Category: News

Dear POLLEN Members and Friends, 

This month we are delighted to introduce another POLLEN node – the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. 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! 

 
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 the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol.

University of Bristol’s POLLEN node 

Overview

The Political Ecology Research Group is based in the School of Geographical Sciences but aims to bring together academic staff and postgraduate research students from across the University of Bristol with an interest in the knowledge dynamics and power struggles animating contemporary human-environment relations. The group welcomes all those committed to advancing the critical scholarship of the processes by which nonhuman natures are conceptualised, mapped, governed, and reconstituted. Its current members’ interests span diverse issues including climate change, biodiversity conservation, energy cultures and transition, environmental risk, hazards and resilience, and resource making and extraction. The node aims to facilitate exchange and discussion on these and other related topics through lunchtime seminars organised during term time, given by a mix of external guest speakers and internal members of staff.
  
Node members 

Ed Atkins is a lecturer in human geography at the University of Bristol. Ed’s research spans environmental justice, sustainable energy transitions, and citizen engagement in responding to climate and ecological emergencies. He has previously published work on opposition to hydropower in Brazil and retains an interest in how the green credentials of renewable energies are contested. His current work includes research into the role of place-based perspectives in a just energy transition and the political ecologies of digital infrastructure.   

Negar Elodie Behzadi is a lecturer in Human Geography and the co-convenor of the Political Ecology group at the University of Bristol. Negar is a feminist political geographer interested in how intersectional forms of exclusion and marginalisation are (re)produced and contested in stressed environments. Her research brings the insights of feminist geography and the sensibilities of an ethnographer to topics related to resource extraction and violence, migration, labour, gender, childhood &youth, and Muslimness in Central Asia (Tajikistan) and France. Negar is also a documentary filmmaker who uses visual, embodied, and arts-based methodologies in the study of marginalization and exclusion. 

Molly Bond recently submitted her PhD with the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. Her academic focus spans emerging and changing practices and understandings of sustainability in agri-food production systems. Her PhD research has explored the recent expansion of ‘lab-grown’ or biosynthetic ‘natural’ products, and the contested and contrasting way in which the innovations are being framed, imagined, understood, and experienced between the industrial biotech promoters and the small-scale farmers, knowers, and growers of the original natural product. She hopes to expand this research into the context of opening up diverse pathways to ‘zero carbon’ agri-food production with an emphasis on the importance of the socio-ecological as opposed to the purely technological underpinnings of future agri-food production agendas and practices. 

Lauren Blake is a Lecturer in Human Geography. With a background in anthropology and human geography, she focuses on agri-food systems, with experience predominantly in the UK and Latin America and often working with interdisciplinary teams. Her research examines the interconnections between the health of people, society, animals, and the environment. Employing concepts of agroextractivism, food justice, and geographies of identity, she researches topics ranging from policy, farming practices, agriculture-conservation tensions, activism, malnutrition, precarity, and global development. 

Mark Jackson is Senior Lecturer of Postcolonial Geographies in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. He teaches postcolonial and decolonial studies, contemporary social theory, and critical geographies of nature and environment. The aim of his current research is to rethink the political and ethical meaning of critique within relational ecologies and under the terms of decoloniality, political ontology, and posthumanism. He edited Coloniality, Ontology, and the Question of the Posthuman (Routledge), is series editor for Routledge Research on Decoloniality and New Postcolonialisms, and is currently writing a monograph called Decolonising Critique. 

Jaskiran Kaur Chohan is an interdisciplinary political ecologist. Her research interests focus on food politics from a system and intersectional perspective, including agroecology, alternative farming systems, and rural resistance movements. She has worked and published on sustainable development in Latin America and the UK, the emergence of rural feminist movements, and agroecology transitions. During her PhD she researched the contestation between industrial farming and agroecology in two Zonas de Reserva Campesina, Colombia to understand how rural communities construct sustainable alternatives amidst conflict. She is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Bristol, researching tensions between peasant livelihoods and conservation policies in the mountainous region of Boyacá, Colombia.  

Naomi Millner is a senior lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Bristol who explores the knowledge politics surrounding the making and management of global ‘environments’ in the context of changing agendas for sustainability and terrains of conflict. Naomi’s work particularly explores how the technologies and economies of international conservation are becoming a vehicle for the militarisation of conflicted areas – but also how rural communities are using some of the same technologies (e.g., drones) to defend their rights to tenure and alternative visions of environmental futures. In July 2021 she co-organised an international workshop called “Drone Ecologies” that brought together interdisciplinary experts, including political ecologists, to explore how drone technologies are being used in biodiversity conservation, and what their risks and affordances might be. 

James Palmer is a lecturer in Environmental Governance based in the School of Geographical Sciences and the co-convenor of the Political Ecology group at the University of Bristol. His research examines resource-making practices associated with new bioenergy economies and infrastructures, the relationships between nonhuman (especially vegetal) natures, labour and value production, and the politics of environmental governance processes relating to carbon dioxide removal and ‘nature-based’ climate solutions. 

Adriana Suárez Delucchi is a Geographer specialising in the analysis of environmental management institutions. Her doctoral research from the University of Bristol explored the contributions of feminist sociology ‘Institutional Ethnography’ to the study of community water management in rural Chile. Her analysis maps out concrete avenues to negotiate a more sustainable and just water institution. Her research focuses on natural resource management institutions at different scales (projects, communities, nation state, and transnational discourses and practices). Her aim is to identify, address and challenge the marginalisation of rural and indigenous groups from dominant management arrangements. 

Joe Williams is a lecturer in Human Geographer, based in the School of Geographical Sciences. His research aims to understand the changing relationships between the environment and society using theoretical perspectives from political ecology, urban studies, development, and political economy (particularly financialization). His work focuses on the politics of water and energy infrastructure as a lens for critically understanding social and ecological challenges, such as climate change. His current work looks at how infrastructure corridors are changing the geographies of global development. He has a long-standing research interest in the proliferation of seawater desalination as a source of ‘new’ water in diverse contexts around the world, particularly in cities. 

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 

Books

Bourblanc, M., Bouleau, G., & Deuffic, P. 2021, ‘The role of expert reporting in binding together policy problem and solution definition processes’, in P. Zittoun, F. Fischer, & N. Zahariadis (eds.), The political formulation of policy solutions, Bristol: Bristol Policy Press, pp. 73-91.

Carter, ED., & Moseley, WG. 2021. ‘COVID-19 and the Political Ecology of Global Food and Health Systems’, in G.J. Andrews, V.A. Crooks, J.R. Pearce, & J.P. Messina (eds.), COVID-19 and similar futures: Global perspectives on health geography. Berlin: Springer, pp. 39-45.  

Farrelly, T., Taffel, S., & Shaw, I. (eds.). 2021. Plastic legacies: pollution, persistence, and politics. AU Press, <https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781771993272.01&gt;.

Moseley, W.G. 2021. “Political agronomy 101: An introduction to the political ecology of industrial cropping systems’, in A. Gasparatos & A. Abubakari (eds.), The Political Ecology of Industrial Crops, London: Earthscan/Routledge, pp. 25-44. 

Blogs

Lai, J. Y. 2021, ‘Engaging migrants in natural resource management: Lessons from Indonesia’, Land Portal, 15 July, <https://landportal.org/blog-post/2021/07/engaging-migrants-natural-resource-management-lessons-indonesia>.

Morrison, R. 2021, ‘Ecological economic growth: reversing climate change’, Wall Street International Magazine, 1 July, <https://wsimag.com/economy-and-politics/ 66241-ecological-economic-growth-reversing-climate-change>.

Setyowati, A. 2021, ‘Is carbon neutrality possible for coal addicted Indonesia?’, Channel News Asia, 23 July, <https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/indonesia-coal-pln-carbon-net-zero-renewable-climate-change-15269506>.

