February 2024 Update

Dear POLLEN Members and Friends,  We are pleased to share with you today the latest publications, vacancies, CfP, and much more from our vibrant community. Before we get to it,…

Dear POLLEN Members and Friends, 

We are pleased to share with you today the latest publications, vacancies, CfP, and much more from our vibrant community.

Before we get to it, a quick reminder that if your Node is keen to share its work, vacancy opportunities, or others in our upcoming newsletter, please write to us at politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com. Everyone in the POLLEN community contributes to making this newsletter informative and valuable, so don’t hesitate to get in touch and share your work with us.

Finally, just to note that if your POLLEN Node has not been introduced by us yet, please write to us at politicalecologynetwork@gmail.com.

Enjoy the reading !

With best regards from your POLLEN Secretariat  

Fabiola Espinoza, 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. Samper, J. A., & Krause, T. (2024). “We fight to the end”: On the violence against social leaders and territorial defenders during the post-peace agreement period and its political ecological implications in the Putumayo, Colombia. World Development, 177, 106559. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106559 
  2. Ouma, S. (2023). Accounting for Capital in the Countryside: Toward a Visual Politics of the Asset Form. The Professional Geographer, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2023.2223253 
  3. Donfrancesco, V. (2024). (Co)producing landscapes of coexistence: a historical political ecology of human-wolf relations in Italy. Geoforum, 149,103958. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.103958 
  4. Feltrin, L., & Julio Medel, G. (2023). Noxious deindustrialisation and extractivism: Quintero-Puchuncaví in the international division of labour and noxiousness. New Political Economy, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2236944

Books  

  1. Postar, S.; Behzadi, N. & Doering, N. (2024). Extraction/Exclusion: Beyond Binaries of Exclusion and Inclusion in Natural Resource Extraction. Rowman and Littlefield in the series Geopolitical Bodies, Material Worlds. Link: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786615367/Extraction-Exclusion-Beyond-Binaries-of-Exclusion-and-Inclusion-in-Natural-Resource-Extraction – 30% off orders with discount code: RLFANDF30 
  2. Anantharaman, M (2024), Recycling Class: The Contradictions of Inclusion in Urban Sustainability, MIT Press.Link: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546973/recycling-class/ Open-Access: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546973/recycling-class/‘ 

Events & Announcements 

  1. Anticipation 2024
    When: 11th- 14th September, 2024
    Where: Lancaster University, UK
    More info:https://anticipationconference.org/

Vacancies 

  1. PhD studentship for research on unconventional water and global development (Cardiff University, the School of Geography and Planning)
    Brief description:  The studentship is funded through an ERC/UKRI Starting Grant, so the successful candidate will be part of a broader team working on unconventional water (including Joe Williams (PI), two post-docs and various international partners), while also having significant scope to pursue their own independent research project. We are particularly keen to attract applications from students interested in political ecology and/or critical development studies. Joe Williams (williamsj168@cardiff.ac.uk) is happy to discuss potential projects informally with anyone interested in applying
    More info: https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/political-ecology-of-unconventional-water-in-the-global-south/?p169022
    Deadline: April 3rd, 2024.

  2. Professor in Climate Change Governance and Global Development (University of Manchester)
    Brief description: The University of Manchester seeks to appoint a senior colleague as Reader/Professor in Climate Change Governance and Global Development (Teaching and Research) within the Global Development Institute (GDI). This post will enhance the GDI’s research, teaching and knowledge engagement capacity in climate change governance and development. The GDI has made significant advances in research and policy across the field of global development, including on issues of environmental change, conservation, extractive industries, natural resource governance and agrarian change. This new appointment is expected to lead a further extension of this work into the field of climate change, with a particular focus on governance at and across multiple levels.Applications are welcomed from appropriately qualified candidates in all areas of climate change governance and development, but particularly from candidates with a track record of high-quality research, research grant capture and knowledge exchange. Prior experience of relevant postgraduate and/or undergraduate teaching and postgraduate research supervision will also be expected.
    More info: https://www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetail?JobId=28193
    Deadline: 1st April, 2024.

  3. Senior Lecturer in Global Development: Poverty and Inequality (University of Manchester)
    Brief description: The University of Manchester seeks to appoint a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Global Development – Poverty and Inequality (Teaching and Research) within the Global Development Institute (GDI). This post will enhance the GDI’s research and teaching capacity in global development, in particular on the theoretical and empirical analysis of poverty and inequality and their relationship to local, national and global development processes. The GDI has made significant advances in research and policy on poverty, inequality and social protection through the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (2000-2010), the Brooks World Poverty Institute (2006-2016), the Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre (2011-2020) and the ongoing African Cities Research Consortium (2020-2027). This new appointment is expected to contribute to and help lead the next iteration of policy focused research and teaching at GDI on these critical areas. The University welcomes applications from exceptional candidates who can make significant contributions to research and research-informed teaching that complements and extends existing offerings in GDI. The successful candidate will ideally have strong quantitative skills and must have the capacity and commitment to work closely with colleagues from multiple disciplines in an interdisciplinary context.
    More info: https://www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetail?jobid=28194
    Deadline: 1st May, 2024.

