Discipline: Environmental Social Sciences/Humanities
Duration: 18 months
Location: Lille Catholic University, France
Start date: 1 May 2022 or as negotiated
Salary: 32 000€ per year (gross salary), including public and additional private health insurance, and annual leave entitlement
A postdoctoral researcher is sought for interdisciplinary research (social science and humanities) into environmental/climate justice in rural landscapes in Europe. This 18-months full-time position is for an experienced researcher to join the international project Just-Scapes led by the University of East Anglia (UK). The job will involve working with Professor Brendan Coolsaet at ESPOL, the European School of Political and Social Sciences at Lille Catholic University, France, and with partners in France, the UK and the Czech Republic. Responsibilities will include research design, policy analysis, interviews with local and national policy makers, liaison with academic and non-academic partners, academic writing, and research dissemination. Among other things, the researcher will conduct a critical analysis of environmental/climate related public policies and national debates with regard to rural landscapes, and confront them with the local perceptions and debates collected through the partners’ case studies as well as with insights from the environmental/climate justice literature.
Project details
The project is funded by the European JPI Climate initiative, under its SOLSTICE programme for Enabling Societal Transformation in the Face of Climate Change, and the national funding agencies ANR (France), UKRI (UK), and MSMT (Czech Republic). This project aims to advance our understanding of the concept and practice of “just transformation”. This is a justice-based approach to shaping transformational change that is increasingly advocated by academics, activists, and policymakers, but which has not yet been substantially researched and elaborated. In particular, we address the challenge of transforming rural landscapes in response to climate change. Rural land use is a major contributor to climate change as well as being vulnerable to its effects. There is increasing discussion of land-use change as a critical policy response in rural areas, including large-scale afforestation, expansion of protected areas and reduction of livestock. But such land-use changes can be resisted by rural populations whose livelihoods and identities are linked to the land, leading to what we observe to be a ‘justice barrier’ to transformative change.
We research empirically how those who live and work in European rural landscapes perceive the justices and injustices arising from potential climate-influenced land-use changes. We explore these perceptions using interviews, creative writing workshops as well as online surveys, identifying multiple and competing ideas about justice as well as opportunities for shared visions underpinned by collective norms. We will then build on this justice analysis through transdisciplinary workshops at which participants work collaboratively to produce living justice manifestos for case study landscapes. The research will involve comparative analysis in three European landscapes, one each in the Czech Republic, France, and the United Kingdom.
Job description
The postdoctoral researcher will:
Document and conduct critical analysis of environmental/climate related public policies and national debates with regard to rural landscapes;
Conduct interviews with local and national policy-makers independently as well as part of a team;
Play a full role in overall project design, planning and management, including liaising with partners in the UK, France and the Czech Republic;
Contribute effectively to developing the project research design and methods;
Undertake visits and attend workshops with partners in France, the UK and the Czech Republic, as required;
Contribute to writing academic and other outputs, involving a lead role in some outputs and contributing role in others;
Work independently as well as with colleagues to disseminate findings, including through writing and presenting conference papers.
Person specifications
A PhD or equivalent in a relevant social science or humanities discipline;
Strong interest in and experience of interdisciplinary research on environmental issues; Interest in and knowledge of environmental justice scholarship;
Experience of qualitative and participatory research methods, including critical policy analysis and interviews;
Excellent oral and written communication skills in English. French and/or Czech language skills would be a decided plus;
Proven ability to write for peer-reviewed academic publication;
Ability to organise their own time and work, to meet deadlines, and manage competing priorities;
Flexible working and willingness to travel overland for conducting interviews and for meetings in Europe.
Application details
Applications should include a cover letter, a CV, two writing samples as well as the names and contact details of three potential referees that may speak to the candidate’s excellence in research. Applications must be submitted to espol.recrutements@univ-catholille.fr.
Deadline for applications: 6 March 2022. Interviews with shortlisted candidates will be held in March.
We hope that you have started 2022 renewed and well.
This month we are delighted to feature the great work of another POLLEN node, the Urban Ecologies Project at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, India. If your node is keen to share your work in upcoming newsletters, please write to us at politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com.
As always, we are pleased to post the latest publications, CfPs and more from our lively community. We also welcome proposals for blog posts on the POLLEN blog – please contact us at the same email address with any ideas! Do check out our latest blog post on “Privatisation and commodification: Ecotourism as capitalist expansion in Sumatra, Indonesia” by Stasja Koot and other colleagues here.