Journal articles 

Bluwstein, J. 2021, ‘Colonizing landscapes/landscaping colonies: from a global history of landscapism to the contemporary landscape approach in nature conservation’, Journal of Political Ecology,  <https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2850>.

Bluwstein, J. 2021, ‘Transformation is not a metaphor’, Political Geography. 
<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102450>. 

Büscher, B. 2021, ‘The nonhuman turn: critical reflections on alienation, entanglement and nature under capitalism’, Dialogues in Human Geography,<https://brambuscher.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/bucc88scher-nonhuman-turn-final-2021.pdf>&nbsp;

Dunlap, A. 2021, ‘Review: A Case for Degrowth’, Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 398-402, <https://www.interfacejournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Interface-13-1-reviews-updated.pdf>.

Fent, A., Gibb, C., Ishihara, S., Holler, J., & Moseley, WG. 2021. ‘Confronting the climate crisis: Slow geographies and relational approaches to international research’, Professional Geographer, <https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2021.1915827>.

Nour, SE., Elaydi, H., & Hussein, H. 2021, ‘Thirst revolution: practices of contestation and mobilisation in rural Egypt’, Contemporary Levant,<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20581831.2021.1952003>. 

Nygren, A. 2021, ‘Water and power, water’s power: State-making and socionature shaping volatile rivers and riverine people in Mexico’, World Development, vol. 146, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105615>.

Saxena, A., Dutta, A., Fischer, HW., Saxena, AK., & Jantz, P. 2021, ‘Forest livelihoods and a “green recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights and emerging research priorities from India’, Forest Policy and Economics,<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102550>.

Simon, N., Raubenheimer, K., Urho, N., Unger, S., Azoulay, D., Farrelly, T., Sousa, J. Asselt, H., Carlini, G., Sekomo, C., Schulte, M.L., Busch, P., Wienrich, N., & Weiand, L. 2021, ‘A binding global agreement to address the life cycle of plastics’, Science, vol. 373, no. 6550, pp. 43-47, <https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi9010>.

Staddon, S., Byg, A., Chapman, M., Fish, R., Hague, A. & Horgan, K. 2021, ‘The Value of Listening and Listening for Values in Nature Conservation’, Journal of People and Nature, <https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10232>.

CfPs

Social Innovation Conference  

The platform Social Innovation at TU Delft | Technology, Policy and Management are organizing a conference: “Social Innovation: Next steps in the energy transition” on 18-19 November. 
This free online conference is open to a wide audience and open for practitioners and scientists around the world. A panel on “Energy Transitions in Asia: Governance, Justice and Social Innovation” is soliciting papers.  

Deadline for submission: 8 September 

All proposals must be made via the online link form and put note to be included in the panel. Paper  presentation should be approximately 15 minutes long, and  proposals should consist of a title and abstract of 350 words.  

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact: A.B.Setyowati@tudelft.nl. 
You can find more information about topics, deadlines and registration here:  https://lnkd.in/etSB8xW
 

Special issue: 
“A Social Contract of Conservation? Unpacking struggles over legitimacy in Latin America’s protected areas” 

On behalf of Debates a Journal of Sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP), is sharing the most recent Call for Papers. This is a special issue titled “A Social Contract of  Conservation? Unpacking struggles over legitimacy in Latin America’s protected areas”, edited by PhD Mattias Borg Rasmussen  (University of Copenhagen) and Dr. Deborah Delgado Pugley (PUCP). 

Following thematic and contextual focus cover: 

• Latin American “natural” territories conservation 
• Andean region “natural” territories conservation 
• Territorial projects in competition with livelihood and conservation projects 
• Power relations and legitimation disputes in conservation projects 
• NGOs, State institutions and international organizations interplay 

Deadline: 12 September 2021 
Publication: 15 December 2021 
Submission: revistadebates@pucp.edu.pe
Guideline: https://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/debatesensociologia/normas_autores

Other news items

Sentientism 

Want a philosophy or worldview that’s grounded in reality and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly humans and other animals)? Then you might find Sentientism interesting. It’s “evidencce, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.” In this podcast, you’ll hear about “what’s real” and “what matter” from a wide range of celebrities, academics, activists, writers and interested lay people. Find out more at https://sentientism.info/ or join the open-to-all, global community groups, like: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism 
The podcast is accessible here:
<https://pod.link/1540408008/episode/a1d708c5778ad2906453c8ebeb774829>
 

Postponement of Conviviality: A nearly carbon-neutral conference  

The Conference is co-hosted by Massey University Political Ecology Research Centre (PERC) and Wageningen University Centre for Space, Place, and Society (CSPS). In light of pandemic events taking place around the world and particularly with family, friends, and colleagues in India, the decision has been made to postpone the conference until 4-10 October 2021.
 

Webinar: Working towards a global plastic pollution treaty: Process and possibilities 

This webinar will discuss why a growing number of countries have indicated support for a plastic pollution  treaty and  what it could look like. Dr. Farrelly is an environmental anthropologist with research expertise in the political ecology of plastic pollution including national, regional, and international plastic pollution policy; product stewardship; waste colonialism; and related social and environmental justice. She is co-founder of the New Zealand Product Stewardship Council and the Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance and has been a member of UNEA’s Expert Group and the United Nations Environment Programme’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Marine Litter and Microplastics since 2017.

Presented by: Trisia Farrelly of Massey University 
Date/Time: Tuesday, 17 August, 4 pm US EDT/1 pm US PDT/8 pm UTC 
Co-sponsors: OCTO (EBM Tools Network, The Skimmer, OpenChannels, MPA News, MarineDebris.info) 
Registerhttps://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MOZu21hESkCPBiLlbuy3Lg 

[If you are unable to access Zoom, you can view a livestream at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPBHFN-LvAPNqTC6MZmVNVg at the time of the webinar.] 
 

New Namibia research project historicising conservation policy and practice 

Sian Sullivan (Bath Spa University, UK), Ute Dieckmann (University of Cologne, Germany), and Selma Lendelvo (University of Namibia) are collaborating on a research project drawing on political ecology (amongst other approaches) to understand changing conservation policy and practice for an iconic conservation area in Namibia. Etosha-Kunene Histories proposes a multivocal and historical analysis that contributes new thinking on colonialism, indigeneity and ‘natural history’ in Namibia. (www.etosha-kunene-histories.net) 

It aims to support laws and practice in biodiversity conservation to more fully recognise the diversity of pasts, cultures  and natures constituting this internationally valued region. It is funded through a bilateral scheme of the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and the German Research Foundation, and is supported by Namibia’s National Commission on Research, Science and Technology and Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.  

Dear POLLEN Members and Friends, 

This month we are happy to introduce a new POLLEN node – the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia. As always, we are also happy to share the latest publications from our lively community, CfPs, vacancies, and more.  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! 

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 the many POLLEN nodes to help build connections across our community. This month we would like to introduce you to one of our newest nodes: the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia. 

University of Western Australia’s POLLEN node 

Overview

The POLLEN node at the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia (UWA) brings together faculty members, early career researchers, and graduate students. We live and work on unceded Noongar Whadjukland, at the edge of the Indian Ocean, in the most isolated major city in the world. Western Australia’s economy largely is based on resource extraction. The destruction of some of the world’s oldest cultural sites is ongoing, including a site that showed human occupancy dating back 46 thousand years–destroyed in 2020 to access iron ore. In this context, the group covers diverse elements of political ecology, including interdisciplinary scholars working in geography, international relations, political economy, media, anthropology, and sociology. Our POLLEN node here has regional expertise in Western Africa, Southern Africa, the Himalaya, South-East Asia, Brazil, and, of course, Australia. They plan on hosting university, city, and (eventually) Australia-wide events.
  
