Research Project
Greenmentality: A Political Ecology of the Green Economy in the Global South
2016 – 2020
Research Council of Norway (FRIPRO Toppforsk) Project
Since the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 (Rio+20) the green economy has been at center of international politics. Greening economies and development is considered by leading policy and business actors as an opportunity to combine economic growth with environmental protection and poverty reduction.
But what type of governance does this unfolding green economy lead to in the Global South? How does it influence rural production systems and how do rural people respond to its implementation? These are the main questions that this research project investigates through detailed empirical fieldwork in a selection of cases in East Africa and India.
To understand current environmental governance in the Global South, the project combines Foucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’ (understood as the techniques and tactics of government) with theories of resistance, social agency and critical institutionalism. We believe this theoretical combination may be productive in understanding environmental governance by combining a focus on power and authority with one on agency, rights, and institutions. The ambition is thus to develop an understanding of the interplay between structural power and individual agency as played out in the context of global economic and environmental change in the Global South.
Building upon previous contributions to the study of green economies, we propose to empirically examine variations in actually existing green economy interventions, as well as their local responses. As such, this inquiry falls within the field of political ecology, a rapidly growing and diverse body of literature that focuses on how power manifests in both discursive and material struggles over the environment.
Yet, despite a proliferation of debates about the potential effects and consequences of the green economy, few studies have critically examined the institutional manifestations and actual impacts of such initiatives in specific empirical cases. Seeking to contribute in this regard, we propose to study new, ‘actually-existing’ green economy initiatives as a form of ‘green governmentality’ (or ‘greenmentality’).
We will analyse the workings of greenmentalities in East Africa and India, focusing on how environmental subjects respond to these forms of governance. Specifically, we examine reactions ‘from below’ to three main land-uses (ecotourism, carbon forestry and climate-smart agriculture), which have been highlighted by various policy and strategy papers on the green economy in a developing context.
Related Academic Publications
Edited Journal Collections
Cavanagh, C.J. and H. Lein (eds), (2017). Special Section: Political Ecologies of REDD+ in Tanzania. Journal of Eastern African Studies.
Cavanagh, C.J. and T.A. Benjaminsen (eds). (2017). Special Section: Political Ecologies of the Green Economy. Journal of Political Ecology 34: 200-341.
Svarstad, H., T.A Benjaminsen and Overå, R. (2018). Special Section: Power in political ecology. Journal of Political Ecology 25 (1): 350-425.
Books
Benjaminsen, T.A. and H. Svarstad (2017): Political ecology – environment, people and power (in Norwegian). Universitetsforlaget. Second revised edition.
Sandbrook, C., C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), (2018), Conservation and Development in Uganda. London and New York: Routledge/Earthscan.
Journal Articles
Benjaminsen, T.A. and H. Svarstad. (2018). REDD og norsk klimakolonialisme i Tanzania [REDD and Norwegian Climate Colonialism in Tanzania] (In Norwegian). Internasjonal Politikk, Volume 76: 24-46.
Bergius, M. and J. Buseth (2019). Towards a green modernization development discourse: the new green revolution in Africa. Journal of Political Ecology 26 (1): 57-83.
Bergius, M., Benjaminsen, T. A., and Widgren, M. (2018). Green economy, Scandinavian investments and agricultural modernization in Tanzania. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 45(4): 825-852.
Bergius, M., and T. Benjaminsen, F. Maganga and H. Buhaug. (2020). Green Economy, Degradation Narratives, and Land-use Conflicts in Tanzania. World Development 129: 1-13.
Bersaglio, B. and Cleaver, F. (2018). Green grab by bricolage – the institutional workings of community conservancies in Kenya. Conservation and Society, 16(4):467-480. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_16_144.
Bersaglio, B. and Cleaver, F. (2018). Artisanal mining in Southern Tanzania: Preliminary reflections on a ‘green squeeze’. The Extractive Industries and Society, 5(3): 274-277. DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2018.06.001.
Brockington, D., Howland, O., Loiske, V., Mnzava, M., and Noe, C. (2018). Economic growth, rural assets and prosperity: Exploring the implications of a 20-year record of asset growth in Tanzania. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 56(2), 217-243.
