We are pleased to share four new Calls for Papers for #POLLEN24 Dodoma (Tanzania ), Lima (Peru), and Lund (Sweden). More information is below. Call for Papers – Decolonizing the normative…
We are pleased to share four new Calls for Papers for #POLLEN24 Dodoma (Tanzania ), Lima (Peru), and Lund (Sweden). More information is below.
Call for Papers – Decolonizing the normative foundations of political ecology: Decarbonization, conservation regimes, and territorial movements
POLLEN24 – 10-12 June 2024, Lima- Peru
Organizers: Dr. Cristóbal Balbontin Gallo (Universidad Austral de Chile), Dr. Ana Watson Jimenez (University of Calgary) and PhD Candidate Sujoy Subroto (University of Calgary)
Political Ecology is undergoing a big revolution. It is meeting the claims of women, LGBTQ communities, racial and indigenous groups, along with its critique of the legacies of imperialism and colonialism, challenging an abstract and scientific approach in the understanding of the environment. The interminable debates about the nature and scope of environmental rights or the proper metric for a universal distributive justice seem increasingly parochial, privileged and unrepresentative of different environments and the normative contexts in which socio-ecological conflicts develop.
One might think that critical theorists tempered in Marxism and the horrors of the twentieth century would fare better the theories of justice engaged within the politics regarding the environment. Nevertheless, that is not the case. Nearly 25 years ago, Edward Said condemned critical theorists for their ‘blithe universalism’ and their decision to remain ‘stunningly silent on racist theory, anti-imperialist resistance, and oppositional practice in the empire’. This failure deals with an inherently Eurocentric idea of historical progress with which some ecological ideas, like sustainability, are still committed. And nonetheless, it is this very modern Eurocentric idea of progress that fuels the destruction of the environment. This notion of progress is found in the very foundations of modernity as well as the moral values with it entails, whether Kant, Hegel or British philosophers as Bacon see progress as an inexorable trajectory toward European modernity and history. Nevertheless, alternative approaches of environmental justice (Eckersley 2004, Light 2002, Barry 1999) meet an approach that also allows a contextualist notion of goodness, that puts forward an epistemic notion of justice related to different cultures. This modest, critical stance provides crucial resources for postcolonial theorizing of Political Ecology.
What is more, today’s Intertwined crisis is asking for solutions beyond sociotechnical imaginaries and hegemonic human-nature relationships, yet decarbonization and biodiversity conservation still remains deeply connected with colonial approaches and exclusionary strategies linked with capital accumulation even under the era of “inclusive sustainable development”. However, Indigenous, and local populations are resisting and fighting marginalization from different fronts and various strategies. Amidst high uncertainty about scale, social and ecological impacts on technological solutions such as carbon dioxide removal projects, human drive and marketization of natural cycles are rising as appealing solutions.
This growing tendency to frame diverse social-cultural-ecological problems, justice and equity concerns, stemming from natural resource extraction and development interventions, under the umbrella of the technosocial solutions driven by neo-liberal market-based strategies and ecological modernization, underscores the need for adopting a decolonial approach to carefully deconstruct the dominant narratives. Emphasizing the significance of decolonizing both researchers and the research process, Datta (2017) suggests that it challenges systemic injustices and past wrongs, helps bridge Western and indigenous/marginalized epistemologies, takes actions to restore participants’ voices, and, most importantly, nurtures respect, reciprocity, and responsibility.
By exploring the case studies from around the world and particularly Political Ecology from the South, the aim of this session is to study and unpack the complex linkages between resource governance, territorial governance, grassroot identities and knowledge systems . We question the sustainability of current narratives of decarbonization as well as the emerging regime of enclosure and coercive conservation model and uneven development interventions. In our panel we will discuss how unpacking local priorities, plural ways of being, becoming (Escobar, 2020), perceiving and living the territory are catalysts for global warming and biodiversity loss solutions. Particularly, why and how decolonizing the foundations of political ecology could spark this conversation from and with the global south recognizing other epistemologies and voices in knowledge production and devising solutions for global environmental change and climate governance.