Node members 

Alexander E Davis is a lecturer in international relations at the University of Western Australia, where he teaches foreign policy, international relations theory, and global environmental politics. His research looks at international politics from critical, postcolonial, and ecological perspectives, particularly in South Asia and the Himalaya. He is particularly interested in how borders, state-making geopolitical disputes effect local peoples and ecologies in the Himalaya. As such, he is currently writing a research monograph, The Geopolitics of Melting Mountains: An International Political Ecology of the Himalaya (Palgrave, 2020). He is head of the Australian Himalaya Research Network.  

Alicea Garcia recently completed her PhD with the Department of Geography and Planning at The University of Western Australia. Her work spans critical scholarship on climate change adaptation, political ecology, climate justice, and transformation. Her PhD research investigated how uneven relations of power in Ghana maintain social inequalities and differential capacities to adapt to climate change in rural communities. Alicea is particularly interested in engaging with diverse stakeholders through participatory methods and creative approaches to co-learning. She is currently collaborating on a Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) project focused on (re)negotiating power to enhance resilience to climate change. 

Catie Gressier is an Australian Research Council (DECRA) Fellow in Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Western Australia. Catie’s research examines settler descendants’ environmental engagements in Australia and Botswana, with a focus on foodways, interspecies relations, tourism, and health and illness. Her current interest is in rare and heritage breed livestock farming across Australia. She is an Editorial Board Member of Anthropological Forum, a Director of the Rare Breeds Trust of Australia, and a former University of Melbourne MacArthur Fellow.  

Charan Bal is a Lecturer in Political Science at the School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia. His research interests broadly lie in the areas of politics, governance, and development in Southeast Asia. He is interested in how economic development and political conflict influence the governance of transnational issues such as labour migration and climate change. His current projects include a comparative study of multilevel climate change governance in the EU and ASEAN, the proliferation of private disclosure-based climate initiatives in Singapore and Indonesia, and an assessment of Migration-for-Development programs across Southeast Asia. 

Clare Mouat is a lecturer in Geography at the University of Western Australia. Her work champions growing and greening democracy by rethinking community and via transformative governance innovation. As a scholar-storyteller for just, care-full, healthy, and inclusive cities and places, she is passionate about co-producing feasible and radically progressive responses to the local and global challenges and crises facing us, our families, and seven million of our closest neighbours. This means understanding the ethics, politics, plans, roadblocks and exploring the various strategies and roadmaps towards the kinds of places where we want to live, work, and play. 

Greg Acciaioli is Senior Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology and Sociology at The University of Western Australia. Current research foci include the interface of the Indigenous peoples’ movement with resource contestations in Sulawesi and Borneo, particularly those concerning the impact of national parks and other protected areas, a critical assessment of the World Bank’s Social Capital Initiative, and the Village Law in Indonesia in the context of the current regime’s new developmentalism, farmer innovation from below in the context of new agricultural regulatory regimes in Indonesia, and the adaptation of Bajau identities under the impact of conservation and securitization upon Bajau Laut in Sabah, Malaysia, especially in regard to the consequences of their statelessness. 

Karen Paiva Henrique is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Western Australia. Her work lies at the intersection of climate adaptation, urban development, and multiple dimensions of justice. Dr Henrique’s PhD research examined the politics of flood adaptation in São Paulo, Brazil, demonstrating how state practices entwine with exclusionary development trajectories while sketching more inclusive and sustainable approaches from below. Her current work investigates how people in Western Australia make individual and collective decisions and trade-offs to protect the many things they value against the multifaceted socio-ecological impacts of the global climate crisis. 

Katarina Damjanov is senior lecturer in digital media and communication design at the University of Western Australia. Katarina’s research spans media and cultural studies and social studies of science and technology, revolving around considerations of digital technologies, the governance of media infrastructures and the environmental impact of technological progress. Her recent work situates these inquiries in outer space and features in journals such Science, Technology & Human Values, Space and Culture, Environment and Planning D, Mobilities, and Space Policy.  

Linda Wilson is a PhD candidate (Geography) at UWA. Linda had a 20-year career in the natural resource management and renewable energy sectors before returning to academia. Her PhD research into beekeeper resource insecurity funded by the CRC for Honey Bee Products is focussed on the interplay between natural resource management and sustainable livelihoods. Her sustainability research approach uses historical ecology and economic geography to develop a system understanding of the emergent phenomenon in the case study population of Western Australia’s commercial beekeepers. 

Petra Tschakert is the Centenary Professor in Rural Development in the Department of Geography and Planning, University of Western Australia. She is trained as a human-environment geographer and conducts research at the intersection of political ecology, climate change adaptation, environmental/ climate/ mobility/ multispecies justice, and livelihood security. Her current work explores intangible harm in the context of climate change, with emphasis on poverty, vulnerability, and inequalities, and how citizens make trade-offs between the many things they value and, collectively, negotiate resilient trajectories through the climate crisis. Prof. Tschakert combines critical social science insights with grounded, participatory methods for collective learning and social change. 

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

Books

Morrison, R. 2021, The green republic, Waterside Productions, California.

Shapiro-Garza, L., Kolinjivadi, V., Van Hecken, G., Windey, C., & Casolo, J.J. 2021. ‘Praxis in resource geography: Tensions between engagement and critique in the (un)making of ecosystem services’, in M. Himley, E. Havice, & G. Valdivia (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Critical Resource Geography. Routledge, pp. 236-247. 

Sullivan, S. & Ganuses, W.S. 2021, ‘Densities of meaning in west Namibian landscapes: genealogies, ancestral agencies, and healing’, in U. Dieckmann (ed.), Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 139-191.

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&gt;. 

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&gt;. 

Journal articles 

Arora-Jonsson, S., Colfer, CP., & Gonalez-Hidalgo, M. 2021, ‘Seeing the Quiet Politics in Unquiet Woods: A different vantage point for a future forest agenda’, Human Ecology, <https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-021-00233-0>. 

Arora-Jonsson, S., & Larsson, O. 2021, ‘Lives in limbo: Migrant integration and rural governance in Sweden’, Journal of Rural Studies, vol. 82, pp. 19-28, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.01.010>.

Boucher, J.L., Garfield T.K., Gina R.O., & Mark S.M. 2021, ‘From the suites to the streets: Examining the range of behaviors and attitudes of international climate activists’, Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 72, 
<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101866>. 

Dressler, W. 2021, ‘Defending lands and forests: NGO histories, everyday struggles, and extraordinary violence in the Philippines’. Critical Asian Studies, pp. 1-32,  <https://www-tandfonline-com/doi/full/10.1080/14672715.2021.1899834>. 

Dunlap, A. 2021, ‘Renewable Energy and the War of Progress’, The Peace Chronicle, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 42-51,<https://www.peacejusticestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Climate.pdf>. 

Fair, H. 2021, ‘Playing with the Anthropocene: Board game imaginaries of islands, nature, and empire’, Island Studies Journal. Publication ahead of print: pp. 43-59, <https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.165>. 

Hope, J. 2021, ‘Conservation in the Pluriverse: Anti-capitalist struggle, knowledge from resistance and the ‘repoliticisation of nature’ in the TIPNIS, Bolivia’, Geoforum, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.04.006>. 

Jakobsen, J. 2021, ‘New food regime geographies: Scale, state, labor’, World Development, vol. 145, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105523>. 

Lai, H.L. 2021, ‘Foregrounding the Community: Geo-Historical Entanglements of Community Energy, Environmental Justice, and Place in Taihsi Village, Taiwan’, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 
<https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211000745&gt;. 

Levain, A., Barthélémy, C., Bourblanc, M., Douguet, J-M., Euzen, A., & Souchon, Y. 2020, ‘Green out of the blue, or how (not) to deal with overfed oceans. An analytical review of coastal eutrophication and social conflict’, Environment & Society: Advances in Research, vol. 11, pp. 115-142,<https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/environment-and-society/11/1/ares110108.xml>. 

