Category: News

Next in the POLLEN 2022 Virtual series: Emotional Political Ecology

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The next workshop in the POLLEN 2022 Virtual Conference series is coming soon! 

Massey University’s Political Ecology Research Centre, The Australian National University and Royal University of Phnom Penh are convening the Emotional Political Ecology Symposium from 29 August to 9 September 2022. 

Explore how emotions influence resource access, use, and control, and shape people’s everyday lives, and relationships with each other and the state through an exciting series of papers, commentaries and real time discussions. 

Online and open access – see this link for further details and to register: https://bit.ly/emotionalecology

INTRODUCING THE NEW POLLEN SECRETARIAT!

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A special note from your POLLEN secretariat hosts, Sango Mahanty, Ratchada Arpornsilp and Sarah Milne, at ANU’s Resources, Environment and Development Program.

This week, we are handing over the secretariat to our wonderful colleagues at the Lund University Center for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) in Sweden. We have really enjoyed interacting with all of you over the last couple of years, and keeping our network connected during the pandemic. Although the secretariat is going to a new home at Lund, we look forward to staying in touch with all of you and contributing to POLLEN in a different capacity.

The Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies has more than 40 international researchers and teachers from a range of countries and academic backgrounds. LUCSUS’ focus is on understanding and explaining pressing sustainability challenges through an inter- and transdisciplinary approach that addresses social and environmental sustainability. Political Ecology is central to the work of many researchers at LUCSUS, who are delighted to host the secretariat for the next two years, contribute to the further development of the network and look forward to meeting current and prospective members of POLLEN.

The next newsletter will be shared at the end of September. Please send any updates on publications, events and other news to politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com by 20 September.

Perspectives on Environmental Justice in Scandinavian Green Transitions

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Call for papers

Green Transitions Workshop series: 18 October 2022 and 17-18 November 2022

This workshop is organised by Sebastian Lundsteen and Melina Antonia Buns

Scandinavian discourses on green transitions predominantly center around techno-scientific solutions and the regulation of pollutive industries. Although absent of sociocultural perspectives, green transitions raise questions of social justice and equal distribution which essentially also are concerns of environmental justice (EJ). As a vastly expanding field, EJ has traditionally gravitated around questions of inequality, privilege, race and power structures in the Global South and the US. However, EJ is also a regional concern that traverses scales and connects local struggles with global structures. Focusing on the societal and environmental challenges contemporary green transitions entail, this workshop seeks to connect perspectives of justice with green transitions in and of Scandinavia to explore its spatial, temporal, and socio-political dimensions.

The aim of the workshop is to: (1) facilitate the creation of a new research community across Scandinavia; (2) provide an engaging environment for the discussion of EJ research within and on Scandinavia, both theoretically as well as practically; and (3) engage with the conundrum of the absence of socio-economical perspectives in past and present Scandinavian struggles of green transitions.

It is hoped that this workshop will also result in an exploratory co-authored paper discussing the possibilities, perspectives, and challenges of EJ research in and of Scandinavia.

The workshop is funded by The Greenhouse and is part of the Greenhouse Green Transitions Workshops.

Click the button below to download a pdf of this call for papers:

CfP-Perspectives on Environmental Justice in Scandinavian Green Transitions

Practical details

This workshop will combine a digital meeting and an in-person meeting.

The digital meeting on 18 October 2022 will combine lectures and exploratory collaboration for the in-person meeting will take place in Stavanger on 17-18 November 2022.

Who should apply?

We direct this workshop in particular towards PhD candidates and early-career scholars working on environmental justice-related topics in the Scandinavian countries. We invite proposals from the environmental humanities, including disciplines such as history, political sciences, anthropology, sociology, geography, etc.

Application process

Applications should be sent by 2 September 2022 and should include an abstract of no more than 250 words and a brief biographical note of the author(s). Please send your application to sebastian.lundsteen@uis.no The workshop will take place online (in October) and at the University of Stavanger, Norway (in November). Travel and accommodation costs will be covered. Should restrictions on travel and events make it impossible to meet physically, the second part of the workshop may be moved to a digital platform.

