November 1, 2018

Special Issue: "The Making of Caribbean Not-so-Natural Disasters"

Social inequality, colonialism and the commodification of disaster-related recovery are central to explaining the not-so-natural disasters caused by the 2017 Caribbean hurricane season, a recent special issue by Alternautas blog shows.
April 19, 2018

Naomi Klein: “We need a counter-narrative that explains the people’s plan” (Part II)

Professors Self-Assembled in Solidarity Resistance (PAReS)* In the second part of this two-part interview, renowned journalist and activist Naomi Klein speaks with PAReS about the struggles for multiple sovereignties, the importance of weaving historical struggles with current movements, and the role of diasporas in supporting these movements. Read the first part of the interview here, PAReS: Recently you went to Barcelona, where there is a strong political struggle over national sovereignty, often presented in terms of “what is more important”, national independence or an anti-capitalist […]
April 17, 2018

Naomi Klein: “We need a counter-narrative that explains the people’s plan” (Part I)

by PAReS – Professors Self-Assembled in Solidarity Resistance In the first part of this two-part interview by the PAReS collective, renowned journalist and activist Naomi Klein speaks about disaster capitalism in Puerto Rico and the constitution of opposition movements and political alternatives.
September 20, 2017

Commons and Contradictions: The Political Ecology of Elinor Ostrom

By Derek Wall* Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) won a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009 for her work on the commons.  Her work is hugely inspiring but difficult to fit into established categorized. Some political ecologists have criticized her as too conservative or managerial. Here, I will attempt here to outline why, despite these criticisms, I feel Ostrom is a key thinker for political ecologists, and how her work relates to other approaches to political ecology. Born in Los Angeles, she studied politics and then became […]
August 24, 2017

Despacito, the crisis is sinking Puerto Rico

This summer’s hit, Despacito, soon to be the most streamed song in history, hides much more than what it says. Its celebratory attitude about Puerto Rico’s ‘paradisiac’ and ‘sexy’ geographies silences the many layers of oppression and violence that the oldest colony in the world has suffered historically, as well as the unprecedented crisis and austerity dictatorship it faces today. Gustavo García-López* and Irina Velicu** Kings of reguetón, Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi produced the 2017 summer hit Despacito, #1 single in Billboard’s charts and […]
August 9, 2017

Saskia Sassen on extractive logics and geographies of expulsion

By Gustavo García López* Saskia Sassen (Professor of Sociology, Columbia University) argues that the foundational transformation of capitalism since the 1980s is dominated by a speculative and extractive logic, characterized by “predatory formations” such as vulture funds making cities of ‘dead buildings’ and peripheries of expelled people. In her recent keynote speech at the  16th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons in Utrecht, Netherlands, Saskia Sassen offered a keynote speech on the “Extractive logics in our economy: geographies of […]
September 8, 2016

Struggles over urban greenspace in San Juan, Puerto Rico: Reconnecting ecology and democracy

The story of how a small group of neighbors in the suburbs of San Juan, Puerto Rico, came together to beautify their neighbourhood and restore a small remnant of forest by planting trees; and how in the process of their struggle, they become ‘politicized’ and integrated into a larger movement challenging the political economy of urban growth.
August 11, 2016

Political ecologies of enclosures and commoning in Mexico's forests

The experience of Mexico, a global pioneer in community forestry, highlights the possibilities and challenges of commons as alternative forms of more just and sustainable socio-ecological regimes.*
June 16, 2016

International call for struggle and solidarity with Puerto Rico

“We are asking the international community and the Puerto Ricans of the diaspora to show solidarity with the situation that our country is now experiencing” 
September 18, 2015

Extractivismo: Nuevos contextos de dominación y resistencia

En el contexto actual de represión que sufren las ONGs ecologistas en Latinoamérica, hemos querido compartir este texto del CEDIB de Bolivia para dar visibilidad al importante trabajo que hace esta organización.
February 26, 2015

Can frogs and workers unite? Paul Robbins on conserving biodiversity in the Western Ghats, India

by Gustavo Garcia Lopez In a guest lecture in Barcelona, political ecologist Paul Robbins invites us to reflect on how market forces and labour’s bargaining power influence farmers’ production decisions, which in turn impact biodiversity conservation. Can environmentalists and workers unite?
August 9, 2014

Documenting political ecologies through film, part IV

by Gustavo Garcia Lopez and Salvatore Paolo De Rosa Note: This is the fourth of a five-part entry on the Tales from Planet Earth film festival held on April 9-12 in Stockholm, Sweden (to see the previous entries go HERE, HERE, and HERE). The Festival was organized by ENTITLE member Professor Marco Armiero, director of the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), in cooperation with ENTITLE. If the circumpolar north offered a largely depoliticised view of majestic landscapes, the last […]