Machen, R., & Nost, E. 2021, ‘Thinking algorithmically: The making of hegemonic knowledge in climate governance’, Transactions of the Institute of the British Geographers, vol. 1, pp. 1-15, <https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12441>. 

Mostafanezhad, M., & Dressler, W. 2021, ‘Violent atmospheres: Political ecologies of livelihoods and crises in Southeast Asia’, Geoforum, <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718521001470>.

Powell, S., & Arora-Jonsson, S. 2021, ‘The conundrums of formal and informal meritocracy: dealing with gender segregation in the academy’, Higher Education, <https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00719-2>. 

Van Hecken, G., Kolinjivadi, V., Huybrechs, F., Bastiaensen, J., & Merlet, P. 2021, ‘Playing into the hands of the powerful: Extracting ‘success’ by mining for evidence in a Payments for Environmental Services (PES) project in Matiguas-Rio Blanco, Nicaragua’, Tropical Conservation Science, <https://doi.org/10.1177/19400829211020191;  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19400829211020191>. 

CfPs

Anthropology and Conservation conference  

“Positionality beyond ‘People versus Parks’: Anthropologists’ Engagement with Conservation in the 21st Century” – panel P062 will be organized at the Conference from 25th to 29th October 2021 online. 

Please browse the full list of panels and decide where to propose your paper. 

All proposals must be made via the online form that can be found on each panel page. The direct link for our panel is below: https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/rai2021/paper-form/10330  

Proposals should consist of a title, a (very) short abstract of <300 characters, and an abstract of 250 words. On submission the proposal, the proposing author (but not any co-authors listed) will receive automated email confirming receipt. 

The deadline for submission is 2nd July 2021.
 

Eric Wolf Paper Prize   

The Political Ecology Society (PESO) announces the 2021 Eric Wolf Prize for the best article-length paper. The competition offers a great opportunity as the prize pays registration fees for the Society for Applied Anthropology  annual meeting, offers a feature presentation of the paper at this meeting, and publication in the Journal of Political Ecology! 

To be eligible for the competition, scholars must be no more than two years past the completion of their Master’s  or PhD degree. This includes scholars who have not yet received the PhD and Master’s students.

 Multiple authored papers are considered as long as the first author meets the above criteria. Papers that are  already under review at a journal are not accepted. 

The deadline for submission is 30th August 2021. 

Please anonymize the submission and use the style guidelines provided on the Journal of Political Ecology  webpage: http://jpe.library.arizona.edu. As the winning paper will be published in the Journal of Political Ecology,  the prize reviewers may request revisions before the item is published. Electronic submissions and further queries should be sent to Dr. Elisabeth Moolenaar (emoolenaar@regis.edu).

Vacancies

The Department of Social and Policy Sciences invites applications for a post at the level of Lecturer (Assistant Professor) or Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in international development at the University of Bath. The Department is a world-class centre for research and teaching excellence, committed to interdisciplinary, impactful, and progressive research. 

All applications must show how they meet the essential criteria outlined in the relevant job description. Applicants must make clear whether they are applying for the Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) or Lecturer (Assistant Professor) position. Applications must include an academic CV as well as a cover letter demonstrating how experience and expertise meet the criteria set out in the specification. Please visit the link below. 

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CGS166/lecturer-assistant-professor-senior-lecturer-associate-professor-in-international-development?uuid=519be480-d306-11eb-949d-064da8edb92a&campaign=jbew20210622&source=jbe

Other news items
 

The School of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University Delhi had organized four lectures in October-November 2020 as a part of its online Masterclass Series in Critical Agrarian Studies. Recordings of these four lectures (Agrarian Markets; Water; Democracy; Rural Conflict and Collective Action) are now available at the School’s YouTube channel below.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCF9TZ79k6WRzAbcrBu_CTew.

Book Seminar on 18 June 2021: Büscher, B. (2020), The truth about nature. Environmentalism in the era of post-truth politics and platform capitalism

Book Seminar. Büscher, (2020), The truth about nature. 18 june 2021

Book Seminar on 22 June 2021: Benjaminsen T.A., Svarstad, H., (2021), Political ecology. A critical engagement with global environmental issues

Book Seminar. Benjaminsen, Svarstad. Politcal Ecology. 22 June 2021

Dear POLLEN Members and Friends,  

As always, we are excited to share news from around the POLLEN network. 
This month we are featuring the Center for Social Development Studies, the POLLEN node at the Faculty of Political Science in Chulalongkorn University. We also have CfPs, publications from our community, an invitation for a book review, vacancies, and more.   

If your node is keen to feature your work in the upcoming newsletters, please drop us a line at politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com. 

We also welcome contributions, conversations, or comments for the POLLEN blog! 
It’s a great way to share and get dialogue around your work. 
Feel free to check out our recent blog with Rogelio Luque-Lora’s review of “Convivial Conservation” with a response from the authors, 
Rob Fletcher and Bram Buscher – your comments are very welcome!. 
Also, please write to us at the above email address if you are interested in contributing to the blog. 

 
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 the many POLLEN nodes to help build connections across our community. This month we would like to introduce you to the Center for Social Development Studies at the Faculty of Political Science in Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. 

Chulalongkorn University’s POLLEN node 

Overview

The Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS) was established in 1985 within the Faculty of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.  The CSDS produces interdisciplinary critical research on development policy and practice in Southeast Asia. Much of the research agenda relates to political ecology, including resource politics, regionalization, human rights and justice, the public sphere, the commons, and forced displacement and development. The CSDS supports young and mid-career researchers and public intellectuals via the Graduate Studies in International Development program, and by hosting research associates, interns, and fellowship programs. Since 2018, the CSDS has also hosted the Chulalongkorn University Center of Excellence on Resource Politics for Social Development. The CSDS regularly organizes public forums, conferences, and workshops for debating critical development issues, and co-organized and hosted the Political Ecology in Asia 2019 conference. Recently, the CSDS has initiated the Political Ecology in Asia dialogue series and Critical Nature policy analysis. The CSDS team includes Faculty members, graduate students, and research associates. 

Node members 
 

Carl Middleton is an Assistant Professor and Director of CSDS.  His research interests orientate around the politics of the environment in Southeast Asia, focusing on the political ecology of water and energy, nature-society relations, social movements, and environmental justice.  His most recent book, co-authored with Jeremy Allouche and Dipak Gyawali, is titled The Water–Food–Energy Nexus: Power, Politics and Justice (2019). Recent co-edited books are: Living with Floods in a Mobile Southeast Asia: A Political Ecology of Vulnerability, Migration and Environmental Change (2018; with Rebecca Elmhirst and Supang Chantavanich) and Knowing the Salween River: Resource Politics of a Contested Transboundary River (2019; with Vanessa Lamb). 

Naruemon Thabchumpon is an Assistant Professor in Politics at the Faculty of Political Science, Deputy Director for Research Affairs at the Institute of Asian Studies, and Director of the Center of Excellence of the Asian Research Center for Migration, Chulalongkorn University. Her expertise is on comparative politics and democracy, cross-border migration, and human development. She received her MA and PhD from the School of Politics and International Studies of University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Her recent political ecology related research has been on “Living with and against Floods: Socio-Economic Adaptation of Communities in Bangkok and Thailand’s Central Plain” and on the economic and social impacts of Covid-19 focusing on people, planet and inclusive society. 

Jakkrit Sangkhamanee is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science in Bangkok, Thailand. He earned a PhD in Anthropology from the Australian National University, with his dissertation focusing on the ontological entanglement in the construction of knowledge on water management in the Mekong region. His work focuses on STS, specifically hydrological engineering projects related to Thai state formation, environmental infrastructure, and environmental politics. His latest publication is “Bangkok Precipitated: Cloudbursts, Sentient Urbanity, and Emergent Atmospheres” in East Asian Science, Technology and Society (EASTS). Jakkrit also serves on the editorial board of Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. 

