WELCOME TO DIMENSIONS OF POLITICAL ECOLOGY: CONFERENCE ON NATURE/SOCIETY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
The University of Kentucky Political Ecology Working Group welcomes you to Lexington for the second annual Dimensions of Political Ecology: Conference on Nature Society. You are one of more than 225 participants who will present and discuss their work, join field trips, and attend panels over the weekend. We are pleased to see a wide geographic and disciplinary cross-section of expertise among participants and expect that this conference will foster collaborations beyond the three days we are all together. We plan to continue hosting this conference with even more events and opportunities for collaboration, so we hope you will consider making it a regular part of your academic schedule in the years to come.
*** For full conference program, including abstracts, please see http://www.politicalecology.org/p/dope2012-preliminary-program.html ***
DOPE Conference Organizing Committee
Alicia Fisher
Allison Harnish
Brian Grabbatin
Eric Nost
Jairus Rossi
Lily Brislen
Michelle Flippo
Nate Millington
Patrick Bigger
Sarah Watson
Tim Brock
GENERAL INFORMATION
THE PLENARY ADDRESS will be held in the Small Ballroom of the Student Center, the main hub for most conference activities. The student center is located on Avenue of Champions between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Limestone Avenue, 404 S. Limestone.
OUR OPENING RECEPTION will be held at the Bingham-Davis and Commonwealth Houses located on 232 East Maxwell Street. Some on-street parking is available along Lexington Avenue, Rose Street, and Maxwell. Additional parking is available in the E-lot behind the reception houses. This lot can be accessed from Lexington Avenue. Some spaces are reserved so please read the signs carefully.
The KEYNOTE ADDRESS will be held in the Center Theater of the Student Center, one floor below the Small Ballroom.
ALL PAPER PRESENTATIONS will be held at the Student Center, located on Avenue of Champions between S. Limestone Avenue and S. Martin Luther King Boulevard. The Student Center parking lot is free on Saturdays. If this lot is full additional parking is directly across the Avenue of Champions in the E-Lot. A portion of this lot is reserved for residence halls, so please read the signs carefully.
DIRECTIONS, PARKING, and INTERNET ACCESS
Parking – A limited number of visitor parking passes may be purchased at registration for $2.50. In the event that these are not available, the same passes may be attained at parking structure #5 on South Limestone Road (next to the Student Center). These passes allow you to park in E lots (but not parking structures), which can be found beside and across from the student center (Avenue of the Champions and Lexington Avenue) as well as behind Memorial Coliseum (Lexington Avenue). These passes will be necessary on Friday. On Saturdays, E lots are free to use. Parking structure #5 is available for parking on Friday as well.
For information about Lexington’s public transportation services:
Internet Access on Campus
UKYEDU is a campus-wide wireless network that is accessible to guests. After connecting to the network, open your web browser and you will find a guest log-on option to use. The web address for the University of Kentucky is: http://www.uky.edu .
Printing
Johnny Print
547 South Limestone Street
Phone: (859) 254-6139
Mon-Fri 8:30 am to 5:30 pm
Sat 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
Kinko’s
333 E Main St, Suite 130
Phone: (859) 253-1360
Mon-Fri 7:00 am to 11:00 pm
Sat 9:00am to 9:00pm
CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
Plenary Address: Dr. Erik Swyngedouw
Friday, April 13, 5:15 pm, Small Ballroom, Student Center
Sponsored by the Student Sustainability Council
Desalting the Seas: Re-assembling Hydro-Modernities in Spain
“How to change so that nothing really has to change”
When the social-democratic party (PSOE) unexpectedly wins the Spanish elections in 2004, one of the first initiatives of the new government is to scrap the most controversial parts of the Second National Hydraulic Plan (approved in 2001 by the Conservative government (PP)). The new Plan (AGUA – approved 2004) replaces highly contested major river diversion schemes with a new hydro-technical logic, centred on the construction of 22 high volume desalination plants on the Mediterranean coast as the means to manage Spain’s recurrent water crisis.
The desalination of seawater has indeed become one of the contested terrains for managing hydro-scarcities, particularly in (semi-)arid regions. The presentation seeks to tease out the heterogeneous and often conflicting assembling of regional interests, political positions, the materialities of seawater, sustainability and ecological issues, socio-cultural conflicts and the demands of a globalizing economy around desalination as a new socio-ecological ‘fix’.
The broader intellectual objective of the presentation is, first, to explore how diverse political projects, social visions, matters, ecological concerns, cultural imaginaries, discursive formations, institutional practices, economic strategies of competitiveness and engineering technologies fuse together and articulate around specific hydro-technical infrastructures. Second, to document how human and non-human actants become enrolled in such processes of hydro-social transformation. Third, to consider how desalination and the networks of actors sustaining its realization mark the transition from a state hydro-structural to a decentralized market environmentalist water framework.
The presentation will conclude that the assemblage of socio-natural actors that are enrolled around the desalination ‘fix’ and the ‘mobilization of the seas’ continues to focus on water supply (rather than other possible forms of socio-hydraulic management) and reproduces a consensual hydro-modernist development imaginary despite affirmations of radical change.