Broome, N.P., Rai, N.D. and Tatpati, M. (2017). Biodiversity Conservation and Forest Rights Act. Economic and Political Weekly50 (25 and 26):51-54.
Buseth, J. (2017). The green economy in Tanzania: From global discourses to institutionalization. Geoforum, Volume 86: 42-52.
Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Anthropos into humanitas: civilizing violence, scientific forestry, and the ‘Dorobo question’ in eastern Africa. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 35(4): 694-713.
Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Resilience, class, and the antifragility of capital. Resilience: International Policies, Practices, and Discourses 5(2): 110-128. Special issue – ‘Resilience and the Anthropocene’.
Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Enclosure, dispossession, and the green economy: new contours of internal displacement in Liberia and Sierra Leone? African Geographical Review 37: 120-133.
Cavanagh, C.J. (2018). Political ecologies of biopower: diversity, debates, and new frontiers of inquiry. Journal of Political Ecology 25: 402-425.
Cavanagh, C.J. (2019). Dying races, deforestation and drought: the political ecology of social Darwinism in Kenya Colony’s western highlands. Journal of Historical Geography 66: 93-103.
Cavanagh, C.J. and T.A. Benjaminsen. (2017). Political ecology, variegated green economies, and the foreclosure of alternative sustainabilities. Journal of Political Ecology 24: 200-216.
Cavanagh, C.J. and T. Weldemichel and T.A. Benjaminsen. (2020). Gentrifying the African landscape: the performance and powers of for-profit conservation on southern Kenya’s conservancy frontier. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Ahead-of-print, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2020.1723398
Cavanagh, C.J., A. Chemarum, P. Vedeld, and J.G. Petursson. (2017). Old wine, new bottles? Investigating the differential adoption of ‘climate-smart’ agricultural practices in western Kenya. Journal of Rural Studies 56: 114-123.
Cavanagh, C.J .and P. Vedeld, JG Petursson, and A. Chemarum. (2020). Agency, inequality, and additionality: contested assemblages of agricultural carbon finance in western Kenya. Journal of Peasant Studies. Ahead-of-print, https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2019.1707812.
Cleaver, F., and L. Whaley. (2018). Understanding process, power, and meaning in adaptive governance: a critical institutional reading. Ecology and Society 23(2):49.
Davis, D., and P. Robbins. 2018. Ecologies of the Colonial Present: Pathological Forestry form the Taux de Boisement to Civilized Plantations. Environment and Planning E. 1(4): 447-469.
Enns, C., Bersaglio, B., Sneyd, A. (2019). Fixing extraction through conservation: On crises, fixes, and the production of shared value and threat. Environment and Planning E, online first. DOI: 10.1177/2514848619867615.
Fisher, J., C.J. Cavanagh, T. Sikor, and D. Mwayafu. (2018). Linking notions of justice and project outcomes in carbon offset forestry projects: Insights from a comparative study in Uganda. Land Use Policy 73: 259-268.
Holmes, G. and C.J. Cavanagh. (2016). A review of the social impacts of neoliberal conservation: formations, inequalities, contestations. Geoforum 75: 109-199.
Mabele, M. B. (2019). In pursuit of multidimensional justice: Lessons from a charcoal ‘greening’ project in Tanzania. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2514848619876544.
Margulies, J. and Bersaglio, B. (2018). Furthering post-human political ecologies. Geoforum, DOI 10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.03.017.
Menon, A. and Rai, N. D. 2017. Putting a price on tiger reserves: creating conservation value or green grabbing? Economic and Political Weekly 52(52):23-26.
Menon, A., & Rai, N. D. (2019). The mismeasure of nature: the political ecology of economic valuation of Tiger Reserves in India. Journal of Political Ecology, 26(1), 652-665.
Muralidharan, R., & Rai, N. D. (2020). Violent maritime spaces: Conservation and security in Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, India. Political Geography, 80, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102160.
Neimark, B., and J. Childs, A.J. Nightingale, C.J. Cavanagh, S. Sullivan, T.A. Benjaminsen, S. Batterbury, S. Koot, and W. Harcourt. (2019). Speaking power to ‘post-truth’: critical political ecology and the new authoritarianism. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 109: 613-623.