Pongphisoot (Paul) Busbarat is Assistant Professor in International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. He holds a PhD in Political Science & IR from Australian National University and postgraduate degrees from Columbia University and Cambridge University. His research interests include great power competition in Southeast Asia, (especially the Mekong subregion), Thailand’s foreign policy, and norms and identity in IR. Currently, Paul is working on several research projects including the study of a normative construct influencing Thailand’s foreign policy choices between the United States and China, and a study of China’s regional leadership consolidation in the Mekong subregion. His most recent publication is ‘China and Mekong Regionalism: A Reappraisal of the Formation of Lancang-Mekong Cooperation’ in Asian Politics & Policy. 

Jiraporn Laocharoenwong is a lecturer at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Chulalongkorn University. In 2020, she obtained her PhD from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, entitled ‘Re-imagining the Refugee Camp: Sovereignty and Time-Space Formation Along the Thailand-Burma Borderland’. Her current research includes a project on ‘Governing the virus: Borders, Bio-power and Migrant Bodies in Thailand’, and one on animals crossing borders and the politics of commodities, pathogens and human-animal relations in the Southeast Asian Borderland with a grant from the National Higher Education Science Research and Innovation Policy Council (NXPO). 

Chanatporn Limprapoowiwattana earned her PhD in Political Science 2020 from l’Université de Lausanne in Switzerland, with financial support from the Swiss Government. Her doctoral thesis was titled ‘Transnational Standardisation and the Global Production Network of Organic Rice: A Case Study of Thai Buddhist Connectivity.’ She is currently a post-doctoral researcher in CSDS researching on the urban political ecology and agri-food production networks of Bangkok City. This research seeks to understand how different practices of urban agriculture shape and reimagine the city. Overall, she is interested in exploring human-nature relationships and interactions in the context of political ecology and global food governance. 

Orapan Pratomlek is the project coordinator for CSDS. She holds a MA in International-NGO Studies from the Faculty of Social Sciences, SungKongHoe University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Her interest and work focus on issues related to the environment, social development, human rights, and empowerment. Her recent projects with CSDS have included: water governance research and a fellowship program on the Salween River; flooding and displacement in Hat Yai City, Southern Thailand; water governance and access to water in Hakha Town, Chin State, Myanmar; and on community-based tourism in Thailand recovering from COVID.  

Anisa Widyasari is currently leading the communications work for CSDS. She finished her LLM degree from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Aside from preparing the communications materials for all CSDS’ project, she is also directly contributing to CSDS’ research and providing legal perspective, mainly on the issues related to water diplomacy and transboundary water governance. Prior to joining CSDS, she worked as Advocacy Officer for Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), where she led in the legal analysis of policies affecting press freedom and freedom of expression in Southeast Asia. 

Thianchai Surimas is a PhD student in International Development Studies and Doctoral Researcher at CSDS, Chulalongkorn University. His doctoral research examines hydropolitics in the Ing River, Northern Thailand. The research aims to reveal multiple ontologies of water and its ontological politics, and to understand tensions and cooperation between multiple ontologies of water among networks of human and non-human things that are involved in water-related conflicts. The research employs a hydrosocial perspective as an analytic approach. Thianchai’s research interests include environmental justice, environmental politics and policy, climate change, migration, livelihoods, development and socio-environmental change. 

Sara K. Phillips is a Doctoral Researcher with the CSDS, where her work focuses on resource development decision-making, investigating how the law enables structural inequalities that lead to mining conflicts. At Chulalongkorn University, her doctoral research examines how actors utilize norms to shape the resource development lifecycle. Sara is a Visiting Lecturer with the Center for Global Law and Policy at Santa Clara University and a Doctoral Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute. She is a qualified attorney and holds a J.D. from Vermont Law School, an LL.M. from McGill University, and a B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

Ma. Josephine Therese Emily G. Teves is a third-year doctoral candidate in International Development Studies in the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. She is also a research fellow on the NUS-ARI Graduate Student and Online Training and Mentorship Programme on Human Rights and Peace Research for 2021. Her research examines the impacts of agrarian reform initiatives to Philippine Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs), including the impact of Japan ODA’s farm-to-market infrastructure provision in agricultural development, ARBs’ right to land, the skewed land distribution in the Philippines, and challenges of impact evaluation of infrastructure aspect in agrarian reform programs. 

Thita Ornin has interests in sustainability, peace, and social and personal well-being. She has experience in research and program development and execution in various areas including sustainable consumption and production, sustainable agriculture and livelihoods, labour rights, and urban and rural livelihoods. Thita is currently a Program Officer for the Professional Development Program on Peace and Development Studies at the Rotary Peace Center, and a PhD Candidate in International Development Studies, Chulalongkorn University. Her PhD thesis is titled ‘Post-Development and Post-Growth through the Dynamics of Alternative Agriculture Movements in Thailand’, through which she aims to contribute to understanding alternatives that can be transformative of development studies. 

Thanawat Bremard is a doctoral student from the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development based both in the Joint Research Unit “Water Management, Actors, Territories” in Montpellier, France and in the CSDS, Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, Thailand. With a background in socio-anthropology, he has been working on issues of water governance in Thailand since 2017, with a particular focus on the Bangkok Metropolitan Region for his thesis. His current research focuses on the politics of groundwater and subsidence governance, the spatialized decision-making around flood governance in eastern Bangkok and the institutional interplay around urban river governance. 

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

Books

Ajl, M. 2021, A people’s green new deal, Pluto Press,  <http://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341750/a-peoples-green-new-deal/>

Carroll, WK. (ed.), 2021, Regime of Obstruction: How Corporate Power Blocks Energy Democracy, AU Press, Athabasca University, Canada.

Chandler, D., Müller, F., and Rothe, D. (eds.) 2021, International relations in the Anthropocene: New agendas, new agencies and new approaches, Palgrave Macmillan, <https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030530136#reviews>

Horoshko, S, and Thompson, M. 2021, Wet: An Anthology of Water Poems and  Prose from the High Desert and Mountains of the Four Corners Region, Sharehouse Press, <https://books.google.com.tw/books/about/Wet.html?id=AIA8zgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y&gt;

Marco, A. 2021, Wasteocene: Stories from the global dump, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, <https://www.cambridge.org › core › elements › wasteocene>

Mc Garry, D., et al., 2021. ‘The Pluriversity for Stuck Humxns: A Queer EcoPedagogy & Decolonial School’,  In J. Russell (ed.), Queer Ecopedagogies: Explorations in Nature, Sexuality, and Education, Springer, International Explorations in Outdoor and Environmental Education book series, pp. 183-218.

Menton, M. & Le Billon, P. (eds.) 2021, Environmental Defenders: Deadly Struggles for Life and Territory, 1st edition, Routledge, <https://www.routledge.com/Environmental-Defenders-Deadly-Struggles-for-Life-and-Territory/Menton-Billon/p/book/9780367649647>

Tănăsescu, M. 2021, ‘The rights of nature as politics’, in DP. Corrigan & M. Oksanen (eds.), Rights of nature: A re-examination, 1st edition, Routledge, <https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780367479589-5/rights-nature-politics-mihnea-tănăsescu>

Turhan, E. 2021, ‘Hands that adapt: Seasonal labour migration, climate change, and the making of adaptable subjects in Turkey’. In N. Natarajan & L. Parsons (eds.),  Climate Change in the Global Workplace: Labour, Adaptation, and Resistance, Routledge, pp. 110-128.

