rafa. 2021. Book review: “Enlightenment and Ecology: The Legacy of Murray Bookchin in the 21st Century” (Black Rose Books, 2021). Undisciplined Environments:<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/04/07/enlightenment-and-ecology-the-legacy-of-murray-bookchin-in-the-21st-century-book-review/>
Klüppelberg, Achim. 2021. Nucleocrats Don’t Sleep. Undisciplined Environments:
<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/03/31/nucleocrats-dont-sleep/>
Krawczyk, Felix. 2021. Forests are not just sites of climate mitigation. Undisciplined Environments:<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/03/03/forests-are-not-just-sites-of-climate-mitigation/>
Phelps, Jacob. (2021) Political Ecology in the courtroom. Political Ecology Network: <https://politicalecologynetwork.org/2021/04/12/political-ecology-in-the-courtroom/>
Ryneveld, Tara van. (2021) The digital divide as “smart” city inequality. Undisciplined Environments:<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/03/11/the-digital-divide-as-smart-city-inequality/>
Schockling, Amanda. (2021) Poor health in redlined neighborhoods of Houston, Texas. Undisciplined Environments:
<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/03/23/poor-health-in-redlined-neighborhoods-of-houston-texas/>
Shrestha, Ankita. (2021) When honesty is not the best policy: the ethical dilemma of sharing research findings. Undisciplined Environments:
<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/04/13/when-honesty-is-not-the-best-policy-the-ethical-dilemma-of-sharing-research-findings/>
Woelfle-Erskine, Cleo. (2021) How imaginaries shift in places: Native and settler politics of water and salmon. Undisciplined Environments:
<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/04/09/how-imaginaries-shift-in-places-native-and-settler-politics-of-water-an/>
Journal articles
Adams, S., Farrelly, T., & Holland, J 2021. Non-formal Education for Sustainable Development: A Case Study of the ‘Children in the Wilderness’ Eco-Club Programme in the Zambezi Region. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development. Vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 117-139,DOI:<10.1177/0973408220980871>
Al-Saidi, M., & Hussein, H 2021. ‘The Water-Energy-Food Nexus and COVID-19: Towards a Systematization of Impacts and Responses’, Science of the Total Environment, vol. 779, DOI:<10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146529>
Atkins, E. and Hope, J 2021. ‘Contemporary political ecologies of hydropower: Insights from Bolivia and Brazil’,Journal of Political Ecology, Vol. 28, no.1, pp. 246-265<https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/2363/galley/2519/view/>
Atkins, E., Follis, L.,Neimark, B. D. and Thomas, V 2021. ‘Uneven development, crypto-regionalism, and the (un-)tethering of nature in Quebec’, Geoforum, Vol. 122, pp. 63-73, DOI:<10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.12.019>
Barnaud, C., Fischer, A., Staddon, S., Blackstock, K., Moreau, C., Corbera, E., Hester, A., Mathevet, R., McKee, A., Reyes, J., Sirami, C., & Eastwood, A 2021. ‘Is Forest Regeneration Good for Biodiversity? Exploring the Social Dimensions of an Apparently Ecological Debate’, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 120, pp. 63-72, DOI:<10.1016/j.envsci.2021.02.012>
Bluwstein, J., Asiyanbi, A.P., Dutta A., et al 2021.‘Commentary: Underestimating the challenges of avoiding a ghastly future. Frontiers in Conservation Science.
