Geopolitical Ecology of Extractivist Empire-Making For many in the global military-security apparatus, the Anthropocene is an era of approaching apocalypses and cascading ‘threat multipliers’ – from climate to migration chaos…
Geopolitical Ecology of Extractivist Empire-Making
For many in the global military-security apparatus, the Anthropocene is an era of approaching apocalypses and cascading ‘threat multipliers’ – from climate to migration chaos and war. Unsurprisingly then, as global temperatures skyrocket, military spending is also reaching record levels. This all comes in the backdrop of fresh conflict in Israel-Gaza, and protracted wars in Ukraine and Myanmar. While links between war, ecology and green ‘extractive empire-making’ – capital-intensive practices laid against both people and the planet, sometimes in the name of the ‘green transition’ – are more palpable than ever, the precise nature of those links, and how they intersect, need careful scrutiny.
For the following panel, we open the conversation about how the links between war, ecology and empire-making intersect, and how best to speak to them critically? What is at stake as they intensify, and what forms of resistance are they met with? What rigorous theoretical and empirical methods do we use to distinguish, deconstruct, and reconstruct narratives and evidence coalescing war, ecology and empire-making?
We invite contributions that build on work across political ecology, political geography, international studies and cognate disciplines to explore the evolving modes of warfare and technologies of violence tasked with the enforcement of extractivist empire-making. What ecological aftermaths do these modes and technologies generate? What militarised environments spring up in their wake, shaping new forms of geopolitics?
We especially want to build on theoretical and empirical papers by those with experience on the front line of green sacrifice zones and those defending environmental and social justice. This can range from studies in extractive zones, such as in Mexico, Germany and the Democratic Republic of Congo, all the way to the boardrooms and bases of Glencore, Northrop Grumman and the British Armed Forces.
We invite abstracts (200 words) on themes such as:
Please email Nico Edwards (ne204@sussex.ac.uk) and Ben Neimark (b.neimark@qmul.ac.uk) by 08 Dec with a title, abstract or up to 300 words and up to 4 keywords for consideration. This is a hybrid panel and so we encourage contributions from researchers from, or working in, diverse and marginalised backgrounds and contexts, with the option of joining the panel online or from either Lima, Dodoma or Lund. Do get in touch if you have any questions.