Watkins, C. 2021, Palm Oil Diaspora: Afro-Brazilian Landscapes and Economies on Bahia’s Dendê Coast, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge<https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/palm-oil-diaspora/1F6F07AE7D077780EB474FAB1B9242B4>

Blogs

Almeida, D.V. & Reyes, M.M., 2021, Why Ecuador’s Elections Matter to Ecological Struggles, Undisciplined Environments, 29 April,<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/04/29/por-que-las-elecciones-de-ecuador-son-importantes-para-las-luchas-ecologistas-2/>&nbsp;

Benoist, L., 2021, Green is the new brown: ecology in the metapolitics of the far right, Undisciplined Environments, 4 May,<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/05/04/green-is-the-new-brown-ecology-in-the-metapolitics-of-the-far-right/>&nbsp;

Dunlap, A. 2021, Degrowth Care: Two commentaries worth mentioning, Terra Nullius: Repossessing the Existent, 19 May,
<https://www.sum.uio.no/forskning/blogg/terra-nullius/alexander-dunlap/degrowth-care-two-commentaries-worth-mentioning.html> 

Dutta, A., Allen, J., Worsdell, T., Duffy, R., Kumar, K., Rai, N., Fischer, H., Shimray, G., Sherpa, P., 2021, Re-thinking the Global Safety Net: Local leadership in Global Conservation, Science Advances. Online e-letter, 14 May,<https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabb2824/tab-e-letters>;also accessible at <https://biosec.group.shef.ac.uk/2021/05/14/whats-wrong-with-the-global-safety-net-approach-to-conservation/> 

Hope, J., 2021, Infrastructural Citizenship: A Case for Adding Political Ecology, 
Undisciplined Environments, 6 May, <https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/
2021/05/06/infrastructural-ecological-citizenship-bolivia/> 

Leonardelli, I., López, G.G., & Fantini, E., 2021, Commoning through blogging: Reflections on our “Reimagining, remembering and recommoning water” series, Undisciplined Environments, 27 May,<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/05/27/commoning-through-blogging-reflections-on-our-reimagining-remembering-and-recommoning-water-series/> 

Luque-Lora, R. 2021, Convivial Conservation: book review and authors’ response, Political Ecology Network, 28 May, <https://politicalecologynetwork.org/
2021/05/28/convivial-conservation-book-review-and-authors-response/>  
 

Mandorli, A., Witte, B., Sievers, E., Remmerswaal, L., Evers, N., Peet, V., Barca, S., & Venes, F., 2021, The curse of white gold?, Undisciplined Environments, 14 May, <https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/05/14/the-curse-of-white-gold-debating-lithium-mining-in-portugal/>&nbsp;
 
Morrison, R. 2021, Ecological markets and capitalism in the 21st century, Wall Street International Magazine, 1 May,<https://wsimag.com/economy-and-politics/65615-ecological-markets-and-capitalism-in-the-21st-century> 

Schofield, D. 2021, Imbuing Notions of Climate Change Adaptation with Everyday Realities, Undisciplined Environments, 18 May,<https://undisciplinedenvironments.org/2021/05/18/imbuing-notions-of-climate-change-adaptation-with-everyday-realities/>

Journal articles 

Apostolopoulou, E., Chatzimentor, A., Maestre-Andres, S., et al, 2021, ‘Reviewing 15 years of research on neoliberal conservation: Towards a decolonial, interdisciplinary, intersectional and community-engaged research agenda’, Geoforum, in press, <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718521001433?dgcid=author> 

Boafo, J. & Lyons, K., 2021, ‘The rhetoric and farmers’ lived realities of the green revolution in Africa: Case study of the Brong Ahafo region in Ghana’, Journal of Asian and African Studies, <https://doi-org/10.1177/00219096211019063> 

Benjaminsen, T. A. & Ba, B. 2021, ‘Fulani-Dogon killings in Mali: Farmer-herder conflicts as insurgency and counter insurgency’, African Security, <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19392206.2021.1925035> 

Buran, S., Dedeoğlu, Ç., Kümbet, P. & Tuncel, Y. 2021, ‘Posthumanisms beyond disciplines’, Journal of Posthumanism, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-4,
<https://journals.tplondon.com/jp>&nbsp;

Joslin, A. 2021. Labor as a Linchpin in Ecosystem Services Conservation: Appropriating Value from Collective Institutions? Capitalism Nature Socialism,<https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2021.1927126>&nbsp;

Koot, S. & Fletcher, R. 2021, ‘Donors on tour: Philanthrotourism in Africa’, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol 89,
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738321000906> 

Movik, S., Benjaminsen, T.A. & Richardson, T. 2021, ‘Making maps, making claims: the politics and practices of visualisation in environmental governance’, Landscape Research, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 143-151 <DOI: 10.1080/01426397.2021.1879034> 

Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R. 2021, ‘Decolonizing Seascapes: Imaginaries and Silences on an Island Hub’, Postcolonial Interventions, Vol. VI, No. I,
<https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4483976> 

CfPs

Royal Anthropological Society conference 

The 2020 Royal Anthropological Society conference will be held 25 to 29 October 2021 online with a theme  of Anthropology and Conservation. A panel on “Market-Based Instruments for Conservation and Indigenous Peoples”,  panel P063 is soliciting papers. All proposals must be made via the online form by 2 July 2021, and decisions will be conveyed to proposers by 16 July.

The direct link for this panel is https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/rai2021/paper-form/10331 

Papers should be approximately 15 minutes long, and proposals should consist of a title, a (very) short abstract of <300 characters, and an abstract of 250 words. 

Journal of Posthumanism invites contributions to the second issue of the Journal of Posthumanism, an  international peer-reviewed scholarly journal promoting innovative work to transverse the fields ranging from  social sciences, humanities, and arts to medicine and STEM. 

Submission Deadline: 2 August 2021 

All submissions should follow the latest guidelines of APA style referencing. You are welcome to submit full-length papers (5000-6000 words), commentaries (1000-2000 words), book reviews, interviews, and artistic works. 

Please direct any queries about the journal to posthumanism@tplondon.com 

More information at https://journals.tplondon.com/jp/announcement/view/15  

Palgrave Handbook of Southern Green Criminology invites chapter proposals. 

This handbook is the ultimate collection of essays reflecting the growth and diversity of Southern Green  Criminology. Therefore, this call seeks to attract original thinkers from the Global South who are creators and  carriers of Southern epistemologies. Additionally, this publication pursues ethnic, gender and geographical  representativity.  

If you are interested, please send an abstract of between 120 and 200 words as soon as possible to d.r.goyes@jus.uio.no. The latest submission deadline is 1st July 2021. 

The complete first drafts are due March 20, 2022 and the total word length is between 7.000 and 8.000 words. 

Talk 

Territorial Conflicts in Patagonia: Extractivism and the Struggle for Buen Vivir 
On 3rd June during 7:00-8:30 pm (BST). Online event. 
A bilingual gathering with speakers from Patagonia 
Organised by Argentina Solidarity Campaign. 
More info and free registration here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/territorial-conflicts-in-patagonia-tickets-153312394499 

Invitation for a book review 

Climate Change Justice and Global Resource Commons 
Local and Global Postcolonial Political Ecologies 

By Shangrila Joshi 

The book engages in a multi-scalar political ecological analysis of the climate crisis and seeks to articulate a geography of climate justice. It presents a layered analysis of the global and local politics of climate change, including case studies featuring India and Nepal.  

The publisher offers a complimentary copy for review. Any interested reviewers could directly contact, Matt Shobbrook, Editorial Assistant: 
matthew.shobbrook@tandf.co.uk for a complimentary copy of the book (print or digital). 

Vacancies

4 PhD positions at Wageningen University: Living rivers and new water justice movements 

Are you interested in understanding how different actors know, value, and strive to shape river systems in diverging ways? Do you want to learn specifically about approaches for enlivening rivers that are promoted by grassroots water justice movements? Then this could be the perfect PhD opportunity for you! 
 
