Our goal is to understand the contradictions between implemented policies and local realities through unpacking plural ways of knowledge production and taking action to spark discussion and devising transformative solutions on climate change and biodiversity conservation. Taking into account our academic backgrounds and research interests, this interdisciplinary working group shares a common interest in questioning the intersections of decarbonization, biodiversity conservation, climate change and social and environmental justice. We are a group of graduate students and a post-doctoral associate, who are researching and working projects around the world (Canada, Colombia, Bangladesh, Peru and India) and see how the policies have similar impacts on local communities. We critically analyze the sustainability of current decarbonization and wildlife conservation narratives by asking humanistic-centric questions such as solutions for whom? By whom? At whose and what expense? We share a mutual interest and knowledge of the emerging regime of enclosures through greenwashing, land-green grabbing and fortress conservation as uneven development interventions.
Political ecology (PE) is an interdisciplinary field of theory, and an international community of practice focuses on unpacking the root causes/drivers and critically examining the role of power relationships in the social construction of nature and related environmental issues (Robbins, 2012; Biersack, 2006; Peluso & Watts, 2001; Latour, 2004; Escobar, 2010; Blaikie, 2012). However, diversity of voices and epistemologies are underrepresented in the field (Alimonda et al, 2017).
Our focus is to mobilize critical PE knowledge by creating an ethical and inclusive forum for students and researchers from different disciplines engaging with PE. This group will be a space to validate different ways of knowing and spark conservations on why and how to decolonize socio-environmental research with equity-seeking groups, their epistemologies, voices, and rights in knowledge production. The members of this group are active members of the global Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) launched at at the POLLEN 2024 conference in Lima, Peru.
References
Alimonda, H; Toro Perez, C; Martin, F.(2017) Ecologia Politica Lationamericana: Pensamiento Critico, diferencia lationamericana y rearticulacion epistemica. CLACSO
Biersack, A. (2006). Reimaging Political Ecology: Culture/Power/History/Nature. In A. Biersack & J. B. Greenberg (Eds.), Reimagining Political Ecology (pp. 3–42). Duke University Press
Blaikie, P. (2012). Should some political ecology be useful? The Inaugural Lecture for the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, April 2010. Geoforum, 43(2), 231–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.08.010
Escobar, A. (2010). Postconstructivist political ecologies. In M. R. Redclift, G. Woodgate, & E. Elgar (Eds.), The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology (pp. 91–105). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar
Latour, B. (2004). Politics of Nature: how to bring the sciences into democracy. Harvard University Press
Peluso, N. L., & Watts, M. (2001). Violent Environments (First Edit). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