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 our node at the Urban Ecologies Project at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, India.
The Urban Ecologies Project at the National Institute of Advanced Studies
Overview
The Urban Ecologies Project is committed to both theoretical advancement and methodological innovation in political ecology, especially in four novel directions. Some of the epistemic centres for Political Ecology, typically in the Global North, have tended to dominate how the political and ecological ought to be studied and parsed. In our work, first we are committed to taking ‘nonhuman lifeworlds seriously, developing methods that combine ethology and ethnography to push for a more ‘ecological’ political ecology. A second commitment is to move from discourse and representation to affect and the politics of knowledge. A third strand, rethinking planetary transformations from India, foregrounds colonial history and post-colonial economy to provide counter-narratives to questions of wildlife in the Anthropocene. Lastly, we are committed to questions of environmental justice in ways that attend to existing practices and the lived experiences of subalterns, drawing on sustained engagement and ethnographic work.
Node members
Anindya “Rana” Sinha Rana, primarily based at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, has previously studied the molecular biochemistry of yeast metabolism, social biology of wasps and the classical genetics of human disease. His principal research, over the last three decades, has been on the behavioural ecology, cognitive ethology, population and behavioural genetics, evolutionary biology and conservation studies of primates. His current research in natural philosophies, animal studies, art heritage and performance studies involve etho-ethnographic explorations of nonhuman synurbisation, human–nonhuman relations and the lived experiences of non/humans, promising unique insights into more-than-human lifeworlds – of the past, today and in the future.
Maan Barua Maan Barua is a social scientist working on the ontologies, economies and politics of the living and material world. His research develops conversations between posthumanist, postcolonial and political economic thought in three arenas: urban ecologies, relations between nature and capitalism, and more recently, the Plantationocene as an alternative analytic for understanding planetary change. Maan is a University Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Cambridge, and an Adjunct Faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore. He is also the Principal Investigator on the ERC Horizon 2020 uEcologies Starting Grant.
Anmol Chowdhury Anmol is currently a doctoral student with the uEcologies project, funded by an ERC Horizon 2020 grant, at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Their study is trying to understand the lives of rhesus macaques, as they live, across cities in India. Through their work, they are attempting to expand urban political ecology by building conversations between ethnographic and ethological perspectives of thinking about animals. Their other major interests include gender and queer theory, and the geopolitics, folk music and traditional foods of Kashmir.
Ashni Kumar Dhawale Ashni, a doctoral scholar at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, has been documenting the current lifeworlds of a typically rainforest nonhuman primate, the lion-tailed macaque, as it has begun to recently explore and exploit anthropogenic habitats and interact with local human communities. Her attempts to capture the novel, emergent reactions of both macaques and humans, has demanded a repurposing of theory and method in both ethology and political ecology, and an articulation of the socio-political atmospheres that determine and influence the changing dynamics of the synurbisation processes being experienced by nonhuman species in the Anthropocene.
Sayan Banerjee Sayan Banerjee, a doctoral research scholar at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, is examining behavioural and feminist political ecologies of human–elephant interactions in rural, northeastern India. He is deeply interested in human–wildlife relations, interdisciplinary conservation science and socio-ecological studies of Indian forestry. His various projects have documented indigenous hunting in Nagaland state, explored gendered implications of human–elephant interactions, and identified the nature and patterns of community participation in wildlife conservation projects, all in northeastern India.
Shruti Ragavan Shruti Ragavan is a fourth-year doctoral scholar at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore. Her research has been exploring the natures, cultures, and politics of bovines in the cities of Delhi and Guwahati in India. Certain themes that she engages with are bovine ethnographies, writing more-than-human histories of cities, infrastructures, commons, and smellscapes amongst others. Her broader research interests include human–animal relationships in the urban and the impact of planning and design on nonhuman lives.
Shubhangi Srivastava Shubhangi Srivastava is a doctoral research scholar on the ERC-funded Horizon 2020 grant on uEcologies at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore. With a strong interest in nonhuman lives in the urban, her doctoral research, over the past three years, has centred around studying the ecological, political and socio-economic dimensions of human–dog relationships in urban India. She has been using a combination of ethnographic and ethological methods to study human–dog interactions, driven by her motivation to document the establishment of beastly places and the politics surrounding human/nonhuman cohabitation in the Global South.