DOI:<10.3389/fcosc.2021.666910>
Büscher, B. & Fletcher, R. 2020. The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas for Saving Nature beyond the Anthropocene. A review by Rogelio Luque-Lora. The Philosopher, pp. 94-99.<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349145238_
Living_with_Nonhumans_A_review_of_The_Conservation_Revolution_Radical_
Ideas_for_Saving_Nature_Beyond_the_Anthropocene#fullTextFileContent>
Ece, M. 2021. ‘Creating property out of insecurity: territorialization and legitimation of REDD+ in Lindi, Tanzania’, The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. DOI: <10.1080/07329113.2021.1900512>
Farrelly, T. A., Borrelle, S.B., & Fuller, S. 2021. The strengths and weaknesses of pacific islands plastic pollution policy frameworks. Sustainability. Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 1-42. DOI:<10.3390/su13031252>
Ferguson, C.E. 2021. A rising tide does not lift all boats: Intersectional analysis
reveals inequitable impacts of the seafood trade in fishing communities. Frontiers in Marine Science, DOI: <10.3389/fmars.2021.625389>
Holm, Nick. 2020. Consider the (Feral) Cat: Ferality, Biopower, and the Ethics of Predation. Society & Animals, pp. 1-17, DOI: <10.1163/15685306-BJA10006>
Jakobsen, J & Westengen O.T 2021. The imperial maize assemblage: maize
dialectics in Malawi and India. The Journal of Peasant Studies. pp. 1-25,
DOI: <10.1080/03066150.2021.1890042>
Massarella, K., Nygren, A., Fletcher, R., Büscher, B., Kiwango, W.A., Komi, S., Krauss, J.E., Mabele, M.B., McInturff, A., Sandroni, L.T. and Alagona, P.S. 2021. ‘Transformation beyond conservation: how critical social science can contribute to a radical new agenda in biodiversity conservation’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Vol. 49, pp.79-87. DOI:<10.1016/j.cosust.2021.03.005>
Mitchell, A., Farrelly, T., & Andrews, R. 2020. ‘We’re Hands-on People’:
Decolonising Diabetes Treatment in an Aboriginal Community in Northern Territory, Australia. Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology & Cultural Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 5-18.
Radhuber I. M. & Chávez León M. &Andreucci D., (2021) “Expansión extractivista,
resistenciacomunitaria y ‘despojo político’ en Bolivia”, Journal of Political Ecology, Vol. 28, No. 1. pp. 205-223. DOI:<10.2458/jpe.2360>
Van der Hoeven, Sara. 2021. Guns and Conservation: Protecting Wildlife and Ensuring “Peace and Security” in Northern Kenya. Mambo! Vol. XVIII, no. 1. <https://mambo.hypotheses.org/3043>
Vela-Almeida, D., Torres, N. 2021. ‘Consultation in Ecuador: institutional fragility and
participation in National Extractive Policy’, Latin American Perspectives, pp. 1-20.
DOI: <10.1177/0094582X211008148>
Voskoboynik, D. M., & Andreucci, D 2021. “Greening extractivism: Environmental
discourses and resource governance in the ‘Lithium Triangle’.” Environment and
Planning E: Nature and Space.DOI:<10.1177/25148486211006345>
CfPs
Sustainable and Personal Urban Mobility-Pluridisciplinary Perspectives on Personal Mobility in the Urban Landscape
This highly interdisciplinary book will gather information on scholarly thinking, research projects, case studies, and other initiatives which may showcase how sustainability and urban mobility may be integrated. Encompassing aspects of general sustainability, but also legal aspects, ethical components, and sociological, health, and economic considerations on personal mobility in the shared urban landscape, the book will amass a comprehensive body of information and expertise, providing a unique contribution to the literature on the topic. As such, it will be a timely resource for policymakers, academia, universities, and the concerned citizen trying to make sense of the rapid changes in the urban environment and to foresee what the near future will bring.
Expressions of interest to contribute to the book, consisting of 500 words extended abstract introducing the topic, approach, and methodology, and providing the author(s) contact details, should be sent to iusdrp@ls.haw-hamburg.de
The deadline is 10th July 2021. Full papers are due by 10th October 2021. The chapters in final form should be between 4,000 – 7,000 words including references.
Special Issue on Promises of growth and sustainability in the bioeconomy of the Journal for Sustainable Consumption and Production
The aim of this Special Issue is to shed light on the nexus of sustainability,
technology, and growth within the bioeconomy from multidisciplinary, critical, and constructive perspectives.
Special Issue is a cooperation between Forschungszentrum Juelich as a topical editor (Sandra Venghaus) and the Junior Research Group flumen as guest editors (Dr. Dennis Eversberg, Dr. Martin Fritz, Lilian Pungas).
Dr. Dennis Eversberg dennis.eversberg@uni-jena.de
Dr. Martin Fritz martin.fritz@uni-jena.de
Lilian Pungas lilian.pungas@uni-jena.de
The deadline is 30th June 2021.