Contact details

Questions can be directed to either of the organizers:

Green Anarchy or Eco-Socialism: an online debate on scale and tactics 

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Monday, September 12, 2022

4 PM Central Europe/Africa, 10AM Eastern Time 

FREE

Register Now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/green-anarchy-or-eco-socialism-a-debate-on-scale-and-tactics-tickets-384215708527

Benjamin Sovacool— energy and climate change scholar, Editor of Energy Research & Social Science, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and Aarhus University, Denmark

Matthew T. Huber— Eco-Socialist and Marxist Geographer, Author of Climate Change as Class War (Verso 2022), Syracuse University

The facilitator is Alexandra Köves, an ecological economist, associate professor at the Institute of Operations and Decision Sciences at Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary, and host of Economics for Radicals. 

Time and again neoliberal techno-capitalism has demonstrated an inability to address global challenges such as the climate crisis. Two movements, which have been called Green Anarchy and Eco Socialism, share a similar urgency and critique on the role techno-capitalism and fossil capital are playing in global ecocide, but there are substantial differences between them.  

Green Anarchists and other “small is beautiful” advocates aspire to empower local communities through mutual aid in a decentralized response to societal and ecological collapse, while those who identify as Eco-Socialists are focused more on harnessing the coercive power of the state for a centralized intervention that will transform society at national and ultimately international scales.

Acknowledging that both perspectives have a substantial diversity of views within them, this debate will focus on the essential differences, including scale and tactics to transform society, between the communitarian/anarchist and more centralized socialist approaches. The schism and polemical war between them has the potential for undermining the already daunting challenge of disrupting the techno-capitalist juggernaut that inevitably prioritizes profits over people and planet. 

To discuss and debate the commonalities, differences and potential synthesis between localized Green Anarchy and more centralized Eco-Socialist interventions, this special debate will explore: 

• How does the emphasis on scale and tactics differ in these two approaches and why does it matter?

• Can anarchists/localists and socialists/Marxists find synthesis to counter the fossil capitalism status quo, or will the ideological clash continue? 

• Will the differences between the approaches further fracture efforts to transform society or find resolution and become a path toward rapidly reducing climate and other global risks and increase societal resilience?

Monday, September 12, 2022

4PM Central Europe/Africa, 10AM Eastern Time

FREE

Register Now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/green-anarchy-or-eco-socialism-a-debate-on-scale-and-tactics-tickets-384215708527

POLLEN22/3 Update: Radical Epistemologies and Future Natures workshop

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As you are aware this week has seen the launch of the first asynchronous workshops, entitled Radical Epistemologies and Future Natures, co-hosted by the Centre for Future Natures at the Institute for Development Studies, Sussex. 

The workshop itself is hosted on the following website: https://pollen2022.com/asynchronous-workshops/radical-epistemologies-and-future-natures/

So far content on Commoning, Enclosure and Future Natures, as well as a session on ‘Natures out of Place I – Ecologies and materialities of ‘the weird’’ has gone live for engagement, comment and discussion.

Today we launch the ‘Natures out of Place II – Beyond-Human Ecologies‘ session. The content in this workshop session bring together the following presentations that encapsulate more-than-human ecologies:

·        Situating The Monkey In The Urban Socio-spatial Fabric Of Delhi’s Neighbourhood -ms Aditi Dhillon, School Of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University Delhi, Dr Suresh Babu, School Of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University Delhi

·        The More-than-human Histories Of A Dying Lake. The Uru-qotzuñi And Lake Poopó, Bolivia – Dr Hanne Cottyn, University Of York, Uk

·        Going Beyond The Rational, Or: How Visceral Methods Can Enhance Research Outcomes – Dr Robert Hafner, University Of Innsbruck, Austria; Dr Felix Dorn, University Of Innsbruck, Austria; Anna-maria Brunner, University Of Innsbruck, Austria; Dr Christina Plank, University Of Natural Resources And Life Sciences, Austria

·        Un-naming and Wild Dogs – Rosa Deen, University of Kent

·        Art and Ecology – Heather Sanchez

·        Weird Ecologies and Tentacular storytelling- the case of ‘My Octopus Teacher’ – Dr Amber Huff, IDS-Sussex and Dr Adrian Nel, UKZN. 