Sneha Gutgutia Sneha Gutgutia, a doctoral scholar on an ERC-funded Horizon 2020 project on uEcologies at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, has been rethinking urban marginality by examining human–animal relations in informal settlements across India. Her current work focusses on the more-than-human ethnographies of nonhuman animals, primarily pigs, in marginalised human/ nonhuman communities in the urban. Having completed her master’s degree in social work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, she has earlier worked as a researcher and activist on issues of conservation and livelihoods at the Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group in Pune.
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).”
Fayed, I., and Cummings, J. (eds.) 2021. Teaching in the Post COVID-19 Era: World education dilemmas, teaching innovations and solutions in the age of crisis. Springer. <Teaching in the Post COVID-19 Era | SpringerLink>.
Bori, P. J., and Gonda, N. 2022, ‘Contradictory populist ecologies: Pro-peasant propaganda and land grabbing in rural Hungary’. Political Geography, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102583>.
Branch, A., F. Agyei, J. Anai, S. Apecu, A. Bartlett, E. Brownell, M. Caravani, C.J. Cavanagh, S. Fennell, S. Langole, M.B. Mabele, T.H. Mwampamba, M. Njenga, A. Owor, J. Phillips, N. Tiitmamer. 2022. From crisis to context: Reviewing the future of sustainable charcoal in Africa. Energy Research & Social Science 87, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102457>.
Büscher, B., Stasja, K., and Thakholi, L. 2022. ‘Fossilized conservation, or the unsustainability of saving nature in South Africa’. Environment and Planning E, <https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211062002>.
Büscher, B. 2021. ‘The dangerous intensifications of surplus alienation, or why platform capitalism challenges the (more-than) human’. Dialogues in Human Geography, <https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206221075710>.
Büscher, B. 2021, in press. ‘The nonhuman turn: critical reflections on alienation, entanglement and nature under capitalism’. Dialogues in Human Geography, <https://doi-org /10.1177/20438206211026200>.
Flood Chávez, D.I., and Niewiadomski, P., 2022. ‘The urban political ecology of fog oases in Lima, Peru’. Geoforum. Vol. 129, pp. 1–12.<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.01.001>.
Jakobsen, J. 2022. ‘Beyond subject-making: Conflicting humanisms, class analysis, and the “dark side” of Gramscian political ecology’. Progress in Human Geography. <https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325211056442>.
Sullivan, S. 2021. ‘Cultural heritage and histories of the Northern Namib: historical and oral history observations for the Draft Management Plan, Skeleton Coast National Park 2021/2022-2030/2031’. Future Pasts Working Paper Series 12. <https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp12-sullivan-2021>.
Thakholi, L., and Büscher, B. 2022. ‘Conserving Inequality: how private conservation and property developers deepen spatial injustice in South Africa’. Environment and Planning E, <https://doi-org/10.1177/25148486211066388>.
Vega, A., Fraser, J.A., Torres, M., and Loures, R. 2022. ‘Those who live like us: Autodemarcations and the co-becoming of indigenous and beiradeiros on the Upper Tapajós River, Brazilian Amazonia’. Geoforum, Vol. 129, pp. 39–48. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.01.003>.
Weldemichel, T.G. 2021. ‘Making land grabbable: Stealthy dispossessions by conservation in Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania’. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, <https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211052860>.
Calls for proposals
The Journal of Posthumanism welcomes proposals for a special issue on a theme related to posthuman international relations and security (broadly defined).
Special Issues would normally be between 40,000 and 50,000 words, the equivalent of approximately 8 articles of 5000-6000 words, excluding the footnotes and references. We would be amenable to fewer or more articles if remaining within the overall word length, as well as Dossiers that include commentaries and roundtable discussions.
The guest editor/s must ensure that all contributions adhere to the style of the journal (https://journals.tplondon.com/jp/about/submissions) and commit to appropriate peer review of all contributions. This may be coordinated by the guest editor/s or through the journal’s normal (double-blind) peer review system.
The guest editor/s must also ensure that final iterations of all contributions are submitted to the journal no later than May 5, 2023.
Please note that acceptance of a proposal does not guarantee publication of the Special Issue, either in whole or in part.
The special issue proposal should be submitted as a word document to co-editor Dr. Çağdaş Dedeoğlu at posthumanism@tplondon.com by April 15, 2022. A decision will be made within 2 weeks by members of the editorial board, and proposal guest editor/s will be notified by April 29.