Noe, C (2019). The Berlin curse in Tanzania: (re)making of the Selous world heritage property. South African Geographical Journal 101(3): 379-398.
Östberg, W., Howland, O., Mduma, J., and Brockington, D (2018). Tracing Improving Livelihoods in Rural Africa Using Local Measures of Wealth: A Case Study from Central Tanzania, 1991–2016. Land, Volume 7(2): doi:10.3390/land7020044.
Rai, N. D., Benjaminsen, T. A., Krishnan, S. and Madegowda, C. (2019). Political ecology of tiger conservation in India: Adverse effects of banning customary practices in a protected area. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 40 (1): 124-139.
Ramesh, M. and Rai, N. (2017). Trading on conservation: A marine protected area as an ecological fix. Marine Policy, 82: 25-31.
Svarstad, H. and T.A. Benjaminsen. (2017). Nothing succeeds like success narratives: a case of conservation and development in the time of REDD. Journal of Eastern African Studies. [Special Section: Political Ecologies of REDD+ in Tanzania].
Svarstad, H. and T.A. Benjaminsen. (2020). Reading radical environmental justice through a political ecology lens. Geoforum 108: 1-11.
Svarstad, H., T.A Benjaminsen and Overå, R. (2018). Power theories in political ecology. Journal of Political Ecology 25 (1): 350-363.
Thekaekara, T., Vanak, A.T., Hiremath, A.J., Rai, N.D., Ratnam, J. and Sukumar, R. (2017). Notes from the Other Side of a Forest Fire. Economic and Political Weekly 50 (25 and 26):22-25.
Thorat, O. and Rai, N. 2018. Contradicciones pastoriles en las praderas de Banni en Kachchh, India. Ecologia Politica, 55: 92-97.
Weldemichel, T. and T.A., Benjaminsen, C.J., Cavanagh and H., Lein. (2019). Conservation: Beyond population growth. Science 365 (6449), 133. DOI: 10.1126/science.aax6056
Book Chapters
Benabou, S., Moussu, N. and Müller, B. (2017). Globalising the climate: COP21 and the climatisation of global debates. In Aykut, S., Foyer, J. and Morena, E (eds), The business voice at COP21: The quandaries of global political ambition. London: Routledge, pp. 57-74.
Benjaminsen, T.A. and Svarstad, H. (2019). Political Ecology. In Fath, B (ed), Encyclopedia of Ecology (Second Edition). Pages 391-396. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Bersaglio, B. (2018). Green violence: Market-Driven Conservation and the re-foreignization of space in Laikipia, Kenya. S. Mollett , S and Kepe, T (Eds), Land rights, biodiversity conservation, and justice: Rethinking parks and people. Oxford: Routledge.
Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Mapping the state’s Janus face: green economy and the ‘green resource curse’ in Kenya’s highland forests. In A. Williams and P. Le Billon (eds), Corruption, Natural Resources, and Development: From Resource Curse to Political Ecology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 106-116.
Cavanagh, C.J. (2018). Land, natural resources, and the state in Kenya’s Second Republic. In A. Adeniran and L. Ikuteyijo (eds), Africa Now! Emerging Issues and Alternative Perspectives. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 119-147.
Cavanagh, C.J. (2018). Critical ecosystem infrastructure? Governing the forests-water nexus in the Kenyan highlands. In R. Boelens, T. Perreault, and J. Vos (eds). Water Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 302-315.
Cavanagh, CJ and O. Freeman. (2017). Paying for carbon at Mount Elgon: two contrasting approaches at a transboundary park in East Africa. In S. Namirembe, B. Leimona, M. van Noordwijk, and P. Minang (eds), Co-investment in ecosystem services: global lessons from payment and incentive schemes. Nairobi: World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF).
Cavanagh, C. J. and T.A. Benjaminsen (2018). Guerrilla agriculture? A biopolitical guide to illicit cultivation within an IUCN Category II protected area. In M. Edelman et al. (eds), Global land grabbing and political reactions ‘from below’. Critical Agrarian Studies Series . New York and London: Routledge, pp. 259-280. [Reprint of Cavanagh and Benjaminsen (2015) in Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (3-4)].
