Dear POLLEN Members and Friends,
This month we are delighted to introduce a new POLLEN node – the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. As always, we are also happy to share the latest publications, CfPs, and more from our lively community. If your node is keen to feature your work in the upcoming newsletters, please write to us at
politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com. It’s a great way to share and get dialogue around your work. We also welcome proposals for blog posts on the POLLEN blog – please contact us at the same email address with any ideas!
Also please check out the call for proposals for POLLEN Biennial Conference 2022 here: https://politicalecologynetwork.org/pollen-biannual-conference/pollen-2022/
With regards from your POLLEN Secretariat:
Sango Mahanty | Sarah Milne | Ratchada Arpornsilp
Getting to know your fellow POLLEN members
Each monthly newsletter includes a brief introduction to one of our many POLLEN nodes, to build connections across our community. This month we would like to introduce you to a new node in the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro.
Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro’s POLLEN node
Overview
This POLLEN node comprises the Laboratory of Economic Geography, Policy and Planning (LAGEP) and the Integrated Laboratory of Applied Physical Geography (LIGA) of the Department of Geography in the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ).
The node’s central research theme is the political ecology of peripheral industrialization. The industrialization of urban peripheries has meant their transformation into zones of environmental sacrifice. Based on the relationship between geography and political ecology, the intention is to investigate the impacts of industrial production in the peripheries of the world, especially in the poorest parts of Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro.
Key questions they work on include: What is the role of the sustainable development model in Brazil’s territorial and productive restructuring? What are the companies’ environmental protection and care strategies? What is the meaning of adopting sustainable development by industries? Research agendas include environmental changes, conflicts with traditional communities, and sustainable actions by companies.
Node members
Leandro Dias de Oliveira earned his Masters in Geography from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), PhD in Geography from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), and did Post-Doctoral research in Public Policy and Human Training in the UERJ. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in UFFRJ’s undergraduate and graduate courses in Geography. He is dedicated to studying society-nature relationships from the perspective of Economic Geography, with a focus on the adoption of sustainable development. He is the LAGEP coordinator and an editor of the Space and Economy: Brazilian Journal of Economic Geography.
Andrews José de Lucena has a Masters in Geography from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) and PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from UFRJ. He is an Associate Professor in Geography for undergraduate and graduate courses at UFRRJ. He works in Physical Geography (Atmospheric Sciences) with an emphasis on Urban Climatology. He is interested in environmental changes in the city and its various associated phenomena, such as the Urban Heat Island (ICU). He manages the website www.climatologia.com.br and coordinates the Integrated Laboratory of Applied Physical Geography.
Heitor Soares de Farias earned his Masters in Geography from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and PhD in Geography from the Federal Fluminense University (UFF). Since 2013, he has taught in higher education and is currently an Adjunct Professor in Geography for undergraduate and graduate courses at UFRRJ. He works with environmental planning based on geographical climatology and researches the health risk associated with climatic phenomena, such as islands of heat, rains and air pollution, mainly. He coordinates the Integrated Laboratory of Applied Physical Geography (LIGA)/UFRRJ.
André Santos da Rocha is a graduate in Geography from the Faculty of Philosophy, Science and Letters, Duque de Caxias, and did his PhD in Geography at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He is a professor, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at UFRRJ. He works in Human Geography, with a thematic focus on political and economic geography, and cooperation between Brazil-Africa-Latin America. He is editor of the Continentes Journal, UFRRJ, and coordinator of the Laboratory of Economic Geography, Policy and Planning (LAGEP).
Damaris Alencar de Farias has a Masters in Geography from UFRRJ. She is a chemistry technician from the Federal Technical School of Chemistry (EFTQ-RJ, currently IFRJ) and working at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) managing laboratories at the Johanna Döbereiner Biological Resources Center (CRB-JD). She has researched the impacts over two decades of privatization of water distribution in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is aslo a member of the Laboratory of Economic Geography, Policy and Planning (LAGEP).
Norma da Silva Rocha Maciel is a Forestry Engineer who graduated from UFRRJ and has a Master’s Degree in Environmental and Forestry Sciences (PPGCAF-UFRRJ). She holds a doctorate in Environmental and Forest Sciences from the same university. Currently, she develops projects in traditional communities with an emphasis on social technologies and the use of non-timber forest products to mitigate environmental impacts.
Letícia Mello de Medonça gained a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations at UFRRJ, followed by a scientific initiation scholarship from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for research in sustainable development (2016-2018). She monitors the university’s extension courses, organizes events, publications and presentations on award-winning research, and facilitates student representation. She is a member of the Laboratory of Economic Geography, Policy and Planning (LAGEP).
