#POLLEN24 – Call for papers: Political ecologies of ‘green’ authoritarianism. Recentering democracy in debates on environmental justice

POLLEN24 in Lund invites abstracts for papers that address issues around re-centering the political question of democracy in political ecology. More information about this CfP, including its rationale, deadline, and…

POLLEN24 in Lund invites abstracts for papers that address issues around re-centering the political question of democracy in political ecology. More information about this CfP, including its rationale, deadline, and contacts below.

POLLEN24 – 10-12 June 2024, Lund- Sweden

Across the planet, the urgency of addressing climate change seems to be overriding concerns for democracy. And yet, undemocratic dimensions cut across the global stage on which climate action, energy transition, biodiversity conservation and other ‘sustainability’ and ‘green development’ efforts are taking place.

Evidence from authoritarian, illiberal and other undemocratic settings illustrates how the rush for low-carbon energy projects overshadows how Indigenous rights are trampled, environmental activists are suppressed and how political elites exacerbate ecological challenges through land grabbing and corruption. Land grabs increasingly dispossess the poor in the name of renewable energy and carbon sinks, making ‘climate justice’ a floating signifier backing green(-washed) neoliberal, market-led transition efforts (Mookerjea 2019).

Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes around the world have an often complex relationship with both disadvantaged communities and environmental narratives (Gonda 2019, Gonda and Bori 2023, Atkins and Menga 2022, Lubarda 2020) – a relationship that cannot be reduced to mere antagonism, or simply to ‘those left behind’. Because authoritarians easily mobilise these tropes of disadvantage, pro-poor environmental policies, projects and narratives can morph into their opposite, enabling continued oppression and environmental degradation (Jiglau 2020).

Current political ecology scholarship lays the groundwork for tackling socio-environmental injustices (e.g. Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020, Bouzarovski 2022, Neimark et al. 2019) but more work that specifically engages with democratic challenges is needed. The latter includes concerns for e.g. equal representation (particularly concerns for self-determination of Indigenous and other marginalised people); human and non-human rights; civil rights and liberties; rule of law; separation of powers; and multi-party elections.

To contribute to this effort, this panel strives to re-centre the political question of democracy in political ecology by gathering a multiplicity of perspectives to inform visions and theories of democratic futures in ways that are culturally relevant for addressing sustainability; and respectful of the interdependence between humans and non-humans.

This requires understanding what more democracy would entail for just environmental politics and low carbon futures, and how historical legacies and ongoing challenges of colonialism, socialism, patriarchy etc. shape different visions and knowledge claims about democracy in environmental justice. In an era of climate change and burgeoning authoritarian regimes, we find that this is a key endeavor.

We welcome submissions that focus not only on the linkages between environmental and authoritarian politics but, but also on the actual impacts this co-constitutive relationship has on the ways in which environmental justice and equity is engaged with.

Contributions can be theoretical, empirical and methodological and may include, but are not limited to the following themes:

  • The authoritarian challenges that emerge socio-environmental politics – to recenter democracy in debates on justice and equity in political ecology scholarship.
  • The role of plural knowledges for democratic and sustainable futures including the lived experiences of Indigenous, peasant and other local communities.
  • How centering non-human rights and commoning in environmental politics can further democracy?
  • Theorisations of democracy/authoritarianism within environmental justice/ political ecology.
  • Methodological approaches to engage with democratic challenges in political ecology.
  • Examinations of not only the disparity between environmental policies and their real-world implementation but also the underlying implicit, tacit and sometimes overt assumptions about specific entities, both human and non-human, during this process and how these assumptions can further undemocratic developments.
  • How specific gendered, racialised, caste, class, political affiliation etc., related subjectivities (e.g. the ‘energy poor’, the ‘masculine’ fossil-fuel user, the ‘backwards’ Indigenous person) can offer a fertile ground for authoritarian discourses to prosper.
  • How authoritarian politics can create new environmental subjectivities through promoting eco-nationalist, eco-populist, eco-fascist, etc. ideologies; and with which effects.

We welcome paper proposals (Title, maximum 250 words abstract, authors’ names and institutional affiliations) no later than by December 4 2023 to: Noémi Gonda (noemi.gonda@slu.se) and Péter József Bori (bori_peter@phd.ceu.edu). The panel will be hosted in the Lund but organising a hybrid panel is envisageable also (please let us know where you would be participating from and whether you would be interested in becoming a co-organiser). By 12 December 2023 you will receive information whether your paper is part of the panel. We will then compile the papers and submit the panel proposal to the conference organisers by December 15 2023.

References cited:

Atkins, Ed, and Filippo Menga. 2022. “Populist ecologies.”  Area 54 (2):224-232. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12763.

Bouzarovski, Stefan. 2022. “Just Transitions: A Political Ecology Critique.”  Antipode 54 (4):1003-1020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12823.

Gonda, Noémi. 2019. “Land grabbing and the making of an authoritarian populist regime in Hungary.”  The Journal of Peasant Studies 46 (3):606-625. doi: 10.1080/03066150.2019.1584190.

Gonda, Noémi, and Péter József Bori. 2023. “Rural politics in undemocratic times: Exploring the emancipatory potential of small rural initiatives in authoritarian Hungary.”  Geoforum 143:103766. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103766.

Jiglau, George. 2020. “Conclusions: Energy poverty as a threat to democracy in post-communist countries.” In Perspectives on Energy Poverty in Post-Communist Europe, edited by George Jiglau, Anca Sinea, Ute Dubois and Philipp Biermann, 222-228. London, UK: Routledge.

Lubarda, Balsa. 2020. “Beyond ecofascism? Far-right ecologism (FRE) as a framework for future inquiries.”  Environmental Values 29 (6):713-732. doi: https://doi.org/10.3197/096327120X15752810323922.

Mookerjea, Sourayan. 2019. “Renewable energy transition under multiple colonialisms: passive revolution, fascism redux and utopian praxes.”  Cultural Studies 33 (3):570-593. doi: 10.1080/09502386.2019.1585464.

Neimark, Benjamin, John Childs, Andrea J. Nightingale, Connor Joseph Cavanagh, Sian Sullivan, Tor A. Benjaminsen, Simon Batterbury, Stasja Koot, and Wendy Harcourt. 2019. “Speaking Power to “Post-Truth”: Critical Political Ecology and the New Authoritarianism.”  Annals of the American Association of Geographers 109 (2):613-623. doi: 10.1080/24694452.2018.1547567.

Svarstad, Hanne, and Tor A. Benjaminsen. 2020. “Reading radical environmental justice through a political ecology lens.”  Geoforum 108:1-11. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.11.007.