  4. Fellow in Human Rights and Politics -LSE (The London School of Economics and Political Science)
    Brief description: The Department of Sociology seeks a full-time LSE Fellow to provide teaching, as part of the teams on its highly successful MSc Human Rights and MSc Human Rights and Politics programmes. You will contribute to teaching and to act as an academic mentor to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. You will have completed a PhD in Sociology or a closely related social science discipline by the start date of the post. You will have a developing record of teaching in human rights and politics, with a commitment of high-quality teaching and fostering a positive learning environment for students. You should have a developing record of publications in refereed journals and a commitment to academic research.
    More info: https://jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/4166/0/419441/15539/lse-fellow-in-human-rights?fbclid=IwAR3zX58sX-R0NxDvxWcyc8NRsIDAOCb176AuUw1DpPZMqnKU2GRGsOGYsAg
    Deadline: 11th March, 2024.

  5. Full Professorship in Ecomomic Anthropology (University of Bayreuth)
    Brief description: Full professorship in social and cultural anthropology with a focus on Africa – University of Bayreuth & Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence. Check out the (very exciting) thematic foci we welcome in particular: Environment and climate (e.g. renewable energies, green economy, degrowth); (im)mobility and migration (e.g. with regard to labour, people, and goods); transformations of property and land (e.g. land-grabbing, extractivism, alternative agricultural economies). Groundings in Epistemologies of the South desired.
    More info: https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/job-vacancy-keyword-cultural-anthropology-africa-408cb8327b40a15b
    Deadline: 15th April,2024.

Calls 

  1. Call for papers: “Just and Plural Political Ecologies: Traditions and Futures”
    More info: Over the last 30 years, the field of Political Ecology has grown rapidly as a result of emerging socio-ecological challenges, actions by social movements, conceptual and methodological innovation, and the diversification of voices, especially from the Global South. Three journals in political ecology – The Journal of Political Ecology/Grassroots, Ecología Política, and the Journal of the Geographical Association of Tanzania (JGAT) – invite contributions to an open conversation about “Just and Plural Political Ecologies: Traditions and Futures.” We envision this as an ongoing discussion leading up to, including, and following the June 10-12, 2024 meeting of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN). Please submit 1000-word reflections and essays to any one of the editors of the three participating journals. These statements will be published on the webpage of JPE-Grassroots with the intention that they will stimulate discussions among conference participants at POLLEN 2024. For more information click here to see the full Call for papers (eglish version). For the Spanish version of this call for papers click here.
    Deadline:  1st May, 2024.

  2. Call for papers: “Spatial Justice and Food Wellbeing”– RGS-IBG (27-30th August, 2024- UK)
    More info: Session at the RGS Annual International Conference (London, UK and online, from 27th August to 30th August 2024). This session is sponsored by the Food Geographies Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG).The study of spatial injustices in food geographies is an emerging field embracing land use, how we take up space as humans, and the shifting interconnections that co-constitute these two entry points. Counter-mapping serves as a powerful tool in spatial justice movements, including Indigenous and territorial land claims (Oslender, 2021; Soja, 2010). Mapping and counter-mapping helps visualise how food is produced and distributed and their justice implications for growers, eaters, nonhumans, and the planet. It is also useful to map consequences for where and with whom food is eaten, and the meaning that food, body, and eating ‘choices’ hold for the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities (Brady et al., 2023). Please email a title, abstract (250 words), and keywords, along with details of all authors, to Laxmi Prasad Pant (l.p.pant@gre.ac.uk) with a copy to  Lucy Aphramor (aa0059@coventry.ac.uk). 
    Deadline:  23th February, 2024.

