August 2023 Update

Dear POLLEN Members and Friends,  We are pleased to share with you the latest publications, vacancies, CfPs and more from our lively community. We aim to send the newsletter on…

Dear POLLEN Members and Friends, 

We are pleased to share with you the latest publications, vacancies, CfPs and more from our lively community. We aim to send the newsletter on the 25th of every month.   

Has your POLLEN node NOT been introduced by us? If your node is keen to share your work in upcoming newsletters, please write to us at politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com.  

We also welcome proposals for blog posts on the POLLEN blog – please contact us at the same email address with any ideas!  

We are pleased to post the latest publications, CfPs and more from our lively community.  

With best regards from your POLLEN Secretariat  

Kelly Dorkenoo, Torsten Krause, Mine Islar and Wim Carton  

IMPORTANT! To get the best view of this newsletter, please enable the media content at the top of the e-mail. 

Publications 

Journal articles 

  1. Kabra, Asmita, Budhaditya Das, and Chhavi Bathla. “Indigenous Tree Tenure in the Times of Charismatic Carnivore Conservation: Territoriality and Property in the Forests of Central India.” Political Geography 101 (March 1, 2023): 102841. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102841. 
  1. Horn, C. (2023). “The River is Our Street.” Intersectional Rural Protest in Brazil’s Amazon. Sociologica, 17(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/16815  
  1. Koot, S. (2023). The responsibility to consume: Excessive “environmentourism” against rhinoceros extinction in South Africa. In M. Demian, M. Fumanti and C. Lynteris and  (Eds.). Anthropology and Responsibility (pp. 37-56). London: Routledge. 2023 – Koot – The responsibility to consume 
  1. Koot, S., Grant, J., Puckett, F., //Khumûb, M., Mushavanga, T., Mushavanga, D., ≠Oma Tsamkxao, L., /Ui Kunta, S., Dommerholt, T., Katsimpri, E., Gressier, C., Van der Wulp, C., Paksi, A. and Castelijns, E. (2023 [for 2020]). The limitations of research codes and contracts: Ethnography and agency among San hunter-gatherers of southern Africa. Hunter Gatherer Research 6 (1-2): 147-168. 2023 – Koot et al. – The limitations of research codes and contracts 
  1. Irvine-Broque, A., & Dempsey, J. (2023). Risky business: Protecting nature, protecting wealth? Conservation Letters, 00, e12969. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12969 
  1. Stefan Ouma, Christine Vogt-William, Franklin Obeng-Odoom, Abena D. Oduro, Tanita J. Lewis, Lebohang Liepollo Pheko, Sara Stevano & Ingrid Kvangraven (2023) Reconfiguring African Studies, reconfiguring economics: centring intersectionality and social stratification, Critical African Studies, DOI: 10.1080/21681392.2023.2226774 
  1. Joslin, A. (2023). Struggles for recognitional justice through payments for ecosystem services contracts in Ecuador’s Andes. Geoforum, 145, 103832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103832 

 
Events & Announcements 

  1. Conference Value frontiers across locations and landscapes: Anthropological perspectives 
    When: September 8th, 2023 
    Where: Online (Register by September 1st), University of Helsinki 
    More info: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/sea-state/2023/08/09/final-conference-on-friday-8th-of-septmeber-2023/  
  1. Conference 17th Biennial Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics. 
    When: October 23-28, 2023 
    Where: Colombia (Bogota and Santa Marta) 
    More info: https://2023.isecoeco.org/  

Vacancies 

  1. Professor position of Social Ecology at SEC/BOKU Vienna. The position is focused on sustainable development and socio-ecological transformation from a social science perspective, contributing in particular to the BOKU competence field “Resources and Social Dynamics”. More info: https://boku.ac.at/fileadmin/data/H01000/mitteilungsblatt/MB_2022_23/MB21/Social_Ecology__final_.pdf 
    Additional context-information on the position and on the Institute of Social Ecology is available here: https://boku.ac.at/fileadmin/data/H03000/H73000/H73700/News_Top_Stories/News/2023/Position_paperengl.pdf 
    Deadline: September, 15th, 2023. 
  1. PhD positions at University of Bern. 
    The successful candidates will be part of the interdisciplinary research project “Commonification: transition pathways for urban sustainability (COMMONPATHS)”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Focusing on case studies in Switzerland and in Ghana, the project aims to better understand the emergence, organization, effects, and conditions of success of three commonification processes aimed at (1) greening cities, (2) creating affordable housing, and (3) supporting community‐based agrifood initiatives. By focusing on the governance of these resource systems, COMMONPATHS aims to analyze how and under what conditions these movements effectively contribute to strong urban sustainability and the transformation toward a post‐growth society. Successful candidates will be based at the University of Bern and conduct fieldwork in Ghana (PhD 1) or Switzerland (PhD2) for analyzing 1) the human‐environment relations enacted through new commons institutions; 2) the power inequalities related to gender, race and class within new commons institutions and vis‐à vis state and market actors. More information: https://commonpaths.unibe.ch/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/SNF-COMMONPATHS-PhD-Intersectional-Political-Ecologies.pdf  
    Deadline: September 15, 2023.  
  1. Professor position at University of California 
    The Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, invites applications for a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in migration and its environmental dimensions, with a potential start date of July 1, 2023 or thereafter. The appointment is a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor. We seek a colleague whose research makes new contributions to the understanding of human migration and related movements (e.g., of resources, commodities, waste, other species, technology, and capital), emphasizing the environmental, cultural, political, and community formations that emerge in the context of movements. We welcome research on topics related to migration such as, but not limited to: climate change; environmental health; food systems; dispossession; refugees; indigeneity and sovereignty; violence and security; intersections of race, national, and ethnic identity; de/colonization; gender and sexuality. Geographical focus is open. Engaged, multi-modal, experimental, collaborative and/or activist approaches are also welcome. More information: https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02437  
    Deadline: September 22nd, 2023. 
  1. Postdoctoral fellowships (x2) at University of Cape Town. 
    Environmental Humanities South is delighted to be advertising two multi-year post-doctoral fellowships as part of the Critical Zones Africa research project. The positions are funded jointly by UCT’s DVC Research and Science For Africa. One fellowship links soil health and social sciences in partnership with Prof Rachel Wynberg, and the other will research commons governance in partnership with Prof Frank Matose. The appointees will work closely with a multidisciplinary team of graduates at the Universities of Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Lilongwe LUANAR, Zimbabwe, Eduardo Mondlane, and UCT as well as the Human Sciences Research Council and Leeds University’s School of Earth and Environment. Appointees will be responsible for thematic hub management and have the opportunity to grow a team of graduates working in each of these fields. We would welcome PhD graduates with a natural science or social science background who have a strong interest in transdisciplinary research that traverses the nature-society divide, and responds to the conditions of the Critical Zone in the Anthropocene: encompassing habitability, environmental governance, economy and landscape ecology. More info: https://humanities.uct.ac.za/envhumsouth/articles/2023-08-03-hiring-2-post-doctoral-fellows-wanted . About the project: https://humanities.uct.ac.za/envhumsouth/czase  
    Deadline: possibly extended, email for more info. 

