Political Ecology
Sustainability transitions are contested. Building a large wind-power farm, for example, involves large-scale land changes, impacting people and ecological systems. As the world struggles to put itself on more sustainable footings, a whole range of approaches have emerged that promise to address multiple social, economic and environmental crises and emergencies. Sustainable mining, net-zero, circular economy, nature-based solutions or any other ‘good-sounding’ initiatives always have to be interrogated and questioned, understanding the paradoxes, contradictions and trade-offs within wider socio-ecological and politico-economic systems. One of my research foci is on understanding governance systems, understanding the dynamic interplay between business, government and civil society that operate within wider ecological systems.
Publications
Torn between Legal Claiming and Privatized Remedy: Rights Mobilization against Gold Mining in Chile
Ecospirituality and sustainability transitions: agency towards degrowth
The Politics of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives: The Crisis of the Forest Stewardship Council
Ecocultures: Blueprints for Sustainable Communities
Anti-leaders(hip) in Social Movement Organizations: The case of autonomous grassroots groups
Organizing the Environmental Governance of the Rare-Earth Industry: China’s passive revolution
The Enduring State: An analysis of governance-making in three mining conflicts
It’s Not Just About the Mafia! Conceptualizing Business–Society Relations of Organized Violence
(Im)possibilities of Autonomy: Social Movements in and beyond Capital, the State and Development
“The people” and resistance against international business: The case of the Bolivian “water war”
Marketing the hegemony of development: of pulp fictions and green deserts