Viewers and those in the POLLEN network are encouraged to view the content, engage in discussion via the webpage’s comment thread and embedded twitter feed. On twitter, please use the hashtag #POLLEN22, as well as #futurenatures, tagging @PolEcoNet @future_natures and @IDS_Sussex. Session organisers and presenters will be available to reply to comments intensively during this time.

Please note that while viewing is open access, users will need to login to comment on the pages. This allows us to track participation in the conference activities. In addition, there is a voluntary donation option available in the login screen. We would encourage tenured academics with the means to contribute; for while most of the labour for the workshops is voluntary, we have some administration costs we would appreciate assistance in covering.

We hope you enjoy the content and look forward to engaging in debates on the platform.

Regards

Adrian, Amber and the LOC

POLLEN22/3 pre-conference asynchronous workshop: Radical Epistemologies and Future Natures

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This week we launch the first of the pre-conference asynchronous workshops, entitled Radical Epistemologies and Future Natures, co-hosted by the Centre for Future Natures at the Institute for Development Studies, Sussex. The new centre is led by Amber Huff, and a number of sessions in the workshop are drawn from a soft launch of the centre held in Brighton earlier this month. We hope you enjoy the content, and get an understanding of the centre, and its work, in case of future collaborations.

More information, please visit the Future Natures website at www.futurenatures.org

The workshop itself is hosted on the following website: https://pollen2022.com/asynchronous-workshops/radical-epistemologies-and-future-natures/

Content from the workshop will ‘go live’ for engagement, comment and discussion, in the following order:

  1. Tomorrow, Tuesday the 26th onwards – Commoning, Enclosure and Future Natures.

The content for this session include a Keynote on Commoning and Enclosure, delivery by Massimo De Angelis, as well as an introduction of the Future Natures Centre, delivery by Amber Huff. The session is completed with a series of lightning talks on the commons by presenters.

  1. Wednesday onwards – Natures out of Place I – Ecologies and materialities of ‘the weird’

Session organizers: Dr Amber Huff, The Institute of Development Studies UK,  and Dr Adrian Nel, University of Kwazulu-Natal

Session abstract: Bringing political ecology’s long-standing concerns with the politics of human-nature relations into dialogue with insights from cultural and critical geography, cultural anthropology, the environmental humanities, geocriticism and genre fiction, this session responds to calls for a departure from primarily reactive analysis and critique, to develop new, experimental, proactive, playful and speculative approaches and analyses in political ecology (Harris, 2021; Braun, 2015). We ask: what is the potential of ‘the Weird’ and adjacent notions like the eerie, the uncanny, and the haunted (VanderMeer and VanderMeer, 2011; Fisher, 2016; Fisher, 2012) for developing grounded and radically ‘alternative epistemic entryways’ that can help us assess, historicize, recast and subvert dominant, flattening framings and ‘anthropocene’ politics of ecology, crisis, control and enclosure (Hosbey and Roane, 2021), whilst at the same time working for more convivial relations and abundant futures (Büscher and Fletcher, 2019; DeVore et al., 2019; Collard et al., 2015)? Contributions to this session explore and develop these themes as they intersect with ecologies of place and with long-standing and emerging concerns in political and other ecologies that are sensitive to history, relationality and power.

Presentations and presenters:

  • Keeping the spectre of waste alive – Lisa Doeland, Radboud University Nijmegen and University of Amsterdam
  • Mosquito time: Human-insect porosity within english urban wetlands – Mary Geary, University of Brighton
  • Taming and living of ‘weird ecologies’: notes from the floodplains of Assam, India – Sampurna Das, the University of Delhi
  • Towards Weird Geographies And Ecologies: Vandermeer, Miéville, And Chernobyl – Jonathon Turnbull, University Of Cambridge; Ben Platt, University Of Cambridge; Adam Searle, Université De Liège
  1. Thursday onwards – Natures out of Place II – Beyond-Human Ecologies

The content in this workshop session bring together presentations that encapsulate more-than-human ecologies.