  3. Call for contributions: Special Issue: The Social Sustainability of Food Systems: Addresing the Inequality – Unsustainability Nexus- Review of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Studies.
    More info: In this special issue, we aim to develop an alternative concept of social sustainability to address these criticisms. We reframe social sustainability as both a lens and approach: a lens, as we seek to analyse how the production of social inequality underpins and entrenches the production of environmental unsustainability, curtailing sustainability transitions; and an approach and potentially an intervention, aimed at placing equality at the centre of struggles to maintain the habitability of our planet. The papers in the special issue will examine whether and how the current food system relies on, fosters, and entrenches, socio-economic, racial, gender, and other inequalities which further undermine sustainability. Literatures on food and agri-food justice, on food regimes, as well as agrarian political economy, and political ecology, have done much to place this relationship within broader and historically informed analyses of colonial and capitalist oppression. Nevertheless, even there, there is a lack of analysis of the nexus itself: whilst such perspectives denounce the risk of reproduction of existing inequalities in food transitions and transformations, they do not necessarily explore how such inequalities also risk undermining the alleged environmental/climate benefits of these initiatives. Our call is thus meant for contributions to develop such a critical and historically aware analysis and approach to develop what we call a social sustainability lens. A reconceptualization of social sustainability along these lines can increase the possibility of developing sustainable interventions that place the struggle against inequality at their core. Guest Editors: Isabelle Darmon (University of Edinburgh), Wesley Dean (University of Copenhagen), Severine Gojard (INRAE/Centre Maurice Halbwachs), Monica Truninger (Instituto de Ciências Sociais, University of Lisbon), Marisa Wilson (University of Edinburgh). Article length: 60.000-70.000 characters // max 10.000 words. Read the full call here: https://link.springer.com/journal/41130/updates
    Deadline:  end of June 2024 (full papers). Expected publication: December 2025.

  4. Call for papers :“Nature and space in far-right politics and mobilisation” – 10th Nordic Geographers Meeting, Copenhagen Denmark (June 24-27, 2024).  
    More info: The recent rise and normalisation of far-right parties and ideologies (e.g., Rydgren 2018) in times of intensifying ecological crisis has led to the revival of defensive and exclusionary conceptualisations of space channelled through environmental themes. From green nationalism to localism (e.g., Hultgren, 2015; Benoist, 2023) the radical and extreme right mobilises various, often contradictory, concepts of nature in their spatial politics. For instance, the ideas of rootedness in the homeland, or of bordering as an environmental measure, revolve around affective and exclusionary constructions of belonging, ‘the people’, community and territory. Combining the emerging literature on the political geographies and ecologies of the far-right (e.g., Forchtner, 2019; Pietiläinen and Prokkola, forthcoming; Varco, 2023), we want in this session to discuss how far-right spatial imaginaries and practices are entangled with what they consider as the(ir) ‘natural’ environment.The questions/areas to be addressed include but are not limited to: (i) What is the role of nature in the far right’s spatial imaginaries and practices (e.g, place-making, bordering)?;  (ii) How does the far right engage in different strategies of place-based (anti-)environmental responses?; (iii) How can we study the synthesis of spatial and nature politics within the discipline of political geography?; (iv) What kind of scales of analysis can we apply?. Please send your abstract to Lise Benoist, Uppsala University (Lise.benoist@kultgeog.uu.se) AND Sonja Pietiläinen, University of Oulu (Sonja.Pietilainen@oulu.fi). Link to the conference: https://ngm2024.com/
    Deadline: 15th March, 2024.

Other news items 

  1. (only in spanish/solo en español). Article on urban planning in Barcelona: “The reform of a Barcelona market evidences the gap between the projects carried out and the real needs of the city” by Massimo Paolini. The project promotes two key elements of the neoliberal city, the parking lot and the supermarket, which oppose both the social and environmental demands of a city based on the common good. You can read the full article here: https://www.elsaltodiario.com/perspectivas-anomalas/oportunidades-perdidas-del-mercado 

  2. The latest contribution of Institutional Landscapes: “Land Question 2.0 – First Cracks in the 20th Century Property Consensus”. Throughout the early 20th century, the idea of land reform took center stage in the political discourse of many nations, although with varying success. In the later parts of the 20th century, this gave way to a property consensus through which private ownership, and the material inequalities emerging from it, became firmly entrenched in many countries of the Global North. Economic Sociologists Alexander Dobeson and Sebastian Kohl reconstruct this intricate history, building on their recent paper in Socio-Economic Review. Offering an analysis that bridges the urban and the rural, they also attend to recent cracks in the property consensus that have emerged over the past years due to the widespread and conflict-laden assetization of both urban and rural land in the Global North and South. Read more here: https://institutionallandscapes.org/contribution/14-land-question-2-0-first-cracks-in-the-20th-century-property-consensus/. For past posts, and a background to the general project, including an Open Access Version of the background book “Farming as Financial Asset: Global Money and the Making of Institutional Landscapes”, see here: https://institutionallandscapes.org/startseite/guest-contributions/ and https://institutionallandscapes.org/

  3. We welcome a new POLLEN NODE: Nenggousuan Naulak from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar. Remember that you can locate the contact details of the new nodes and their members on the POLLEN Blog Website under the “NODES” section.