Prospective guest editor/s must provide a detailed proposal that includes:
· List of all proposed article titles and authors, along with their institutional affiliation/s,
· 200-300 word abstract of each proposed article,
· Overview outlining the purpose of the special issue, its rationale, and the anticipated contribution to existing literature/debate (up to 1000 words),Short CV of guest editor/s (no more than 3 pages each).
Calls for applications
MA in Political Ecology at Lancaster University
•The only one of its kind in the UK: dedicated to understanding how the environment and politics intersect with issues of power and justice
•You will work with and learn from one of the largest political ecology research groups in the UK
•You will directly engage with both academic and non-academic practitioners of political ecology, including environmental activists and film-makers
•You will take your learning into the ‘real world’ through innovative teaching sessions that move outside the classroom
Brief description:
Interested in challenging the status quo of the environment and its politics?
Come and join us at Lancaster for our recently launched MA in Political Ecology!
We are the only programme of its type in the UK, offering the conceptual tools and practical skills to ask the difficult questions of human-environment relations and drive transformative action. You will be immersed in one of the UK’s largest and dynamic political ecology research groups, which draws upon diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives. These address and analyse critiques, debates and actions related to environmental concerns over local to global scales. Key themes include the politics of resource extraction, water, climate politics and the green economy. We offer novel approaches to our teaching, engaging our students in creative classes that provide tools to understand a complex planet and the challenges of our living with it.
IV Congreso Latinoamericano de Ecología Política (Latin-American Congress on Political Ecology) Ecología política y pensamiento crítico latinoamericano: raíces, trayectorias y miradas al futuro Ecuador | 19-21 de octubre de 2022 (salidas de campo 22 de octubre)
El tema central del Congreso es “Ecología política y pensamiento crítico latinoamericano: raíces, trayectorias y miradas al futuro”. Pueden leer más sobre la convocatoria al congreso, los Ejes temáticos y Líneas de discusión aquí.
El congreso mantendrá un formato híbrido, con algunas actividades solamente presenciales y otras solamente virtuales, en virtud de lo inestable aún de los viajes internacionales y de las restricciones de aforos para un evento presencial en Ecuador, bajo los protocolos de Covid-19. Con esta decisión buscamos garantizar la participación de investigadorxs y estudiantes que buscan compartir los resultados de sus investigaciones con la comunidad académica de la ecología política, así como de los y las activistas y personas de comunidades en resistencia que buscan crear redes de apoyo y reconocimiento mutuo.
Modalidades de participación: Presentaciones individuales (virtual), Paneles armados (virtual), Talleres de creación colectiva (presencial), Rodas de diálogo (presencial), Formatos artísticos (presencial).
Inscripciones a todas las modalidades aquí. Plazo de envío de propuestas: 1 de Marzo, 2022 Plazo de inscripción y pago: 15 de julio, 2022
Vacancies
Campaigner (military and climate change) at the Conflict and Environment Observatory Contract: Until December 2023, Full-time
Position overview Militaries are major polluters but it’s unclear how large their emissions are. Until last year, their emissions had been off the global climate change agenda for 25 years. Now NATO, and the UK, US and some other militaries are pledging reduction targets. The tide has begun to turn but we cannot leave militaries to dictate the pace of change or the level of ambition.
At COP26 in Glasgow we launched military emissions dot org, together with academic partners. Its aim is to communicate the huge gaps in the reporting of military emissions. We also began collaborating with a diverse range of civil society organisations. We now need someone to work with us as we build on this momentum ahead of COP27 and COP28.
The role You will work with our Environmental Policy Officer, Research and Policy Director and academic partners to translate their research on military emissions into accessible advocacy materials. You will develop advocacy campaigns that will align with key events and develop and build a global network of civil society partners and the communication tools to support it.
Application Instructions Send a CV and covering letter in Word or PDF format, with your name as the filename for both documents. We expect your covering letter to clearly outline your suitability for the role, and directly address the requirements of the person specification above. Closing date 18th February, interviews are expected to take place before March 10th.