The Water Resources Management (WRM) Group at Wageningen University is looking for four highly motivated candidates who want to engage with rivers, environmental justice, and social movements in Europe and Latin America in a transdisciplinary, cross-cultural and collaborative way. It promises to be an exciting collaborative research project! For more information, see: 
https://www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/4-PhD-positions-Riverhood-Living-rivers-and-new-water-justice-movements-.htm 

Other news items
 

The Wageningen Political Ecology PhD summer school, to be held online 21-30 June 2021, with the theme: Authoritarian Natures? Political Ecologies of Post-Truth, the State and Social Ruptures – 3 ECTS 

 
Confirmed lecturer-facilitators: Rob Fletcher (Wageningen), Mindi Schneider (Wageningen), Leila Harris (British Columbia), Ariadne Collins (St Andrews), Erik Swyngedouw (Manchester), Rob Coates (Wageningen), Laila Sandroni (ESALQ, São Paulo), Esha Shah (Wageningen), Garrett Graddy-Lovelace (American), Bram Büscher (Wageningen), and Farhana Sultana (Syracuse). 

One 2.5-hour session/day (from 15.30 or 16.00 CEST) over eight days.  

Register at https://www.uu.se/en/about-uu/join-us/details/?positionId=396890 

The University of Barcelona School of Economics is organizing a summer school on Ecological and Feminist Macroeconomics held during 12-16 July 2021.  

If you are interested in pluralist economics and new economics, you can’t miss this course! Some of the best  scholars from both ecological and  feminist economics will introduce the topics and present their cutting-edge research. 

Registration is open until 11 June 2021 at https://www.ub.edu/school-economics/summer-crash-course 

Dear POLLEN Members and Friends,

Greetings from your new Secretariat hosts at the Australian National University! It’s exciting to take on this role from Jens Friis Lund and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen, who have done a fantastic job coordinating POLLEN over the last year.

We have had a busy month picking up POLLEN’s twitter feed, and learning the inner workings of POLLEN’s website, node register, and of course this monthly newsletter. We would welcome your feedback and suggestions at any time – write to us at politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com

There are lots of updates to share this month, including preliminary information on POLLEN 2022, CfPs, publications from our community and more. We are also introducing the Massey University POLLEN Node. Enjoy the read!

Best wishes, 

POLLEN Secretariat
Sango Mahanty | Sarah Milne | Ratchada Arpornsilp and colleagues at the ANU POLLEN node

POLLEN 2022
Our host for POLLEN 2022, the POLLEN node at University of KwaZulu-Natal, has just launched the conference website where you can find preliminary information – check it out:  https://pollen2022.com/
We will learn more about this dynamic node in our next newsletter!

Getting to know your fellow POLLEN members

Every monthly newsletter includes a brief introduction to one of the many POLLEN nodes. We hope this will help build better connections across our community. This month: Massey University’s Political Ecology Research Centre in New Zealand.

PERC Massey University’s Political Ecology Research Centre’s (PERC) growing membership reflects the interdisciplinarity of political ecology. PERC began as a collaboration between the School of People Environment and Planning and the School of English and Media Studies at Massey University. Their work involves collaborations across the following disciplines: social anthropology, media studies, ecology, geography, sociology, English, zoology, development studies, creative writing, politics, education, chemistry, environmental management, and engineering.   PERC provides a site of collaboration and networking for national and international researchers with a shared interest in social and environmental justice, inequities, decolonisation, and resource politics.  Since its establishment in 2016, it has organised four conferences, three of which have been free, online, international, open-access and nearly carbon neutral.  These conferences are still available to the public on this website.  PERC also drafts submissions and letters to government, presents seminars and webinars, produces books, and (pre-COVID), hosts international scholars.  Their second book Plastic Legacies: Politics, Persistence, and Politics will be in published in June 2021 Its members Dr Trisia Farrelly is Co-Director of PERC. Her work contributes to building capacity in NZ and the large ocean, small island developing states (LOSIDS) of Oceania to strengthen plastic pollution science, public engagement, and ultimately, effective policy frameworks. Trisia’s current work focusses on plastic pollution as waste colonialism in Oceania.     Dr Sy Taffel co-directs PERC and researches political ecologies of digital media, technological solutionism and the social, cultural and political impacts of digital technologies. Sy is the author of Digital Media Ecologies (Bloomsbury 2019),and along with Nicholas Holm he co-edited the anthology Ecological Entanglements in the Anthropocene. He also makes documentary/activist films, including for environmental groups such as the Environment Network Manawatu and Carrying Our Future.   Nicholas Holm is a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies. His research mainly explores the political role of popular culture and entertainment media, but he also has a long running interest in the political status of overlooked and derided forms of nonhuman life and environmental interaction. His most recent work in this area is an article on feral cats forthcoming in a special issue of Society and Animals. Nick directed the 2018 conference “Feral.”   Professor Glenn Banks Leads the School of People, Environment and Planning at Massey University. His research mainly focuses on the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of large-scale, private sector investment in the extractive industries in Papua New Guinea. This research is framed by theoretical concerns with development, local agency and empowerment. Glenn’s current collaborative work critically examines private sector claims of corporate social responsibility in the tourism and resource extraction sectors, based on case studies in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. This research connects with applied contracted research and consultancy for institutional and private sector actors in the region’s extractive sector.   Sita Venkateswar is Programme Coordinator and Associate Professor in the Social Anthropology programme at Massey University.  She is also Associate Director of the New Zealand India Research Institute. Her current research interests include agroecological, regenerative and multispecies approaches to farming and food futures. She applies intersectional and decolonizing research methodologies within contemporary contexts of Aotearoa New Zealand and South Asia.   Alice Beban is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Massey University. She researches land rights, agricultural production, and gender concerns to understand people’s changing relationships with land and water from a feminist political ecology perspective. Recent projects include research on ‘land grabs’ and redistributive land reform in Cambodia, cross-border migration of smallholder farmers in the Mekong Delta, gendered agrarian transformation and the right to food, and mapping cultural change in dam-affected communities along the Mekong river. Her new book, “Unwritten Rule” (Cornell, 2021) examines land politics as a lens through which to understand democracy in Cambodia.    Ingrid Horrocks is a creative writer and literary scholar based on Massey’s Wellington campus. She writes about the long history of the politics of mobility and place and is interested in ways in which we can rec-conceptualise the ecological imagination. Her latest nonfiction book, Where We Swim, is a blend of memoir, travel, and ecological imaginings, both local and global. Ingrid’s other publications include two poetry collections, a book on women wanderers published by Cambridge UP, and the co-edited collection, Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on Place from Aotearoa New Zealand.   Jonathon Hannon is the coordinator of the Zero Waste Academy, based at Massey University. This role involves teaching, research supervision, industry / community consultation and advisory on campus and city sustainability. Jonathon is currently undertaking a PhD evaluating municipal zero waste methodologies. Jonathon’s most recent publication is:    Laura Jean McKay is the author of the Animals in That Country (Scribe, 2020), winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature; and Holiday in Cambodia (Black Inc. 2013). She is a lecturer in creative writing at Massey University, with a PhD from the University of Melbourne focusing on literary animal studies. Her research focuses on interspecies communication, ecofiction, extinction and decolonising literatures. Laura is the ‘animal expert’ presenter on ABC Listen’s Animal Sound Safari.   Tom Doig is an environmental journalist and creative writing and media studies scholar, based at Massey’s Manawatū campus. His research areas include: disaster studies; literary journalism studies; and the social implications of the climate crisis. He is the author of Hazelwood (Penguin, 2020), The Coal Face (Penguin, winner of the 2015 Oral History Victoria Education Innovation Award) and Mörön to Mörön: Two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure (Allen & Unwin, 2013).   Philip Steer is an Associate Professor of English. Philip researches literary responses to the environmental violence of settler colonialism. He is Primary Investigator of the Marsden project “Settler Literature and Environmental Change in Colonial New Zealand and Australia” (2020-2022), and co-edited Ecological Form: System and Aesthetics in the Age of Empire (Fordham University Press). Philip co-organised  Rapua te Kura Huna: Opening Our Environmental Archives, a workshop of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural dialogue around archives of environmental knowledge from the period of colonisation (February 2021).