Calls 

  1. Call for contributions: “International Conference on Land Governance and Future Challenges  
    Inclusive”. Coordinated land governance plays a key role in addressing climate change-induced stress, providing sustainable livelihoods, and guaranteeing legal certainty over land for communities and investors. Land governance tends to be complex, contested, and is deeply entrenched in sociopolitical interrelations and power structures at national and local levels. This conference aims to critically look at land governance changes in customary and statutory land tenure, questions of inclusivity and sustainability, and related (future) challenges. Taking place from 4-5 June 2024 at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau in Landau, Germany, we invite scholars and young academics from various disciplines, including political science, geography, peace and conflict studies, anthropology, agricultural studies, and related fields, to contribute their empirical and conceptual findings.  
    The conference will provide a platform to share current research findings, and enhance dialogue in the land governance community. We invite senior scholars and young academics to submit abstracts (max. 250 words) or panel sessions (max. 350 words + 4 paper abstracts) and a short bio by 1 December 2023 at tugofwar@projects.rptu.de.  
    More info: https://rptu.de/friedensakademie/international-conference-on-land-governance-and-future-challenges#c231225  
  1. Call for papers session at POLLEN24, and Special Issue: “The Pluriverse of transitions: towards anti-colonial and insurrectional energy transformations.”  
    Claims of ‘sustainability,’ ‘renewability’ and ‘energy transition’ from corporate, academic, and policy sectors are continually being debunked. Lower-carbon development projects (e.g. wind, solar, hydrological and biomass projects) are increasingly recognized for their coercive impositions (Sovacool, 2021), necessitating violence and social pacification for their construction (Dunlap, 2018a; Ulloa, 2023; Tornel, 2023a). This coercive imposition is justified by policies relying on reductive models, narrowly bounded research, severe data gaps and, consequently, misleading findings (Dunlap & Marin, 2022; Dunlap, 2023). This coincides withthe documented harms of producing so-called “transition metals” (Sovacool et al., 2020; Dunlap, 2021a), which relates to quantity of materials needed, the abhorrently low recycling rates and existing levels of material-use (Bolger et al., 2021; Dunlap, 2023). Finally, ‘energy transition’ itself, despite the rapid spread of low-carbon infrastructures, is an addition and accumulation of, and not a transition away from, existing modalities of extractivism and the current grid energy- mixes (Franquesa, 2018; Dunlap, 2021b). The question emerges, if what is being marketed and sold as ‘sustainable’ and ‘renewable’ is not what it claims, then what actually is? This proposed panel session (and special issue) seeks to organize a collection of articles exploring real practices of socioecological sustainability and renewability. Organizers: Carlos Tornel (tornelc@gmail.com), Department of Geography, Durham University, UK and Alexander Dunlap (alexander.a.dunlap@gmail.com), Boston University, USA & University of Helsinki, Finland. More information and dates: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gaLkhq7bhbQTkrCacx8PQKSycr19DELX/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115108199371948862379&rtpof=true&sd=true  
     

Other news items 

  1.  Ongoing debate about researcher positionality and discursive violence in conservation science in the journal issue in Society & Natural Resources.  The summary of the process can be found in the fourth paper. In the right order the four papers that form the debate are: 
    – Koot, S., Hebinck, P. and Sullivan, S. (2023). Science for success – a conflict of interest? Researcher position and reflexivity in socio-ecological research for CBNRM in Namibia. Society & Natural Resources 36 (5): 554-572. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2020.1762953 
    – Dickman, A., M. Louis, R. Cooney, P. Johnson, and D. Roe. 2023. Comment on Koot et al. (2020) and correction. Society & Natural Resources 36 (5): 573-577. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2021.1994680  
    – Naidoo, R., H. Angula, R. Diggle, N. Stormer, G. Stuart-Hill, and C. Weaver. 2023. Science versus ideology in community-based conservation: A reply to Koot et al. Society & Natural Resources 36 (5): 578-584. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2021.1998738  
    – Koot, S., Hebinck, P. and Sullivan, S. (2023). Conservation science and discursive violence: A response to two rejoinders. Society & Natural Resources 36 (5): 585-597. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2022.2064023