Organizer/main contact person: Patrick Bottazzi and Sébastien Boillat, Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Agroecology is commonly defined as a triple object combining ecologically sounds agronomic practices, a corpus of scientific knowledge and a social movement (Wezel et al. 2009). It has been argued that its wide adoption in sub-Saharan African present the potential to foster adaptation to climate change, biodiversity protection, and farmers’ food sovereignty and livelihoods. Despite these assumptions, recent literature on sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) revealed that most of the agroecological initiatives are led by ‘classical’ development and conservation agencies such as NGOs, government, research institutes and more recently private ‘organic’ industry (Isgren and Ness 2017; Bottazzi and Boillat 2021; Boillat, Belmin, and Bottazzi 2021).
This issues raises several questions related to the ‘political appropriation’ of agroecology (Giraldo and Rosset 2018; Altieri and Toledo 2011) and its real emancipatory potential for rural societies in SSA. What are the discourses, narratives and power relations prevailing in agroecological movements, projects and programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa? Do these represent a potentially counter-hegemonic movement that empowers producers and consumers? Or, to the contrary, do they entail new mechanisms of appropriation of nature that build on dominant neo-colonial ecologies? Who are the winners and the losers in the process of transition to agroecology? Given these potentially strongly divergent outcomes, we postulate that a strongly critical approach is needed to scrutinize the power relationships at play around the promotion and implementation of agroecology in the region.
We invite contributions to several related topics such as:
Politics, discourse, narrative and strategies of agroecology
Territorial aspects, access to natural resources and land rights
Just transition, labour and vulnerable people
Power asymmetries, transnational networks
Gender, ecofeminism and reproductive spaces
If you are interested to contribute to this session, please send your presentation title (max. 20 words), your name, your affiliation, an abstract of maximum 250 words and 3 keywords to Sébastien Boillat (sebastien.boillat@giub.unibe.ch) or Patrick Bottazzi (patrick.bottazzi@giub.unibe.ch) by January 29th, 2022.
References
Altieri, Miguel A, and Victor Manuel Toledo. 2011. “The Agroecological Revolution in Latin America: Rescuing Nature, Ensuring Food Sovereignty and Empowering Peasants.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (3): 587–612. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2011.582947.
Boillat, Sébastien, Raphael Belmin, and Patrick Bottazzi. 2021. “The Agroecological Transition in Senegal: Transnational Links and Uneven Empowerment.” Agriculture and Human Values.
Bottazzi, Patrick, and Sébastien Boillat. 2021. “Political Agroecology in Sub-Saharan Africa: Repertoires of Collective Action and Strategies of Farmer Unions in Senegal.” Sustainability.
Giraldo, Omar Felipe, and Peter M Rosset. 2018. “Agroecology as a Territory in Dispute: Between Institutionality and Social Movements.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 45 (3): 545–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1353496.
Isgren, Ellinor, and Barry Ness. 2017. “Agroecology to Promote Just Sustainability Transitions: Analysis of a Civil Society Network in the Rwenzori Region, Western Uganda.” Sustainability 9 (8). https://doi.org/10.3390/su9081357.
It’s our pleasure to invite you to our online exhibition and event series exploring the ways in which care, creativity and community persist, exist and resist despite – or because – of extractivism.
The Despite Extractivism online exhibition (opening on Thursday) assembles expressions of care, creativity and community from diverse sites of extraction and geographical contexts. Collectively, the works in this exhibition illuminate and explore ways of questioning, subverting and resisting the logics and impacts of extractivism. Can artistic interventions help foster new sensibilities and solidarities with distanced extractive contexts? Can the extractive zone be a fertile ground for alternatives?
Accompanying the exhibition, our events series is an unfolding opportunity for collective learning and solidarity-building with artists, activists, academics, communities and active audiences.
Between a launch event (Thursday 20th January, 12-1.30pm UK) and a closing event, three webinars will explore the stories, ideas and practises of the Despite Extractivism contributors and the communities they engage with. The events, featuring performances, presentations and discussions, focus in turn on expanding but intersecting scales, from the body to the global.
Presenters and further information to be announced – please register on eventbrite, stay tuned to the exhibition page and follow us on twitter @Extracting_Us .
Despite Extractivism is the third exhibition organised by the Extracting Us Collective (Siti Maimunah, Dian Ekowati, Alice Owen, Rebecca Elmhirst and Elona Hoover, with technical and curatorial support from Celina Loh). The collective is part of the EU-funded WEGO-ITN network for Feminist Political Ecology research, which has informed our theoretical approach and curatorial principles and practices. We have also worked with and received support from ONCA, a Brighton based arts charity that bridges social and environmental justice issues with creativity, and the research Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics (SECP) based at the University of Brighton.