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!

The POLLEN Advisory Collective

The POLLEN Assembly at POLLEN20 decided to establish a POLLEN Advisory Collective consisting of people who have engaged with the network in various respects. The purpose of the collective is to function as POLLEN’s institutional memory and as a go-to resource for the POLLEN secretariat and network nodes for advice, guidance, to share experience and other forms of support. Look here for more information about the collective and its current membership.

Publications
 
Benjaminsen, Tor and Svarstad, Hanne (2021) Political Ecology: a critical engagement with global environmental issues. Palgrave. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030560355

Cederlöf, Gustav (2021) Out of Steam: Energy, Materiality, and Political Ecology. Progress in Human Geography 45(1): 70–87.

Christiansen, J. (2021). Fixing fictions through blended finance: The entrepreneurial ensemble and risk interpretation in the Blue Economy. Geoforum 120, 93-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.01.013

Hewitson, Lee John and Sullivan, Sian (2021) Producing elephant commodities for ‘conservation hunting’ in Namibian communal-area conservancies. Journal of Political Ecology. https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/2279/

Köpke, Sören (2021) Contested Conservation, Ethnopolitics, and the State: The Case of Wilpattu Forest Complex, Sri Lanka. Conservation and Society 2021;19:57-67. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_19_113

Oguz, Zeynep (2021) Cavernous politics: Geopower, territory and the Kurdish question in Turkey. Political Geography. Vol 85: March. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0962629820303942?via%3Dihub

Roy, Brototi (2021). A Report of the Third Biennial POLLEN (Political Ecology Network) Conference, 2020. Ecology, Economy and Society – the INSEE Journal. https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v4i1.358

Verweijen, Judith and Dunlap, Alexander. (2021) The evolving techniques of social engineering, land control and managing protest against extractivism: Introducing political (re)actions ‘from above’. Political Geography 83:1-9. https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1cWYM3Qu6uX%7EbK

Political Geography: Virtual forum on Environmental limits, Scarcity and Degrowth: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/political-geography/special-issue/10SV5DM3NW5

Working papers, blogs and media

Acharya, Amitangshu and Sanyal, Sudipto (2021) Where there’s muck there’s brass: making money from sewage in Kolkata. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/1843/2021/01/13/where-theres-muck-theres-brass-making-money-from-sewage-in-kolkata
Dunlap, Alexander and Brock, Andrea. (2021) When the Wolf Guards the Sheep: Green Extractivism in Germany and Mexico. Working Paper 21, University of Sussex, Centre for Global Political Economy (CGPE). https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=when-the-wolf-guards-the-sheep-dunlap-and-brock.pdf&site=359

Dunlap A and Glederloos P. (2021a) An Interview with Peter Gelderloos, Part I: Anarchism and Environmental Struggle. Terra Nullius: Repossessing the existent, Available at: https://www.sum.uio.no/forskning/blogg/terra-nullius/alexander-dunlap/an-interview-with-peter-gelderloos-part-i-anarchism.html.

Dunlap A and Glederloos P. (2021b) An Interview with Peter Gelderloos, Part II: From Colonial Trauma to Ecological Resurgence. Terra Nullius: Repossessing the existent, Available at: https://www.sum.uio.no/forskning/blogg/terra-nullius/alexander-dunlap/an-interview-with-peter-gelderloos-part-ii.html.

Kolinjivadi, Vijay (2021) It is time to end extractive tourism. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/2/18/it-is-time-to-end-extractive-tourism

MARIPOLDATA Team (2020) Key findings from our study of the marine biodiversity field and why our data matters for the new BBNJ treaty.

Tessnow-von Wysocki, I. (2021) Speech is silver – Science is gold: The Voice of Science within UN negotiations for the Ocean.

CfPs, Conferences, Talks
 
CfP: Annual Political Science Workshops of the Low Countries (https://politicologenetmaal.eu): Challenging Anthropocentrism in Political Science: Gender, Race, Intersectionality and the More-than-Human. See this link for further details on this CfP: https://politicologenetmaal.eu/workshop-list/#workshop2 – Instructions for submitting abstracts are on the website, due 31 March 2021. 

CfP: Rupture and the reimagining of nature-society. Submissions welcome for this exciting panel at the joint Institute of Australian Geographers and New Zealand Geographical Society conference – please send these by 5 April 2021. For further details, see #27 at this link – there are lots of other interesting panels as well, and you can find details for this July conference here.

CfP: Central Asian Journal of Water Research special issue on ‘30 Years of Farm Restructuring and Water Management Reforms in Central Asia.’ Further details here: https://water-ca.org/news/cfp-special-issue-30-years-of-reforms, due June 15, 2021.
Teaching Convivial Conservation: Rebecca Witter (witterrc@appstate.edu) is keen to hear from POLLEN members who would like to convene a virtual conversation about Teaching Convivial Conservation. A conversation like this might be a way to generate ideas, to share resources, and to develop more energy and capacity around conviviality in conservation – both for those who are already teaching this approach and for those who might like to start. Please contact Rebecca if you are interested!

Is a local or global food system more sustainable? How big should a farm be? Debates about the future of food have become more polarised than ever – and little attention is paid to why people hold genuinely different beliefs. The Feed podcast, presented by TABLE, aims to fill this gap by exploring the evidence, worldviews, and values that people bring to global food system debates.

Folks with an marine interest might like to check out this monthly seminar series: MARIPOLDATA Ocean Seminar Series

Vacancies and courses

Please check the links for details and closing dates.

PhD positions (2-5 are at the Helmholtz-Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity):

1. PhD position at Ruhr University Bochum on the A political ecology approach in evaluating the development agenda: The cases of Ghana and Kenya.  Details here:  http://adapted-eu.org/open-esr-positions/esr-6-10/esr-6  
2. PhD position in “Benthic Geopolitics” : https://recruitingapp-5442.de.umantis.com/Vacancies/781/Description/2 
3. Phd position in “Biodiversity, Scale, and Difference in Marine Space” within the Marine Governance Group Marine Governance Group  https://recruitingapp-5442.de.umantis.com/Vacancies/778/Description/2
4. PhD position in “Dynamic ocean governance: Rethinking space, time and movement in managing marine environments” https://uol.de/stellen?stelle=67863
5. PhD position in “Emotional governance: The place of feelings in marine management” https://uol.de/stellen?stelle=67864
6. PhD position in Political Ecology of Natural Climate Solutions at the Department of Food and Resource Economics Univeristy of Copenhagen: https://jobportal.ku.dk/alle-opslag/?show=153559

Academic positions:

1. Research Scientist Position: “Follow the enforcement: Spatialising understandings of monitoring, reporting and sanctioning at sea” (m/f/d) within the Marine Governance Group at Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research https://recruitingapp-5442.de.umantis.com/Vacancies/770/Description/2
2. Research Scientist Position: “Maritime motorways, global ship routeing and the governance of marine biodiversity” (m/f/d) within the Marine Governance Group Marine Governance Group at Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research https://recruitingapp-5442.de.umantis.com/Vacancies/769/Description/2
3. Three faculty positions at National University of Singapore in Social/Cultural Geographies addressing contemporary crises of sustainability in Asia (two positions at Assistant Professor level on the tenure-track and one at Associate or Full Professor level with tenure): Assistant Professor positions (tenure-track): see here.
   Tenured Associate/Full Professor (with tenure): see here.
4. The Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of
   Freiburg, Germany has two 2-year Junior Fellowships within the  “Young Academy for Sustainability Research”, details here:
   https://www.frias.uni-freiburg.de/de/aktuelles/wiss-ausschreibungen/junior-fellowships-young-academy