#POLLEN24 – Call for papers “Political ecology of nature-based value chains”

We share one new Call for Papers for #POLLEN24 Lund-Sweden. More information is below.

Call for Papers – Political ecology of nature-based value chains

Proposed by: Judith Krauss, University of York (corresponding convenor: judith.krauss@york.ac.uk); Rosaleen Duffy, University of Sheffield; Aarti Krishnan, Alliance Manchester Business School (all UK).

This panel seeks submissions that help understand the political ecology of nature-based value chains, i.e. value chains which work with nature to address societal challenges. The political ecology of nature-based value chains begins a long-overdue conversation between two literatures to fill a key gap in knowledge: political ecology’s emphasis on ecological change and social justice can help transcend value chains’ standard emphasis on lead firms and lacking attention to environmental matters. Conversely, it will also enrich political ecology with value chains’ local-global, systematic, sequential focus on stakeholders and processes generating specific goods or services, and thus benefit both, while adding an important emphasis on power to the debate on nature-based solutions (Woroniecki et al., 2021).

In the past, diverse research has investigated the cross-border production processes for specific goods or services, often referred to as ‘value chains’. Although many value chains rely on natural resources e.g. through agriculture, forestry or wildlife trade, it has been pointed out that most value-chain research does not systematically account for the environment, nor environment-economy-society interactions at different junctures of the value chain (Krishnan, 2022; Lanari & Bek, 2021; Ponte, 2020).

Equally, research has investigated various development opportunities and constraints which value chains entail for rural communities through concepts such as governance or upgrading, i.e. improving the social or environmental circumstances of production (Barrientos et al., 2016). However, much of the current value-chain literature directs its chief focus to lead firms’ roles in value chains in the Global North. This fails to utilise political ecology’s emphasis on the lives and livelihoods of those producing or trading in value chains, and also blinds us to the ways in which entrenched power asymmetries serve to conceal and reproduce structural inequalities (Duffy, 2010; Krauss et al., 2023; Rocheleau, 2015; Resurreccion, 2017; Sultana, 2022).

Consequently, this panel invites contributions that engage with these themes and questions:

• How can nature-based solutions, political ecology and value or commodity chains intersect meaningfully?
• How differently are considerations around risk and security viewed across political ecology and value chains?
• How could a political ecology of nature-based value chains help understand and govern recent dynamics in wildlife trade, agriculture and forestry?
• How can a political ecology of nature-based value chains engage with more-than-human perspectives?
• How does a political ecology of nature-based value chains help cope with the current polycrisis across all dimensions of sustainability?

Please submit an abstract of 250 words maximum with your name, affiliation, and contact e-mail address to Judith Krauss (judith.krauss@york.ac.uk) by Friday, 5 January 2024, 5pm. Please also confirm that you will be able to attend the Lund hub in person for POLLEN2024.