Co-conveners: Ekin Kurtiç – Brandeis University, Crown Center for Middle East Studies Aybike Alkan – TU Berlin, Institut für Philosophie, Literatur-, Wissenschafts- & Technikgeschichte Maral Erol – Işık University, Humanities and Social Sciences Department
Session background:
In the last decade, scholarship at the intersection of political ecology and science and technology studies (STS) has been on the rise. The intellectual alignment of these fields of study has materialized as a result of particular shifts in each field, making the overlaps and differences between these fields more visible. While political ecologists have paid increased attention to questions of knowledge production concerning the environment, STS scholars have shown a growing interest in considering the political entanglements of environmental scientific knowledge (Goldman and Turner 2011: 5) and in deepening the incorporation of political economic and geopolitical analyses in their works (Kaşdoğan 2016). Moreover, political ecologists’ expanding interest in the materiality of ecological life has led to a novel interest in concepts and methodologies of STS (Robbins 2011: 76).
This panel discussion aims to revisit the new perspectives, potentials, and limitations revealed through this cross-fertilization at a time of intensifying ecological destruction and resulting injustices and struggles, as well as of expanding attacks on environmental science, especially considering that STS has been blamed for having contributed to the post-truth era and to the suspicions around issues of climate change (Fuller 2016). We welcome empirical and theoretical contributions addressing how the insights of political ecology and STS can inform each other.
The guiding questions include but are not limited to: ● Combining STS and political ecology perspectives, how do we reach a more robust and complex analytical and theoretical approach in understanding environmental change? ● What kind of new perspectives do social studies of scientists and technical experts provide in political ecological inquiries? ● How and to what extent do STS concepts and methodologies engage with ecological justice, equity, and rights – issues that have long been at the center of political ecology? ● How can the political ecology perspective open or foreclose new ways of understanding the politics of and around environmental knowledge production and circulation, particularly regarding climate change? ● What are the potentials and/or limitations of the intersection of political ecology and STS in exploring and contributing to radical, decolonial, and emancipatory ecologies? ● Which socio-ecological themes and topics lend themselves well to and would benefit from a political ecological analysis informed by STS (and vice versa)?
We invite panel presentations that reflect on these questions or any related ones based on empirical research or conceptual reflection. If you want to join our panel session, please send your abstract (max. 250 words) to ekinkurtic@brandeis.edu, maralerol@gmail.com, and aalkan@ku.edu.tr no later than January 26th, 2022. Please include the presentation title, 4-5 keywords, affiliation (if applicable), and contact information in your abstract.
Goldman, M. J. and Turner, M. D (2011) “Introduction,” In Knowing nature: conversations at the intersection of political ecology and science studies. Goldman, M. J., Nadasdy, P., & Turner, M. D. (Eds.). (2011).. University of Chicago Press.
OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University is Norway’s third largest university, with more than 20,000 students and 2,000 employees. OsloMet delivers knowledge to solve societal challenges, in close cooperation with the society and employers. OsloMet is an urban and diverse university with a clear international profile, and an attractive place to work and study with campuses in Oslo city centre and at Kjeller in the Municipality of Lillestrøm. Our location in the metropolitan area gives us good opportunities to understand and benefit from the city’s diverse population.
The Faculty of Education and International Studies (LUI) has approximately 550 employees and 7000 students and is located in Oslo and Akershus. The Faculty is comprised of four departments as well as the National Centre of Multicultural Education (NAFO). The Faculty educates tomorrow’s teachers from kindergarten through upper secondary school, in close cooperation with the field of practical training. The Faculty offers a PhD in Education. In addition, the Faculty offers development studies and studies in sign language and interpreting. Diversity is a core value for the Faculty and its activities. The Faculty’s research and development focuses on practical training and is both profession-oriented and internationally oriented.
The Department of International Studies and Interpreting (IST) has leading scholars in development studies, sign language interpreting, and interpreting in the public sector, and its activities are characterised by extensive international research and cooperation. The department offers bachelor’s degrees in development studies, public sector interpreting and sign language interpreting, as well as a master’s degree in international education and development, and sign language didactics in the master’s degree in primary education. In addition, the department offers a number of continuing education courses.