Papers will be peer-reviewed and the aim is to have final papers accepted and sent to production by 30th November 2021, which should mean the special issue can be finalized by the end of the year/early 2022. All information you need as an author with this journal you can find here.
Decentering urban climate finance: Relational comparison in theory and practice
As a network of scholars researching urban finance and climate action from a variety of perspectives, this research expands such agenda theoretically and empirically. With this workshop series funded by the Urban Studies Foundation, the structured dialogue and relational comparison across places, practices, markets, and beyond will be fostered.
Participants selected will meet for two workshops in Durham (UK) in October 2021 and Zurich (Switzerland) in May 2022. The paired workshops and collective writing process will produce a special issue in an urban studies journal, focused on exploring and furthering these broadened geographies of climate finance. The workshops will also promote longer-term networking and collaboration opportunities for participants (e.g. cross-promotion of research through the UrbanCliFi network website; work toward larger research bids).
Deadline for abstract submission: 7th May 2021.
For more information, visit https://www.urbanclifi.com/cfp
Conferences
A two-day long, online conference on “The farmers’ protest, a pioneering field for
social sciences” on the 14th and 15th of May 2021. This event will take place under
the aegis of OP Jindal Global University (Haryana) and with the support of the
Global Environmental Justice (GEJ) Group of University of East Anglia (UK).
The multidisciplinary online conference will make room for a wide range of approaches of a major social movement, including political science, sociology, anthropology,
geography, history, law, and economy; presentation formats will include academic
papers, field notes, work in progress, and talks by activists & journalists. It will
gather established and renowned scholars from agrarian studies and other fields, as
well as early-career researchers and PhD students from India, France, the UK, the
US, and more…
LINK TO REGISTER: https://forms.office.com/r/PedUGKMQjQ
Vacancies
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, re-Engineered @ Arizona State University
College of Global Futures: School for the Future of Innovation in Society
Location: Tempe, AZ
Open Date: 6 Apr 2021
Description: Inciting a social movement of engineers, scientists, and other
professionals to address environmental/climate/energy justice challenges
APPLY HERE: https://apply.interfolio.com/86218
The postdoctoral fellow will be a core team member of re-Engineered, an interdisciplinary group at Arizona State University that is working to build a social movement of engineering for environmental protection and social justice.
See www.reengineered.org for more detail.
The postdoctoral fellow will build on the foundations of a project funded by the
National Science Foundation and a number of other projects.
PhD position
An AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award at the University of Hull
The project is titled ‘Mahogany, Enslaved Africans, Miskito Indigenous People at Chiswick House, Kenwood, and Marble Hill London’ and will be supervised by Professor Joy Porter (University of Hull) and Dr.Esmé Whittaker (English Heritage).
The four-year PhD programme will explore the cultural significance and intercultural narratives surrounding mahogany in U.K. heritage environments. It will examine mahogany-related processes of exchange that link three English Heritage properties (Chiswick House, Kenwood and Marble Hill, London), Miskito-African American Indigenous environmental brokers, and enslaved Africans in the West Indies and Central America.
Here is a link to the application form:
https://www.hull.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research/phd/funded/mahogany-enslaved-africans-miskito-indigenous-people-at-chiswick-house-kenwood-and-marble-hill-london
Call for participation
The Institute of Development Studies is looking for people to record short videos about what climate justice means to them, and why it’s important. If you can get involved, please email Sophie Robinson at s.robinson@ids.ac.uk for more details and instructions. The videos will be shared via social media as part of the build-up to the COP26 climate conference.
Political ecology teaching resources
A series of short videos explaining the complexities of environmental governance is available:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGS78lExn0n2NJpqHw75bcVVj2UlVcNxS
The resources include a video on Peluso and Ribot’sclassic paper on the Theory of Access.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrlJQZMywTk&list=PLGS78lExn0n2NJpqHw75bcVVj2UlVcNxS&index=4&t=1s
Understanding “desertification” and pastoralism in the Sahel: A two-part
documentary film on European myths about the desert city of Timbuktu in West
Africa on the edge of the Sahara
Part 1 – African Eldorado or End of the World?
Part 2 – Where Water is Life and Milk is Food
https://www.uio.no/link/ffs-old/unimedia/produksjoner/timbuktu-dokumentarene.html#english
POLLEN 