Following the announcement that the Third Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network, Contested Natures: Power, Politics, Prefiguration, has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are happy to announce that POLLEN20 will be moving, in a restructured form, to a virtual platform, and the new dates will be the 22nd – 25th of September 2020. Please bear with us as we update the information on the conference site. The organizing group will be getting in touch with session organizers about changes soon. More soon on, https://pollen2020.wordpress.com/
Category: News
May 2020 Updates
Dear POLLEN Friends,
Thank you for sending us your updates this month – again, we have a number of exciting blog posts, articles, special issues, and podcasts to share! We are also introducing a new segment to the newsletter, which will help us get to know our members better. And finally, we also share the preliminary results of our survey on POLLEN’s role as a supportive network.
Best wishes,
POLLEN Secretariat
NOTE: the updates below are a copy of the original newsletter, and therefore might not contain all hyperlinks and media. To access the original with full content, as well as to see previous newsletters, follow this link: https://us20.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=71814a42a0d2d8f390cbee1be&id=3fe97edf35
| Getting to know your fellow POLLEN members From now on, every monthly newsletter will include a brief introduction to one of the many POLLEN nodes. We hope this will help build better connections between our community. Our first ‘virtual visit’ is with the ‘Political Ecology Research Group’ at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies of the University of Dodoma, Tanzania. Enjoy!  Short group bioWe, the ‘Political Ecology Research Group’ at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies of the University of Dodoma, study political ecologies in both rural and urban spaces of Tanzania. In rural areas, we research on underlying processes and structures that influence environmental degradation and resulting policy interventions such as creation of protected areas in arid lands, savanna, miombo woodlands and coastal forests. We also seek to understand discursive and material contexts of the policy interventions and their social consequences. In urban areas, we study spatial and temporal changes in urban landscapes as influenced by various factors such as climate change, rapid urbanisation and gentrification. We are an interdisciplinary group, composed of Augustine Mwakipesile, Bupe Kabigi, Enock Makupa, Happiness Nnko, Joan Tang’are, Kelvin Haule, Wilhelm Kiwango, Teddy Philemon, Ng’winamila Kasongi, Said Khamis and Mathew Bukhi Mabele. We possess expertise in conservation social sciences, land cover/change sciences, urban planning, GIS and remote sensing and conservation biology. Fun-fact Did you know that on 8-10 July 2014, our department hosted the first ever international conference on ‘green economy’ in the South in Tanzania? It was a sequence to a series of sister conferences held in Europe and North America, on variegated contexts and effects of the ‘green economy’ agenda (e.g. the Grabbing Green and Nature Inc). |
| Inputs for Literature Lists, Documentaries and Podcasts Our page with Literature Lists has received little attention and input. We have received many recommendations for political ecology related documentaries and podcasts for the site, but are also continuously trying to expand the list. If you have any suggestions for any of these sites, please send them to politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com |
| Reminder: New Page: POLLEN Online As a way of trying to help the POLLEN community and others adapt to the measures taken to slow down the spread of COVID19, we put out a request for tips on resources that can inspire/help us moving conference panels, workshops, teaching, etc. online. We’ve received some great inputs already and published them here. If you know of any other resources, please share them with us! |
| Promoting POLLEN collaboration Do you write with other members of POLLEN? In attempts to promote collaboration across the POLLEN nodes, please consider putting the following statement in the acknowledgements of your paper: ‘This article represents work conducted as part of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN).’ When you do, please let us know about it so we can tweet it out on @PolEcoNet and get it in the next newsletter! |
| POLLEN Survey Results Thank you for the many responses to our poll about POLLEN’s role as a supportive network. Besides the responses you see on the graph below, we also received a number of other, very useful recommendations. We will now process these and think about how we can best implement your suggestions!  |
| Special Issue: Stabilizing a policy: reproducing REDD+ A special section has been published in the Journal of Political Ecology entitled “Stabilizing a policy: reproducing REDD+”. The section includes an introduction and five papers – see here below – and a brief introduction to it can be found here. Introduction: Policy persistence: REDD+ between stabilization and contestation by Adeniyi Asiyanbi and Jens Friis Lund – Reducing deforestation in Colombia while building peace and pursuing business as usual extractivism? by Torsten Krause – Can the subaltern protect forests? REDD+ compliance, depoliticization and Indigenous subjectivities by Franziska Müller – REDD+ policy translation and storylines in Laos by Sabaheta Ramcilovik-Suominen and Iben Nathan – Governing the ungovernable: contesting and reworking REDD+ in Indonesia by Abidah B. Setyowati – Transformation is what you expect, models are what you get: REDD+ and models in conservation and development by Adeniyi Asiyanbi and Kate Massarella |
| Blog posts, articles, podcasts Gert Van Hecken and Vijay Kolinjivadi: “Planet of the dehumanized: Environmentalism that does not center structural inequality is a dangerous nod to eco-fascists and eco-modernists alike.” (May 7, 2020) Uneven Earth Recent episodes of The Finding Sustainability podcast: – 036: A social anthropological view on conservation and interdisciplinarity with Liana Chua – 037: Pracademics and patchiness with Jessica Cockburn – 038: Case studies, polycentricity and governance of the Great Barrier Reef with Tiffany Morrison – 039: Water, waste, Covid, and the invisibility of life support systems with Raul Pacheco-Vega – 040: Amplification processes and incorporating local knowledge in sustainability research with David Lam Dunlap, Alexander. (2020) “SDGs and ‘Household’ Governance: The Neglected Cost of Extractive Development,” Terra Nullius: Repossessing the existent Correa-Cabrera, Guadalupe & Dunlap, Alexander. (2020) “México y el Planeta de los Humanos,” Sin Embargo Mariel Aguilar-Støen and Jostein Jakobsen: Producing Food, Producing Zoonosis: The Political Ecology of the COVID-19 Pandemic (May 4, 2020) Medium Vijay Kolinjivadi & Ashish Kothari No Harm Here is Still Harm There: The Green New Deal and the Global South (I) (May 20, 2020) Jam Hoor |
| Conferences, webinars UrbanA Open Webinar: COVID-19, Justice and Sustainability in Cities. When: June 5 @ 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm (CET) To register and get the event link, visit this page. Global Degrowth Day Conversation: “Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide”. When: June 6, at 11 am (CET). See event info here. EXALT Webinar: Degrowth and Post-Extractivism – A Good Life for All? When: Friday June 5th at 14.00-15.30 EEST. Access event here. |
| Other news New website/resource concerned with the politics of deep sea mining: https://deepseasthinking.org/ |
IGI/IAS Webinar: Gender Based Violence During Fieldwork: Exploring experiences of women researchers
Female researchers can suffer gender-based violence while conducting fieldwork. Register now to join a special Zoom webinar that explores experiences and coping strategies.
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zPxRa0ncTt6N0t2y9bTjow
EXALT Webinar: Degrowth and Post-Extractivism – A Good Life for All?
This is a repost of the original EXALT post that can be accessed here.
When? Friday June 5th at 14.00-15.30 EEST
Where? Online via Zoom, streaming link will be published soon
Chair: Dr. Ossi Ollinaho, Post-doctoral researcher at Development Studies, University of Helsinki, member of both EXALT and HELSUS
Speaker: TBC
Read more#DegrowthTalks: Green New Deal and political economy of degrowth
The UK Degrowth Summer School has been holding a series of online talks on degrowth. On the 27th of May, Stefania Barca, Riccardo Mastini and Timothée Parrique will hold the next talk. The event is free and open to all, and will be streamed live via the Degrowth Talks youtube channel.