Cavanagh, C.J., C. Sandbrook and D. Tumusiime. (2018). Dynamics of uneven conservation and development in Uganda. In Sandbrook, C., C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in Uganda. London and New York: Routledge/Earthscan, pp. 3-15.
Cavanagh, C.J., C. Sandbrook and D. Tumusiime. (2018). Conservation, development, and the politics of ecological knowledge. In Sandbrook, C. and C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in Uganda. London and New York: Routledge/Earthscan, pp. 249-264.
Enns, C. and Bersaglio, B. (2019). Negotiating pipeline projects and reterritorialising land through rural resistance in Northern Kenya. In J. Devlin (Ed), Social movements contesting natural resource development (Chapter 3). Oxford: Routledege.
Himmelfarb, D. and C.J. Cavanagh. (2018). Managing the contradictions: conservation, communitarian rhetoric, and conflict at Mount Elgon National Park. In C. Sandbrook and C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in Uganda. London and New York: Routledge/Earthscan, pp. 85-103.
Neimark, B. and J. Childs, A. Nightingale, C. J. Cavanagh, S. Sullivan, T.A. Benjaminsen, S. Batterbury, S. Koot, and W. Harcourt. (2020). Speaking power to “post-truth”: critical political ecology and the new authoritarianism. In J. McCarthy (ed), Environmental governance in a populist / authoritarian era . New York and London: Routledge. [Reprint of Neimark et al. (2019) in Annals of the American Association of Geographers 109: 613-623].
Rai, N.D. and Madegowda, C. (2017). Rethinking Landscapes: History, culture and local knowledge in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve, India. In Bhagwat, S. (ed) Conservation and Development in India: Reimagining Wilderness. Pages 132-141. Routledge, UK.
Rai, N.D. Bhasme, S. and Balaji, P. (2018). Power, inequality and rights: A political ecology of forest restoration. In Mansourian, S. and Parrotta, J.. Forest Landscape Restoration: Integrated Approaches to Support Effective Implementation. Routledge. Pages 47-62.
Shanker, K. Oommen, M. and Rai, N.D. (2018). Changing Natures: a democratic and dynamic approach to biodiversity conservation. In Kothari. A. and Joy, K. J. (Eds.), Alternative Futures: India Unshackled, AuthorsUpFront, New Delhi.
Related Media Contributions
Op-eds, blogs and interviews
Benjaminsen, T.A., 2016. “Karbon som vare” [Carbon as a commodity]. Dagens Næringsliv: https://www.dn.no/dagensavis/2016/07/26/2119/Debatt/karbon-som-vare. Download pdf. (Norwegian).
Benjaminsen, T.A., 2018. “Motstand mot “jordran”, vold og norsk bistand i Tanzania” [“Resistance against “land grabs”, violence and Norwegian aid in Tanzania”]. Bistandsaktuelt: https://www.bistandsaktuelt.no/arkiv-kommentarer/2018/motstand-mot-jordran-vold-og-norsk-bistand-i-tanzania/ (Norwegian).
Benjaminsen, T.A., 2019. Hvorfor flytter folk til slumområder i byene? [Why do people move to slums in cities?] Bistandsaktuelt (03.12.2019). https://bistandsaktuelt.no/arkiv-kommentarer/2019/utsyn-benjaminsen-hvorfor-flytter-folk-til-slummen/ (Norwegian)
Benjaminsen T.A., and Svarstad, H. 2018.”Marx i skogen” [“Marx in the forest”]. Klassekampen: https://dagens.klassekampen.no/2018-05-22/marx-i-skogen. Download pdf. (Norwegian).
Bergius, M., 2016. “Afrika for Agribusiness” [Africa for Agribusiness]. Nationen: http://www.nationen.no/debatt/afrika-for-agribusiness/. Download pdf. (Norwegian).
Bergius M., 2016. “Norge mot småbøndene” [Norway against the smallholders]. Klassekampen: http://www.klassekampen.no/article/20160411/PLUSS/160419949. Download pdf 1 and pdf 2. (Norwegian).
Bergius, M., Buseth, J.T., Benjaminsen T.A., and Widgren, M., 2017. “Den norske selvgodhet” [The Norwegian complacency]. NRK Ytring: https://www.nrk.no/ytring/den-norske-selvgodhet-1.13823542 (Norwegian).
