International Conference

Political Ecologies of Conflict, Capitalism and Contestation (PE-3C)

When: 7-9 July 2016
Where: Hotel Wageningse Berg, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Organised by: Wageningen University and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

We seem to have entered a new phase in the relation between violence and environment. This includes not just unprecedented surges of wildlife crime and associated military style retaliation, but also the conflicts and contestations that arise from structural unequal access to resources (ironically often exacerbated by environmental policies), and the epistemic and intellectual domination of specific ways of understanding, representing and enacting natures, animals and environments. These forms of conflict and violence are (again) becoming an ever more central aspect of the political ecologies of late capitalism and warrant renewed attention, conceptualization and critique. This international conference aims to bring together scholars, activists, non-governmental and governmental change-makers and interested individuals to discuss and increase our understanding of the causes, consequences, natures and politics of these dynamics and so inspire and understand contested 21st century political ecologies.

A second objective of the conference is to contribute to a broader understanding of the meaning and nature of political ecology in the 21st century. Political ecology, as the study of how different interests, forms of power and politics influence and frame access to, use and understand the environment, has become a mature field of academic and activist inquiry. One of the untapped strengths of this field is that those who call themselves political ecologists work within a wide variety of different disciplines, traditions and academic cultures. The aim of this conference is to bring these different disciplines, traditions and cultures together and so connect important discussions on the political ecologies of conflict, capitalism and contestation.

Paper and Panel themes: proposals for papers and panels are invited that address a combination of the following themes and issues:
·      Resources and land use practices including but not limited to: biodiversity and conservation, agriculture, agroecology, forests, water management, marine resources, etc;
·      Drivers of violence and conflict such as inequality, resource access, capitalism, markets, governmental policies, ecotourism, militarization, climate change, science and technology, war and crisis, conservation and development programs;
·      Forms and conceptions of violence including but not limited to structural and material forms of violence, symbolic and epistemic violence as well as practices of contestation, resistance and the development of alternatives;
·   Conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches to political ecology and beyond: (post-)structuralist, (post-)Marxist, governance studies, ANT, discourse analysis, governmentality, biopolitics, cultural studies, posthumanist, ethnographic, etc.

We invite paper and full panel proposals (with a maximum of 4 paper presentations for 1 panel) for this conference; please send these to politicalecology2016@gmail.com before 15 December 2015. Abstracts of the papers as well as abstracts describing a full panel should not exceed 300 words.

Keynote speakers:
Elizabeth Lunstrum (York University)
Kumi Naidoo (Greenpeace)
Philippe Le Billon (University of British Colombia)

Organizing committee
Wageningen University: Bram Büscher, Han v. Dijk, Rob Fletcher, Stasja Koot (SDC), Esther Turnhout (FNP), Rutgerd Boelens, Jeroen Vos (WRM), Kees Jansen (KTI), Clemens Driessen (GEO), Simon Bush (ENP)
SOAS, University of London: Rosaleen Duffy

Advisory committee (in progress)
1.     Giorgios Kallis (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
2.     Nik Heynen (University of Georgia)
3.     Nancy Peluso (UC Berkeley)
4.     Maano Ramutsindela (University of Cape Town)
5.     Rod Neumann (Florida International University)
6.     Murat Arsel (Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University)
7.     Ashish Kothari (Kalpavriksh)
8.     Tor Arve Benjaminsen (Norwegian University of Life Sciences)
9.     Wolfram Dressler (University of Melbourne)
10.   Ben Neimark (Lancaster University)
11.   John Childs (Lancaster University)
12.   Jamie Lorimer (Oxford University)
13.   Padraig Carmody (Trinity College Dublin)
14.   Krithika Srinivasan (Exeter University)
15.   Anthony Bebbington (Clark University)
16.   Daniel Muenster (Heidelberg University)
17.   Gerardo Damonte (Univ Catol Peru)
18.   Tatiana Roa (CENSAT Colombia)
19.   Megan Ybarra (University of Washington)
20.   Alice Kelly (UC Berkeley, US)
21.   Chusak Wittayapak (Chiang Mai University)
22.   Edgar Isch (FORO Ecuador)
23.   Seema Kulkarni (SOPECOM India)
24.   Eric Swyngedouw (University of Manchester)
25.   Melissa Leach (IDS, Sussex University)
26.   KC Joy (Water Conflicts Forum, India)
27.   Aline Arroyo (CAMAREN, Ecuador)
28.   Joan Martinez-Allier (Barcelona)
29.   Patrick Bond (UKZN South Africa)
30.   Tom Perreault (Syracuse University)
31.   Esteban Castro (Newcastle University)
32.   Ben Crow (UC Santa Cruz)
33.   Arif Satria (Bogor Agricultural University)
34.   Robert Hitchcock (Michigan State University)
35.   Katja Neves (Concordia University)
36.   Danielle Hirsch (Both Ends)
37.   Simon Batterbury (Melbourne University)
38.   Francisco Peña (COLSAN Mexico)
39.   Ursula Münster (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)

Place and venue: beautiful Wageningen is an old, small Dutch city in the centre-east of the Netherlands, but only an hour away from Amsterdam Schiphol airport. Hotel De Wageningse Berg (the Wageningen Mountain) is situated at the edge of town, in the woods, with a magnificent view over the lower Rhine River.