  • Situating The Monkey In The Urban Socio-spatial Fabric Of Delhi’s Neighbourhood -ms Aditi Dhillon, School Of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University Delhi, Dr Suresh Babu, School Of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University Delhi
  • The More-than-human Histories Of A Dying Lake. The Uru-qotzuñi And Lake Poopó, Bolivia – Dr Hanne Cottyn, University Of York, Uk
  • Going Beyond The Rational, Or: How Visceral Methods Can Enhance Research Outcomes – Dr Robert Hafner, University Of Innsbruck, Austria; Dr Felix Dorn, University Of Innsbruck, Austria; Anna-maria Brunner, University Of Innsbruck, Austria; Dr Christina Plank, University Of Natural Resources And Life Sciences, Austria
  • Un-naming and Wild Dogs – Rosa Deen, University of Kent
  • Art and Ecology – Heather Sanchez

Format of engagement – The content from the workshop and its sessions will be up in perpetuity, however, we wish to encourage focused engagement with the content this week, the 25th to the 31st. Viewers and those in the POLLEN network are encouraged to view the content, engage in discussion via the webpage’s comment thread and embedded twitter feed. On twitter please use the hashtag #POLLEN22, as well as #futurenatures, tagging @future_natures and @IDS_UK. Session organisers and presenters will be available to reply to comments intensively during this time.

Please note that while viewing is open access, users will need to login to comment on the pages. This allows us to track participation in the conference activities. In addition there is a voluntary donation option available in the login screen. We would encourage tenured academics with the means to contribute; for while most of the labour for the workshops is voluntary, we have some administration costs we would appreciate assistance in covering.

We hope you enjoy the content, and look forward to engaging in debates on the platform.

Regards

Adrian and the LOC

Dr Adrian Nel

Senior Lecturer and Academic co-ordinator

Discipline of Geography, School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Science

University of Kwazulu-Natal

Most Recent Publication: Nel, A., (2021) “Biodiversity Economy and conservation territorialization: a pyrrhic strategy in Kwazulu-Natal”, Journal of Political Ecology 28(1), p.741-759. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.4744

Call for paper: Frontiers in Sustainability

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How to Achieve a Planetary Health Diet Through System and Paradigm Change?

About this Research Topic

The call for a transformation toward planetary health diets (such as the one suggested by the EAT-Lancet Commission in 2019) is getting louder and more urgent. Such diets take into account not only human health, but also the ecological sustainability of global food systems and the natural systems that enable human societies to flourish. More recently the 2022 IPCC AR6 Working Group III report also acknowledged this point. The report suggests a shift towards more plant-based diets for high meat-consuming population groups, as these diets are considered by many to be essential for climate change mitigation and adaptation, for restoring damaged ecosystems, and for alleviating the sixth mass extinction of species.

Food-related consumer practices, consumer behaviours and characteristics (gender, class, etc.) have been the focus of significant and high-quality social science research. However, sustainability transformation in food systems is largely a political and power-related question. This Research Topic draws attention to prioritising questions of power in this context. How can we identify and influence drivers – beyond individual practices – to generate system and paradigm level change? The incumbent actors (e.g. various industries) and structures (e.g. those related to subsidies) strongly resist transformational change. For example, even when industry actors seemingly accept change, they prefer to align it with their own short-term business interests and existing technology infrastructures (e.g. monocultures) or invest in technical fixes that might help mitigate impact but not on the scale that is urgently required. The transformation is also a question of change agents at various levels and in various societal spheres including citizens and civil society organisations attempting to gain power or empowering themselves through ideas and action. Specifically, purposive change in food systems is also about discursive power, as well as about cultivating and establishing new values, norms, and paradigms, associated with the deeper, stronger leverage points for societal change. Last, but not least, it is a question of a transformation in food systems governance.

The overall goal of this Research Topic is to shed light on the above issues and challenges related to achieving planetary health diets on both a regional as well as global scale. We encourage papers focusing critically on the following topics:

• Challenging the power of the incumbent global food industry, and in particular of dominant meat industry actors
• Overcoming structural and infrastructural barriers in food system transformation
• Empowerment of various societal actors attempting radical change
• Breaking the cycle of inertia between governments, industry, and citizens, whereby inaction / low priority feeds itself
• Tackling the psychological barriers to the acceptance of the necessity of transformational food system change
• A just transition in food systems, considering the global South and the global North, as well as the indigenous peoples of these lands
• Global animal agribusiness vs. small-scale animal agriculture
• Discursive power, values, norms, worldviews, and paradigms either resisting or enabling change
• New policy tools for regulating food production and consumption, especially within governance, using principles of strong sustainability
• New business models for food industry actors, e.g. not-for-profit businesses
• The position of indigenous worldviews, land rights and politics in achieving planetary health diets
• Assessing the EAT-Lancet 2019 report on a planetary health diet and the discussion this landmark publication has generated
• Systemic transformation vs. responsibilization of “consumers”
• Analysis of the concept of “diet” regarding how it is leveraged in the context of food system transformation, and to what ends
• Historical, philosophical, societal, and cultural aspects of the idea of a diet for “planetary health”