Buseth, J.T., 2016. “Illusjonen om det grønne skiftet” [The illusion of the green shift]. Dagsavisen: https://www.dagsavisen.no/nyemeninger/illusjonen-om-det-gr%C3%B8nne-skiftet-1.802300 (Norwegian).
Buseth, J.T., 2018. “Kamp om hoder” [“Struggle for support”]. Interview in Klassekampen: https://dagens.klassekampen.no/2018-11-28/kamp-om-hoder (Norwegian)
Buseth, J.T., 2018. “Kunnskap om regnskogmilliardene” [“Knowledge about the rainforest billions”]. Hamar Arbeiderblad: https://www.h-a.no/debatt/kunnskap-om-regnskogmilliardene. (Norwegian)
Buseth, J.T., and Bergius, M., 2017. “Grønn modernisering: Småbrukerne blir tapere” [Green modernization: Smallholders become losers]. Dagsavisen: https://www.dagsavisen.no/nyemeninger/sm%C3%A5brukerne-blir-taperne-1.1046048(Norwegian).
Davis, D., and P. Robbins. 2018: “India’s forest cover target influenced by colonial policies rather than scientific basis, says study”. Interview in Mongabay: https://india.mongabay.com/2019/01/indias-forest-cover-target-influenced-by-colonial-policies-rather-than-scientific-basis-says-study/
Svarstad, H., and Benjaminsen T.A. 2018. “Norsk klimapolitikk rammer de fattigste” [“Norwegian climate policy negatively affects the poorest”]. Aftenposten: https://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikk/i/7lwlwK/Norsk-klimapolitikk-rammer-de-fattigste–Hanne-Svarstad-og-Tor-A-Benjaminsen (Norwegian).
Svarstad, H., and Benjaminsen T.A. 2019. “Equinors klimamaskerade” [“Equinors’ climate masquerade”]. Dagsavisen: https://www.dagsavisen.no/nyemeninger/equinors-klimamaskerade-1.1254458 (Norwegian)
TV/Radio
Bergius, M., interviewed in German radio: “Entwicklungshilfe als Investitionsobjekt” [Development help as investment object] – http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/agrarkonzerne-in-der-landwirtschaft-tansanias.1247.de.html?dram:article_id=396507(German).
People and Contacts
Tor A. Benjaminsen
(t.a.benjaminsen(at)nmbu.no)
Tor is the Project Leader of the Greenmentality project. He is a Professor of Development Studies at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). As a human geographer, Tor’s research focuses on political ecology, land tenure, land-use conflicts, pastoralism, and environmental conservation and justice. He is also Associate Editor of Political Geography and a Lead Author of the next IPCC report.
Christine Noe
(tinanoe(at)yahoo.com)
Christine is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, University of Dar es Salaam. She is a human geographer and an expert on conservation and development politics. Her specific research foci in recent years have included Transfrontier Conservation Areas, land tenure, livelihood changes and security dynamics in rural Tanzania. Some of her publications can be found on her own blog page.
Dan Brockington
(d.brockington(at)sheffield.ac.uk)
Dan directs the Sheffield Institute of International Development at the University of Sheffield. His research covers the social impacts of conservation, capitalism and conservation, media and celebrity in development and long-term livelihood change in East Africa. He has worked mainly in Tanzania and also South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India. Dan is happiest conducting long term field research in remote areas but also learns from plush fundraising events. He has books include Celebrity Advocacy and International Development, Celebrity and the Environment, Fortress Conservation and Nature Unbound (with Rosaleen Duffy and Jim Igoe).
Dan Brockington
(d.brockington(at)sheffield.ac.uk)
Dan directs the Sheffield Institute of International Development at the University of Sheffield. His research covers the social impacts of conservation, capitalism and conservation, media and celebrity in development and long-term livelihood change in East Africa. He has worked mainly in Tanzania and also South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India. Dan is happiest conducting long term field research in remote areas but also learns from plush fundraising events. He has books include Celebrity Advocacy and International Development, Celebrity and the Environment, Fortress Conservation and Nature Unbound (with Rosaleen Duffy and Jim Igoe).
