Panel Conveners: Cristina Espinosa (Assistant Professor) & Zabrina Welter (PhD Candidate)
From the Chair for Sustainability Governance, Institute of Environmental Social Sciences and Geography, University of Freiburg
Panel Description:
Throughout the world, new patterns of resource exploration, extraction and nature appropriation are rapidly emerging in the name of sustainable, low-carbon, and peaceful futures (Fairhead, Leach, & Scoones, 2012; Church & Crawford, 2018). Examples range from the exacerbated extraction of ‘transition minerals’ in the Global South that facilitate the shift towards low-carbon economies principally in the Global North (Jowitt, Mudd, & Thompson, 2020; Parra, Lewis, & Ali, 2021) to numerous international greening schemes for protecting biodiversity hotspots (Fairhead, Leach, & Scoones, 2012; Woods, 2019). At the same time, these trends have consolidated as a widespread government strategy for attaining sustainable development, particularly in Latin America (Arsel, Hogenboom, & Pellegrini, 2016). However, the rapid expansion of resource appropriation and extraction touches ground in sensitive environments populated by indigenous and other marginalized populations already affected by complex local settings (Sonter, Dade, Watson, & Valenta, 2020). As one can expect, these developments have dire environmental justice implications (Temper, del Bene, & Martinez-Alier, 2015). They bring along human rights violations, environmental damage, biodiversity loss, clashing imaginaries of the ‘good life’, and bitter conflicts with varying degrees of intensity and violence (Leifsen, Gustafsson, Guzmán-Gallegos, & Schilling-Vacaflor, 2017). Thus governance factors and socio-environmental conflicts will crucially shape development trajectories based on the appropriation of nature and the extraction of natural resources over the next decades (Jowitt et al., 2020).
In connection to the above described trends, excellent Political Ecology research has been conducted on themes such as resistance and contestation (e.g. Bebbington & Bury, 2013; Engels & Dietz, 2017), and participation in natural resource governance (Leifsen et al., 2017). While power has been a key analytical focus in these studies, the links between power, knowledge and expertise intertwined with socio-ecological conflicts and natural resource governance processes (e.g. Escobar, 1998; Forsyth, 2015, 2020; Nightingale, 2005) are less common though they seem to be slowly but steadily gaining academic attention (see e.g. Conde, 2014; Kirsch, 2014; Li, 2015; Sánchez Vázquez, 2019). Astonishingly, legal processes through which citizens, NGOs and governments seek redress for environmental injustices are relatively under-explored in this emerging line of inquiry and among Political Ecologists more broadly. Yet, legal processes constitute one of the most visible sites for political tensions involving contemporary socio-ecological conflicts and contested natural resource governance arrangements (Vela-Almeida & Torres, 2021). They are privileged sites where different actors seek redress for environmental injustices suffered by human and non-human subjects. For example, in the context of extractive projects, in countries like Ecuador, lawsuits are being brought forward for alleged violations of consultation rights and the rights of nature (Vela-Almeida & Torres, 2021). Similarly, in Alaska courtrooms are venues in which government decisions regarding zoning and environmental permitting are challenged by actors who invoke indigenous rights and non-human rights and wield multiple environmental knowledges (Panikkar, 2020; Tollefson & Panikkar, 2020). Likewise, environmental liability litigation is becoming a promising practice to remedy biodiversity loss (Phelps et al., 2021). Another interesting example can be seen in conflict-affected countries like Colombia, where environmental damages caused during the armed conflict, such as those related to illegal extractive activities, are expected to be remediated as part of transitional justice processes in the post-conflict context (Hulme, 2017; Gómez-Betancur, 2020; Ramírez Gutiérrez & Saavedra Eslava, 2020). All these legal processes require the articulation and recognition of caused environmental injustices, the assignment of responsibility, and the establishment of appropriate measures to redress harm. Thus, these processes withhold the opportunity of formal and public recognition of multiple knowledge systems, values and rights (Panikkar, 2020; Phelps et al., 2021).
In this panel, we seek to gain a deep and critical understanding of such power/knowledge dynamics in legal spheres and processes initiated to advance environmental justice objectives linked to contested natural resource governance. We invite contributions that examine and reflect about how established discourses and procedures for the production and verification of what counts as legitimate knowledge in the governance of natural resources are maintained, destabilized, or modified and thereby shape particular power relationships between governments, corporations and citizens with varying implications for environmental justice. Likewise, we would appreciate contributions that explore the implications that the privileging of particular knowledge systems and administrative rationalities within legal contexts has for citizen engagement in contested natural resource governance processes. Contributions to this panel can consider the following research questions:
· How are different types of knowledge and expertise adjudicated in legal processes initiated to advance environmental justice objectives in connection to contested natural resource projects or governance decisions?
· Which types of knowledge and expertise are rendered authoritative and which are rendered inappropriate in these legal contexts?
· Who represents and embodies this authoritative knowledge and expertise and who represents and embodies the subjugated knowledge and expertise?
· How do processes of racialization/gendering/class and intersecting social relations of power enter into the construction of and disqualification in categories of ‘expertise’ in legal processes?
· In which ways do marginalized actors negotiate and navigate expertise barriers and epistemic hierarchies in courtrooms?
· What knowledge politics emerge in courtrooms when court-cases revolt around non-anthropocentric rights, e.g. rights of nature?
Please send your abstract and additional information to cristina.espinosa@envgov.uni-freiburg.de and zabrina.welter@envgov.uni-freiburg.de as follows:
Name, affiliation, presentation title (maximum 20 words), abstract (maximum 250 words), and 3 keywords
Submission deadline: December 10, 2021
References
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