Victor Tinoco de Souza graduated in Geography and Environment from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), gained his Masters in Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture and Society from UFRRJ and PhD in Geography at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, PUC-Rio (2020). Currently, he is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Geography, UFRRJ, researching the socio-environmental resistances in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. He is a member of the Laboratory of Economic Geography, Policy and Planning (LAGEP).
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).”
PUBLICATIONS
Blogs
Morrison, R. 2021, ‘100% Carbon-free energy by 2035: Devil’s in the details’, Wall Street International Magazine, 1 June, <https://wsimag.com/economy-and-politics/65952-100-percent-carbon-free-energy-by-2035>.
Nielsen, K.B. 2021, ‘Land, agriculture, and dispossession in India: A comparative look at the ongoing farmers’ protests and the anti-SEZ movement’, Terra Nullius: Repossessing the existent, 19 May, <https://www.sum.uio.no/forskning/blogg/terra-nullius/kenneth-bo-nielsen/land-agriculture-and-dispossession-in-india.html>.
Books
Krasznai-Kovacs, E. (ed.) 2021. Politics and the environment in Eastern Europe. Open Book Publishers, <https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/1328>.
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., & Amoo-Adare, E. 2021. ‘The bi-polar waterfront: Paradoxes of contemporary shoreline- making in contemporary Accra and Colombo’, In P. Godfrey & M. Buchanan (eds.), Global Im-Possibilities: Exploring the Paradoxes of Just Sustainabilities. London: Zed Books/Bloomsbury.
Journal articles
Bercht, A., Hein, J. & Klepp, S. 2021, ‘Introduction to the special issue “Climate and marine justice -debates and critical perspectives, Geographica Helvetica, vol. 75, pp. 305-314, <https://gh.copernicus.org/articles/76/305/2021/>.
Bettini, G., Beuret, N., & Turhan, E. 2021, ‘On the Frontlines of Fear: Migration and Climate Change in the Local Context of Sardinia, Italy’, An International Journal for Critical Geographies, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 322-340,
<https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1838>.
Cavanagh, CJ. 2021, ‘Limits to (de)growth: Theorizing ‘the dialectics of hatchet and seed’ in emergent socio-ecological transformations’, Political Geography, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102479>.
Dunlap, A. 2021, ‘Book Review: The political economy of agrarian extractivism: Lessons from Bolivia by Ben McKay’, Journal of Agrarian Change, pp. 1-6, <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joac.12443>.
Dunlap, A., Søyland, LH, & Shokrgozar, S. 2021, ‘Debates in Post-Development and Degrowth’, Tvergastein, vol. 1, <https://www.tvergastein.com/special-publications>.
Gutiérrez-Zamora, V. 2021, ‘The coloniality of neoliberal biopolitics: Mainstreaming gender in community forestry in Oaxaca, Mexico,’ Geoforum, vol. 126, pp. 139-149,<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718521002256>.
Lai, HL. 2021, ‘Placing Land and Food Struggles in Agriculture-Industry Power Asymmetry: Insights from Wanbao Village, Taiwan’, Journal of Peasant Studies, <https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2021.1923009>.
Massé, F., Givá, N., & Lunstrum, E. 2021, ‘A feminist political ecology of wildlife crime: The gendered dimensions of a poaching economy and its impacts in Southern Africa’, Geoforum, vol. 126, pp. 205-214,<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718521002335>.
Rees. WE. 2021, ‘Growth through contraction: Conceiving an eco-economy,’ Real-world Economics Review, no. 96, <http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue96/Rees96.pdf>.
Rocha, AD., & De Oliveira, LD. 2020, ‘Para una ecología política del agua: análisis de la periferia metropolitana de Río de Janeiro (Brasil)’, Geography Notebooks, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 111-125, <https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/Geography-Notebooks/article/view/2129> <https://doi.org/10.7358/gn-2020-002-rool>.
Sánchez Vázquez, L., & Escalante Moreno, H. 2021, ‘Más allá de las Centrales Nucleares: Cartografía de Conflictos y Resistencias Frente a la Presencia Radiactiva en Andalucía (España)’, Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana Y Caribeña (HALAC) Revista De La Solcha, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 239-274, <https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2021v11i2.p239-274>,
<https://www.halacsolcha.org/index.php/halac/article/view/526>.
Schutter, MS., Hicks, CC., Phelps, J., & Waterton, C. 2021, ‘ The blue economy as a boundary object for hegemony across scales’, Marine Policy, vol. 132, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104673>.
Sören, K., Withanachchi, SS., Pathiranage, R., Withanachchi, CR., Gamage, DU., Missanka, TS., Warapitiya, CC., Nissanka, BM., Ranasinghe, NN., Senarathna, CD., Schleyer, C., & Thiel, A. 2021, ‘Human- Elephant Conflict in Sri Lanka: A Critical Review of Causal Explanations,’ Sustainability, vol. 13, no. 15,
<https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158625>.