We welcome contributions that explore the following topics, among others:
Please submit your paper proposal no later than 10th January 2024. We will let you know of acceptance by the 12th January. Final submission to the conference organizers is on 15th January. Please send a 250-300 word proposal, with title, contact information, and three keywords as a Word attachment to: ana.watson1@ucalgary.ca
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Call for Papers – Political Arenas of Infrastructuring Africa’s Future
POLLEN24 – 10-12 June 2024, Dodoma, Tanzania & Lund, Sweden
Organized by Prof. Theobald Frank Theodory (Mzumbe University, Tanzania), Arne Rieber (University of Bonn, Germany)
The development of infrastructure is inherently political. While often portrayed as a technical process driven by engineers, infrastructure development is always moved to the forefront of the political agenda. The political decisions to develop infrastructure projects shape the future daily life. Building or not building physical artefacts such as roads, ports, dams, power lines or railways is a political choice and a political trade-off. These decisions shape the connectivity, mobility, well-being and market integration for some, while becoming barriers and obstacles for others. A political ecology lens on infrastructure development helps to challenge notions of the periphery, left-behind places and the infrastructure gap. Just as access to resources is socially produced and categories of abundance and scarcity are created, access to and availability of infrastructure is shaped by political processes and visions of desired development.
In recent decades, infrastructure-led development agendas, driven by visions of integration into global networks of trade and capital, and more recent models of blue or green economies, have accelerated the scramble for infrastructure development in urban and rural Africa. The anticipation of large-scale infrastructure projects has led to the emergence of Political Arenas around these projects, in which actors and groups of actors contest project designs long before their actual implementation, with the aim of influencing the project in their own interests or maintaining the status quo.
In our panel, we would like to invite papers that deal with the political processes of infrastructure (non-)materialisation on the African continent and the arenas of contestation and negotiation. The Political Arena of infrastructure has a defining characteristic in the sense that it not only has a metaphorical meaning, but also involves the construction site as a geographical centre where struggles and negotiations find a geographical focus. Exploring the Political Arena of infrastructure provokes questions about the spatiality and temporality of infrastructure, as well as the performativity and articulation of infrastructure contestation.
The focus of the panel will be on questions of future-making of infrastructure and how infrastructure development shapes exclusion and inclusion in the vision of a project, before or during the actual implementation phase. We aim to bring together empirical and theoretical papers that address questions around the overarching theme of Political Arena of infrastructure development in various parts of African continent. We are inviting submission of abstracts around the following sub-themes:
Please send your abstract, including title, contact details and keywords, with a word count of around 250-300, to fttheodory@mzumbe.ac.tz and arieber@uni-bonn.de by 12 January 2024.
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Call for Papers – Infrastructure Sabotage as Future-Making
POLLEN24 – 10-12 June 2024, Dodoma (Tanzania), Lund (Sweden) and Lima (Peru)
Panel organiser: Theo Aalders, University of Bonn.
Format: Hybrid Panel, physical location: Lund, Sweden
Deadline for abstracts: January 15th, 2024 (per email to: theo.aalders@uni-bonn.de)
Theme: “Pluralizing desirable futures”
Abstract:
This panel invites interventions that engage with infrastructure sabotage on the assumption that it cannot be fully understood as a purely destructive practice directed against what the targeted infrastructure produces materially and symbolises immaterially. As infrastructure produces particular visions of the future, infrastructure sabotage is often implicitly understood as an un-making of that future. We therefore invite contributions that explore infrastructure sabotage as a form of future-making in its own right; not as something diametrically opposed to the construction of infrastructure, but rather as a strategy employed by marginalised groups that allows them to enter or alter the political arena in which infrastructure is negotiated. This can include cases around climate justice movements as discussed by e.g. Andreas Malm,
but also more generally about infrastructure sabotage as a strategy of constructive destruction employed by marginalised people around the world and throughout history around topics relevant to political ecology.
Potential questions may include:
Roundtable: The political ecology of measurement and its effect on climate change adaptation
POLLEN24 – 10-12 June 2024, Dodoma (Tanzania)
Organizer: Jonathan Barnes, University College London
As climate hazards and risks increase in frequency and severity, the role of adaptation is vital for protecting progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This urgent adaptation action will require a massive scaling up of finance. However, adaptation investments have often been incremental and have not always reduced vulnerability. There is a need to strengthen accountability, both to those affected by climate change and to the international community providing finance.
Measurement frameworks and indicators are one tool of accountability and can be powerful. They can define the policy question at hand, embed social values, and promote visions of the future. Measurement, metrics and indicators have proved difficult to establish for adaptation projects which has contributed to the slow pace of global progress on adaptation and frustrated implementation on the ground as well. Do we need better metrics and indicators? Do we need more locally grounded and contextual metrics and indicators? Do current approaches to measurement leave space for a broader range of perspectives, values and voices? Through an exploration of measurement, this roundtable seeks to begin a conversation around how climate finance is framed, implemented and evaluated to support more effective and equitable adaptation.
The conversation might touch upon the following:
If you would like to participate in this round table discussion, please provide a short bio and motivation to Jonathan.barnes@ucl.ac.uk by 14 January 2024. The roundtable will take place in Dodoma and will be held in hybrid format.