PhD Fellowship position: Critical education to transform the world
The Faculty of Education and International Studies announces a fully funded three-year research fellowship position for studies about education’s relationship to global sustainability challenges and transformations. The fellowship position is in the Department of International Studies and Interpreting, affiliated with the Section for Development Studies, and the research group Development, Power, and Inequality. The project leader, Professor Tom G. Griffiths, is a member of the Development, Power, and Inequality research group, whose members carry out cross-disciplinary research analysing the nature of and inequalities in development within historical and current political and economic structures and power relations in the Global South. This extends to work considering the actual and potential roles of formal and informal education in realising current and/or reconceptualised models of development.
Apply by: 1 February 2022
Area of research
A three-year PhD Fellowship position is vacant at the Department of International Studies and Interpreting in the Section for Development Studies. The PhD candidate will work independently, but in close co-operation with the project leader, and with other academic staff in the section. The candidate will engage in critical research examining education about approaches to sustainable development, with emphasis on targets such as universal well-being across time and space on the one hand, and models of economic growth on the other. The global context includes initiatives like ‘Education for Sustainable Development’, associated with the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which the UN characterised as ‘17 Goals to Transform Our World’. Projects may focus on educational interventions that prepare students to critically consider such targets and approaches, and/or provide analyses of how transformative projects associated with world-systems analysis, political economy, political ecology, or degrowth, might be included in education. The project is grounded in critical analyses of the actual and potential roles of education in response to global challenges of sustainable development and climate justice.
The fellowship position is a 100% position for three years, available from 01.09.2022. The successful applicant(s) should have the goal to complete the PhD programme within this time frame and receive a Ph.D.
Applicants must submit a PhD project description with the application based on the template available here. The PhD project description must be in English. Potential applicants are asked to get in touch with the contact person for the overall project for additional information about the project and input on the planned individual project description.
Required qualifications and terms:
Successful applicants must have completed a master’s degree (equivalent to 120 credits) with a grade B or better, and in addition have a background in educational studies, teacher education or comparative and international education, development studies, or other relevant education at a comparable level. For more information, see Admission requirements. Foreign diplomas must be translated into English by the degree-conferring institution. Education taken in other countries than Norway should be recognised in advance by NOKUT, and an authorized copy of the letter of recognition should be enclosed.
Admission to the PhD programme at the Faculty of Education and International Studies is a prerequisite.
Successful applicants must have excellent written and oral communication skills in English.
•The only one of its kind in the UK: dedicated to understanding how the environment and politics intersect with issues of power and justice
•You will work with and learn from one of the largest political ecology research groups in the UK
•You will directly engage with both academic and non-academic practitioners of political ecology, including environmental activists and film-makers
•You will take your learning into the ‘real world’ through innovative teaching sessions that move outside the classroom •
Brief Descriptoin:
Interested in challenging the status quo of the environment and its politics?
Come and join us at Lancaster for our recently launched MA in Political Ecology!
We are the only programme of its type in the UK, offering the conceptual tools and practical skills to ask the difficult questions of human-environment relations and drive transformative action. You will be immersed in one of the UK’s largest and dynamic political ecology research groups, which draws upon diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives. These address and analyse critiques, debates and actions related to environmental concerns over local to global scales. Key themes include the politics of resource extraction, water, climate politics and the green economy. We offer novel approaches to our teaching, engaging our students in creative classes that provide tools to understand a complex planet and the challenges of our living with it.
Vacancy Description: School of Geography and Sustainable Development Salary: £34,304 per annum Start Date: 11 April 2022, or as soon as possible thereafter Fixed term until 10 April 2023
We invite applications from candidates with interests in Geography and Sustainable Development, particularly those with expertise in Political Ecology, and commitment to excellence in teaching. You will contribute to the highly successful undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes in Geography and Sustainable Development at St Andrews, with opportunities to interact with our excellent research clusters.
Your role will involve engaging the interest and motivation of students and inspiring them to learn by fostering debate and developing their ability to engage in critical discourse and rational thinking. You will work as a member of our teaching teams under the overall direction of the School’s Director of Teaching. You will have excellent organisational and administrative skills, and the ability to communicate complex information and ideas effectively. You will be encouraged to seek ways to improve performance by reflecting on teaching design and delivery, and by analysing feedback.