This Research Topic welcomes original research papers, perspectives, theoretical and methodological papers, policy position papers, case studies, and reviews.

We look for abstracts between 250-300 words.

Keywords: food systems governance, planetary health diet, values, paradigms, sustainable food systems, strong sustainability, power, empowerment, just transition, plant-based diet, inertia

Abstract Submission Deadline 23 September 2022

Manuscript Submission Deadline 13 January 2023

More information: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/39728/how-to-achieve-a-planetary-health-diet-through-system-and-paradigm-change

Permanent Environment and Development Lectureship (research and teaching) at University of Leeds

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Are you an interdisciplinary academic with proven abilities to carry out teaching and research in, environment and development? Are you developing an excellent research record and have clear potential for  success in obtaining funding? Are you passionate about delivering an exceptional student experience in a research-intensive Russell Group University?

The Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) in the School of Earth and Environment is looking for an enthusiastic and self-motivated interdisciplinary environmental and social scientist with a focus on environment and development, to join our world-leading team of researchers. Following recent successes in student recruitment and grant income from a range of funders (including UKRI, Horizon Europe and the Global Challenges Research Fund), we are seeking to build our portfolio of excellent teaching and research on pressing environment and development issues. We are specifically looking for someone whose work complements that of our current team, and who can add depth and breadth to this subject specialism and to the interdisciplinary nature of our School.

SRI is an internationally leading centre for research in the environmental social sciences. Our research specialisms include environment and development, environmental policy and economics for sustainability, energy and climate change mitigation, social and political dimensions of sustainability, and business and organisations for sustainable societies. For this position we are seeking applicants working on cross-cutting issues in environment and development in low and middle income countries, such as biodiversity conservation and development, climate resilience pathways to development, environmental risk and disaster management, sustainable food systems, livelihoods and ecosystems services for poverty alleviation, and environmental justice. We are interested in candidates with clear potential for a strong track record of publications and funding applications. Interdisciplinary expertise across the environmental sciences and environmental social sciences and a willingness to work in collaboration with colleagues across the institute and across multiple disciplines is highly desirable.

You will contribute to student education across the sustainability suite of undergraduate and Masters programmes that focus on environment and development and broader sustainability. This will include field courses, research dissertations and placement projects.

To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact: 

Dr Monica Di Gregorio, Co-Director of the Sustainability Research Institute 

Email: m.digregorio@leeds.ac.uk 

For how to apply: https://jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=ENVEE1573

Location: Leeds – Main Campus
Faculty/Service: Faculty of Environment
School/Institute: School of Earth and Environment
Category: Academic
Grade: Grade 8
Salary: £42,149 to £50,296 p.a.
Working Time: 100% – We will consider job share / flexible working arrangements
Post Type: Full Time
Contract Type: Ongoing
Release Date: Tuesday 14 June 2022
Closing Date: Tuesday 28 June 2022
Reference: ENVEE1573

The 3rd International Conference on Rural Socio-Economic Transformation

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The Department of Communication Sciences and Community Development (SKPM) IPB University are pleased to cordially invite you and POLLEN Network to participate and submit the abstract in The 3rd International Conference on Rural Socio-Economic Transformation (RUSET) which will be held from 10 until 11 August 2022 (hybrid) at the IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia.

The theme of the 2022 conference is “A Transdisciplinary Approach for Promoting Sustainable, Resilience and Just Rural Transitions in the Era of Climate Crisis”.

Deadline of abstract submission: 26th June 2022.

Selected articles will be published in the international proceeding.

Please register and submit your abstract online through http://ruset.skpm.ipb.ac.id

RUSET Organizing Committee
Alfian Helmi

http://bit.ly/alfianhelmi