Toncheva, S. & Fletcher, R. 2021, ‘From Conflict to Conviviality? Transforming Human-Bear Relations in Bulgaria,’ Frontiers in Conservation Science 2: special section on “Human-Wildlife Dynamics,”
<https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2021.682835/full#h13>.
Online workshop
Beyond Productivity: Reimagining Futures of Agriculture and Bioeconomy
Date and place
8 October 2021, 10:00 am-3:00 pm (CEST/UTC+2).
Registration: via email at batata@posteo.de
Politically dominant strategies in the fields of agricultural development and bioeconomy, even those which take Sustainable Development Goals seriously, stick to what might be called a ‘Productivity Paradigm’: increasing productivity is considered to be necessary to alleviate the rising biomass demand and the resulting competition on land use.
Still, there are visions of agriculture and bioeconomy which implicitly question a main pillar of the politically dominant positions on Sustainable Future: productivity increase. These visions are being proposed by politically subdominant stakeholder groups both in the Global North and the Global South. However, the fact that these alternative visions of agriculture imply reduction in productivity growth is often considered as an objection against these visions. For the critics, it seems to be inconceivable how the global demand for biomass could be justly satisfied, if the agricultural productivity will not increase.
More details:
http://batata-bioeconomy.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Beyond-Productivity_Workshop-Synopsis.pdf
Vacancies
Assistant Professor at Queen’s University
The Department of Global Development Studies (DEVS) at Queen’s University invites applications for a tenure-track position at the level of Assistant Professor in the field of Global Health and Development. To teach within the field of development studies, successful candidates would be able to address the relationship between health outcomes and contemporary political-economic and socio-cultural trends such as environmental change, urbanisation, new forms of agriculture and industry, migration patterns and shifts in public provisioning alongside the growing influence of the private and philanthropic sectors.
This position has an ideal start date of July 1, 2022. Candidates must have a PhD or equivalent degree completed at the start date of the appointment. The main criteria for selection are research excellence, and the promise of being an exceptional teacher/mentor. The successful candidate would have the ability to teach an introductory undergraduate course on Global Health and Development while also teaching upper-year and graduate courses on related themes.
For more information, please visit: https://www.queensu.ca/devs/global-health-and-development-assistant-professor-tenure-track-position-applications-due-26sept2021
Lecturer in Environment and Development at University of Leeds
The Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) in the School of Earth and Environment is looking for an enthusiastic and self-motivated environmental social scientist with a focus on environment and development.
SRI is an internationally leading centre for research in the environmental social sciences. SRI research specialisms include environment and development, business and organisations for sustainable societies, economics and policy for sustainability, energy and climate change mitigation, social and political dimensions of sustainability, and climate change adaptation, vulnerability and services. For this position, the applicant will work on cross-cutting issues such as agriculture and food systems, biodiversity and ecosystem services, cities, system resilience, responses to climate change, environmental and disaster risk management, climate finance or resource extraction/ mining.
For more information, please visit:
https://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=ENVEE1476
Deadline: 15 September 2021
Assistant Professor at Colorado State University
The Department of Political Science at Colorado State University (USA) is hiring an assistant professor in international relations with a focus on international/global environmental politics – please see https://jobs.colostate.edu/postings/90164
The Department has a programmatic focus in environmental politics at the doctoral level. Colorado State University, as a whole, emphasizes environmental/sustainability politics, offering many opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.
This is an entry-level tenure-track Assistant Professor position in International Relations with a specialization in international environmental politics. The Department is open with respect to theoretical orientation and methodological approaches. This is a full-time, nine-month appointment, beginning August 16, 2022.
Crowdfunding save mangrove campaign
This campaign aims to support comparative research with Black fishing associations living within mangrove habitats in Northern Ecuador and Northwestern Madagascar – further details are here: www.experiment.com
A series of introductory videos is available here in English (with Spanish subtitles):
https://vimeo.com/582381378/55b81ebfb4
In Spanish (with English subtitles): https://vimeo.com/579702459/1ea4faea44
And in French: https://vimeo.com/580107754/84e212894a
Short version (Spanish subtitles):
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/580110758/b0bf8b1c80
Land of the Five Drying Rivers
This documentary film explores the economic, social and ecological impacts of the Green (Black) revolution that happened in Punjab in the 60’s.
A matriarch in her 90s recounts her experiences with the introduction of genetically modified organisms to her homeland. Using her farming village as a case study, the film explores the social and environmental degradation wrought by seeds forced onto the people of northwest India.
Please visit: https://dceff.org/film/punjab-land-of-the-five-drying-rivers/
POLLEN 