You will have completed, or be about to complete, a PhD in Human Geography, Sustainable Development, Environmental Studies, or a related field with a specialisation in Political Ecology or Environmental Justice. Experience with a range of teaching formats, including lectures, IT labs, tutorials, seminars, practical and field classes as well as the supervision of group work would be an advantage, as would experience of teaching within the Scottish university system.
This is a full time post on a fixed term contract until 10 April 2023.
Applications are particularly welcome from people from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community, and other protected characteristics who are under-represented in Geography & Sustainable Development posts at the University.
Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of the St Andrews experience. We strive to create a fair and inclusive culture demonstrated through our commitment to diversity awards (Athena Swan, Carer Positive, LGBT Charter, Race Charters and Stonewall). We celebrate diversity by promoting profiles of BAME, LGBTIQ+ staff and supporting networks including the Staff BAME Network; Staff with Disabilities Network; Staff LGBTIQ+ Network; and the Staff Parents & Carers Network. Full details available online: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/hr/edi/.
The School of Earth and Sustainability (SES) at Northern Arizona University invites applications for a full-time, benefit eligible, tenure-track position of Assistant Professor in Environmental policy (#605899). We seek an environmental policy social scientist who will contribute to existing strengths in research, teaching, and practice within SES. We welcome applicants with interdisciplinary training and research experience in the field of environmental policy and governance related to human, policy, and justice dimensions of climate change, adaptation and/or mitigation, equitable renewable and sustainable energy system transitions, or other policy topics related to environmental sustainability. The successful candidate will prioritize SES’s efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion while engaging students, faculty, and external stakeholders on challenging issues critical to a just and sustainable society. This position builds on university strengths in Environmental Sustainability. Scholars are sought to develop new collaborations that will enable interdisciplinary science-based applied scholarship and teaching on local to global sustainability challenges. The successful candidate is required to maintain an active research program, provide quality teaching for SES, and contribute service to the School, the university, and profession. We encourage applications by candidates who will contribute to the cultural diversity of NAU and who value cultural, ethnic, and racial differences.
For full consideration, apply for position #605899 by 21 January 2022.
Northern Arizona University sits at the base of mountains sacred to Indigenous peoples throughout the region. We honor their past, present, and future generations who have lived here for millennia and will forever call this place home.
The Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) at the University of Oslo has a vacant 3-year PhD-position to work with the project “Pandemic Entanglements: The Political Ecology of Industrial Meat Production in the Pandemic Era (PANDEMEAT)” funded by the Research Council of Norway.
The PhD candidate will study how people involved in poultry production and consumption in Norway frame (narrate, define, articulate) and understand what it means to live and deal with past and ongoing outbreaks of avian influenza. This involves conducting primarily qualitative fieldwork in Norway, including speaking with stakeholders from various industries, social backgrounds and levels of governance, and reviewing documents and texts (official regulations, reports, media coverage, etc.). High competence in Norwegian and previous experience of conducting qualitative research will be an asset.
The candidate’s research provide the candidate with the opportunity to obtain a PhD in the social sciences.
Qualification requirements
Academic qualifications:
The candidate must have completed an academically relevant education corresponding to a five-year Norwegian degree programme, where 120 credits are at Master ́s degree level. Relevant academic fields include in no particular order, human geography, social anthropology, sociology, gender studies, science and technology studies, history, media studies, political communication, political sciences, development studies and development, environment and cultural change.
Minimum B for both GPA and Master thesis
Documented proficiency in both written and oral English
Documented sufficient knowledge of a Scandinavian language
Documented experience with qualitative research methods
How to apply
The application should include
A letter of intent (max 1.5 pages)
The applicant’s complete CV
Electronic copy of Master´s thesis if available
Certified copies of relevant transcripts and diplomas
Documentation of proficiency in a Scandinavian language and English
Contact details for two references
A research proposal that specifies a clearly defined research question, explicit and achievable aims and objectives, a brief description of a relevant conceptual or theoretical framework to answer the research question, a methods section that convincingly relates to the research question and objectives, a list of references and a progress plan. Methods may include but are not limited to participant observation, qualitative interviews, surveys, discourse analysis, visual ethnography. The maximum word count is 1500 words (excluding references and progress plan).
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an interview, which will be conducted in English and Norwegian.
A copy of the research project is available upon request.
Contact information
Professor Mariel Aguilar-Støen (mariel.stoen@sum.uio.no
Head of office Gitte Egenberg (gitte.egenberg@sum.uio.no)
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