Nitin Rai
(nitinrai(at)atree.org)
Nitin is a Fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), India. He uses a political ecology approach to understand the implications of state conservation policy and practice for people and landscapes. Nitin conducts most of his fieldwork in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve where he has explored issues ranging from historical patterns of forest use, cultural relationship to landscape, and rights-based conservation. More recently he has been analyzing market-based interventions such as eco-tourism and corporate investments in biodiversity conservation. Nitin is an editor of the journal Conservation and Society.
Hanne Svarstad
(hannes(at)oslomet.no)
Hanne is a political ecologist, sociologist and professor in Development Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University. Her research is about external interventions in uses of natural resources and land in Eastern Africa, climate change mitigation such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), development aid, power, gender, environmental justice, education and alternative sustainabilities. She applies critical realist approaches and conducts analyses of discourses and narratives.
Paul Robbins
(director(at)nelson.wisc.edu)
Paul is the director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research addresses questions spanning conservation conflicts, urban ecology, and environment and health interactions. His work has included research on the politics of conservation in Rajasthan, India, as well as research examining biodiversity (frogs, birds and mammals) in commercial plantations in Karnataka. Paul has also led studies of consumer chemical risks behaviours, mosquito management and elk management. He holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin, and master’s degree and doctorate in geography, both from Clark University.
Maria G. Njau
(mariagn(at)oslomet.no)
Maria is a PhD candidate at the Department of International Studies and Interpreting at Oslo Metropolitan University. Her project focuses on the political ecology of education in northern Tanzania, where she aims to examine how environmental discourses taught in schools and in local communities influence ongoing environmental initiatives and conflicts. Her key areas of interest are conservation, deforestation, extractives, natural resources, education and environmental knowledge.
Revati Pandya
(revati.pandya(at)atree.org)
Revati is a Research Associate at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), India and a PhD candidate at Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands. Her current research lies at the intersection of tiger reserve management, tourism and local community engagement. Prior to 2017, Revati was involved with different Indian non-profit organisations working on issues of natural resource management and community rights to resources. She holds an MA in Sustainable Natural Resource Management from University for Peace, Costa Rica.
Frances Cleaver
(f.cleaver(at)sheffield.ac.uk)
Frances is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield. Working from an inter-disciplinary base in international development studies she is interested in how applied social science research can inform interventions for progressive social change. Her research connects three interrelated themes: Institutions, water governance and livelihoods. In the ‘Greenmentality’ project – Frances and colleagues are exploring the ways in which access to land and water in Tanzania and Kenya are reshaped through initiatives promoted as part of the ‘green economy’.
Connor J. Cavanagh
(connor.cavanagh(at)nmbu.no)
Connor is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). His research and publications explore the political ecology of conservation and development interventions, with a focus on resource tenure conflicts and the institutional evolution of laws, regulations, and policies for governing both ecosystems and rural populations. Recent articles have appeared in Environment and Planning D, Antipode, the Journal of Peasant Studies, and Geoforum.
Suhas Bhasme
(suhas.bhasme(at)atree.org)
Suhas is a post-doc fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), India. He received his PhD from the University of Sussex. Suhas primary focus areas include politics of natural resource management, community struggles and the role of emerging community-based natural resource management groups in rural parts of Western India. In the Greenmentality project he investigates REDD+ and its impacts in Western Ghats in India. His most recent work includes understanding the political ecology of agricultural development interventions and the role of agrarian organisations on farmers in rural parts of South India, particularly Telangana and Karnataka.
Mikael Bergius
(mikael.bergius(at)nmbu.no)
Mikael is affiliated with the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) as a PhD Research Fellow in Food and Agricultural Development with the working topic: ‘Turning Towards a Corporate Food Regime in Tanzania? A Multilevel Study of Drivers, Impacts and Responses’. Mikael is also a Fellow at the US-based think tank, The Oakland Institute, where he has conducted research, writing and outreach for the Institute and published reports examining the impact of large-scale land deals in Tanzania.
Jill Tove Buseth
(jill.buseth(at)nmbu.no)
Jill is a Phd fellow at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Her research topic is: ‘The global discourses and local realities of the green economy. Implications of transferring the green shift from policy to practice, with a focus on the SAGCOT initiative in Tanzania’. Her research interests cover the green economy, green growth, global environmental discourses, governmentality and political ecology. She is currently affiliated 50% with both Noragric and section for development studies at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet), and is planning to finish her PhD late 2018.
