February 16, 2017

Tracing narratives and perceptions in the political ecologies of health and disease

In a previous post on ‘Horses, bees and bodies: post-conference accounts from Lexington’, Panagiota Kotsila shared her reflections on the 2015 Dimensions of Political Ecology (DOPE) Conference, where together we organised a panel titled ‘Perceptions of Urban Environmental Health: Narrating Political Ecologies of Disease’. The post promised a forthcoming collection of papers on the topic, which we have now published in the Journal of Political Ecology, with Giacomo D’Alisa.
July 13, 2016

Co-producing political responses to ‘swiftlet farming’ in George Town, Malaysia

Through the analysis-using several ethnographic methods- of conflicts around ‘swiftlet farming’ in George Town, Malaysia, Creighton Connolly encourages the formation of stronger linkages between academics, urban policy makers, and civil society organisations for better understanding environmental conflicts.*
October 29, 2015

Not Just Another Political Ecology Handbook (?)

Internationalizing and decolonizing political ecology is the focus of the recently published ‘International Handbook of Political Ecology’ and its primary raison d’etre. However, there is clearly much more to be done in the ongoing project to make political ecology a collective, cohesive community.
October 28, 2014

Landscape politics of ‘swiftlet farming’ in George Town, Malaysia

by Creighton Conolly — This post originally appeared on Season 3 of the LSE Cities Blog ‘Urban Vignettes’ on October 27th, 2014. — Since September last year I have been conducting fieldwork for my doctoral research on urban birds’ nest harvesting (or ‘swiftlet farming’) in Malaysian cities – a fiercely debated topic in the country over the past 15 years. Edible birds’ nests are considered a Chinese delicacy and are a common ingredient in Chinese medicines, consequently attracting staggeringly high prices in Chinese market places […]
August 1, 2014

Encountering racial tensions and political antipathy on fieldwork in Malaysia

by Creighton Connolly I arrived in Malaysia to begin my initial 10 weeks of fieldwork on Sunday, the 15th of September 2013, after a busy few days in Singapore meeting with colleagues there in preparation for my field season. In retrospect, it was a poor choice of days to venture across the Causeway into Malaysia, as it was a long weekend celebrating the Malaysia Day national holiday on September 16th. So, as you could expect, I was greeted by hundreds of (mostly Chinese) travelers, following […]