Shai Divon
(shai.divon(at)nmbu.no)
Shai is the Chair of the Department of International Environment and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He currently works on power and politics in Africa and teaches several courses in International Relations, International Environmental Studies and Development Studies. Shai is a specialist on development politics, and studies a range of issues in the nexus security/environment/development. His work and research experience spans over four continents, including work in several African and Asian countries, the Middle East and North America. He is the author of several peer-reviewed articles, and the co-author of ‘United States Assistance Policy in Africa: Exceptional Power’ (With Bill Derman).
Brock Bersaglio
(b.bersaglio(at)sheffield.ac.uk)
Brock is a Research Associate in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield and an Affiliated Researcher with the East African Institute at Aga Khan University in Nairobi. His work contributes to debates in rural geography, critical development studies, and political ecology/economy, focusing mainly on eastern and southern Africa. Brock’s research considers political-economic, socio-cultural, and ecological factors that drive land and resource struggles in the context of environmental conservation and natural resource-based development. Most recently, he has written about topics such as: green grabbing and the political ecology of belonging, (re)territorialization for extractive-led development, and rural livelihoods and subjectivity more broadly. Brock completed his PhD at the University of Toronto in March 2017. His dissertation is entitled ‘Green Grabbing and the Contested Nature of Belonging in Laikipia, Kenya: A genealogy’.
Sarah Benabou
(sarah.benabou(at)ird.fr)
Sarah is an anthropologist and research fellow at the French National Research Institute for
Sustainable Development (IRD), Paris. Her broad scholarly interest is in the relationships between societies and their environments, and how these are shaped by culture and political economy. More specifically, her work engages with the ‘environmental turn’ taken by neoliberalism since the early 1980s and is grounded in the idea of the irreducibility of environmental problems to technical solutions. She has written on livelihood transitions in the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve in India, on the current momentum around “ecological compensation” as an instrument for biodiversity conservation, as well as on the involvement of the private sector in various COPs (Rio 2012, Paris 2015). For the Greenmentality project, she investigates a community-based Redd+ project in Meghalaya, North-East India.
M. Vikas
(mayankvk(at)umich.edu)
M. Vikas is affiliated with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a PhD student in the Environment and Resources program. He is working with Paul F. Robbins to assess how landscape level changes induced by government-sponsored plantations in mountainous regions of northern India are impacting rural livelihoods.
Eva Davidsdottir
(eva.dogg.davidsdottir(at)nmbu.no)
Eva is a PhD fellow at Norwegian University of Life Sciences, currently pursuing a degree in Environment and development studies at Noragric. Her academic background mainly stems from social anthropology and development studies, and her current work applies a political ecology approach. Her research interests include the politics of forest governance, indigenous rights, environmental policy, conflicts and resistance related to land-use changes and green grabbing. More specifically, her work examines how state-led afforestation projects interplay with Adivasi rights in rural India, and explores the linkages between deforestation and land restoration.
Mathew Bukhi Mabele
(mathewbukhi.mabele(at)geo.uzh.ch)
Mathew is a PhD Candidate in Human Geography at the Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Switzerland. His current research focuses on politics of representations (framings) of environmental concepts such as Anthropocene, deforestation, degradation, green transformations, poaching, REDD+, and sustainability at policy level, and resulting consequences for resource governance, everyday conservation practices and social justice in the Miombo woodlands and related ecosystems in rural Tanzania. He has mainly conducted ethnographic research in rural areas of Kilosa, Lindi, Kilwa, Kongwa, Mbarali, Mbozi, Babati, Hai, Kigoma, Ngorongoro and Serengeti. He is currently writing his PhD dissertation on the political ecology of deforestation discourses and conservation justice under neoliberal forest policy in Tanzania.
Universitetstunet 3
1430 Ås, Norway
t: telephone
e: email
Universitetstunet 3
1430 Ås, Norway
t: telephone
e: email
NMBU — Norwegian University of Life Sciences
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Universitetstunet 3, 1430 Ås, Norway
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POLLEN — Political Ecology Network
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Universitetstunet 3, 1430 Ås, Norway
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