Erik Swyngedouw is Professor of Geography in the School of Environment and Development at the University of Manchester. Over the past two decades he has published several books and written over a hundred research papers for leading journals in the fields of political economy, political ecology, and urban theory and culture. He describes his research program as “built around two main theoretical perspectives and articulated through two empirical ‘windows'.” The first research program focuses on geographical political economy, with special attention to transformations in the capitalist space economy. The second research program focuses on political ecology, with an emphasis on the governance, politics, and economics of water resources. His books Social Power and the Urbanisation of Water: Flows of Power (Oxford University, 2004) and In the Nature of Cities (Routledge, 2006), coedited with Nik Heynen and Maria Kaika, have greatly expanded political ecology’s investigation of urban space and contributed to the formulation of a politically progressive socio-natural theory. With continued interest in the triad of environment-economy-governance, Dr. Swyngedouw continues to work towards politically explicit yet theoretically and empirically grounded research that contributes to the practice of constructing a more genuinely humanizing geography.
Keynote Address: Dr. Julie Guthman
Saturday, 5:15 PM, Center Theatre, Student Center
Sponsored by the Student Sustainability Council
Plastic bodies: what environmental epigenetics can (and can't) do for political ecology
The talk will discuss the emerging field of environmental epigenetics and what it suggests about the long term plasticity and permeability of animal and human bodies. The field has great relevance to political ecology, especially in regard to growing interest in the political ecology of the body and environmental justice, as it explains some of the mechanisms by which environmental toxins, as well as psycho-social and nutritional stresses, influence bodily function and phenotype, contributing to both health disparities and healthy adaptations. By the same token, the field may reinforce what Robbins calls "apolitical ecologies”.
Julie Guthman is an Associate Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz where she teaches courses primarily in global political economy and the politics of food and agriculture. Since receiving her PhD in 2000 in Geography from the University of California at Berkeley, she has published extensively on contemporary efforts to transform the way food is produced, distributed, and consumed, with a particular focus on voluntary food labels, community food security, farm-to-school programs, and the race and class politics of “alternative food.” Her first book, Agrarian Dreams: the Paradox of Organic Farming in California (University of California, 2004), won the Frederick H. Buttel Award for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement from the Rural Sociological Society and the Donald Q. Innis Award from the Rural Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. Her new book, Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism (University of California, 2011) challenges many of the taken-for-granted assumptions about the so-called obesity epidemic, including that it can be addressed by exposing people to the "right" food. It was recently awarded the James M. Blaut Innovative Publication Award from the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.
FIELD TRIP
Growing Appalachia - Sustainable Agriculture Tour
Meet at 8:45 AM on the east side of the Student Center on Sunday, April 15.
Returns by 4:30 PM.
Sponsored by the Student Sustainability Council
Join us for a true farm to fork tour of Appalachia’s growing sustainable food system.
First stop is a tour of Berea College’s student farm. Here you’ll learn about the college’s sustainable production system that uniquely integrates service learning into the student experience. Students and faculty manage several hundred acres covering a full range of production lines ranging from row crops; hay and silage; pasture land for cattle, hogs, and goats; and five acres dedicated to vegetables, fruits, herbs, mushrooms, and garden plants. (http://www.berea.edu/anr/collegefarms.asp)
After working up an appetite hiking through hill and dale, the tour will stop in at Berea Coffee and Tea for a traditional Appalachian meal of local beans, greens, and cornbread.
The tour will end with a conversation with Mr. Bill Best, a farmer, seed saver, and heirloom plant advocate from the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center (www.heirlooms.org). Mr. Best has personally collected over 450 different varietals of Appalachian beans, maintains an equally impressive collection of heirloom tomatoes. He is renowned throughout the Appalachian region for his extensive knowledge and promotion of heirloom seed saving, and he was the 2003 winner of the Southern Foodways Alliance Ruth Fertile Keeper of the Flame Award.
Please bring $20 in cash with you to the tour. The cost covers lunch, as well as contributions to the important work of these two organizations.
To register for this field trip contact Lily Brislen at Lilian.Brislen@uky.edu
UNDERGRADUATE SYMPOSIUM AND PAPER COMPETITION
10 AM Friday, April 13, Student Center 206
Sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences Enrichment Fund
One of the University of Kentucky Political Ecology Working Group’s goals is to support young researchers with interests in nature/society dynamics. This year we extended a specific call for papers to undergraduate students engaging in political ecology research. This symposium provides undergraduate students with a forum to present their work, receive useful feedback, and connect with graduate students and faculty with similar research foci. The symposium will consist of a two hour session (Friday 10am to noon) featuring six undergraduate paper presentations. The winner of the undergraduate paper competition will also be awarded during the session. Organized and chaired by Tim Brock of the Political Ecology Working Group, this session is an exciting opportunity to interact with the next generation of political ecologists.
PANEL DISCUSSION: TEACHING POLITICAL ECOLOGY
3-4:40 PM Saturday April 14, STUDENT CENTER ROOM 230
Sponsored by the Vice President for Research
Communicating Nature-Society Concepts to Students and the Public
Political ecologists are adept at producing texts that pull together diverse actors, processes, discourses, and materialities. Our collective labor has redefined environmental issues as multiply situated, and transcending ontological, epistemological, and disciplinary boundaries. At the same time, the nonlinear complexity of our narratives can present significant challenges in their telling. This panel explores methods for effectively communicating political ecological narratives to our students, the public, and even to our colleagues and potential collaborators. Additionally, panelists will reflect on how students and collaborators participate in the creation of these narratives.
Panelists
Daniel Faber, Lisa Cliggett, and Robert Wilson
Moderator
Morgan Robertson
Daniel Faber is a Professor of Sociology at Northeastern University and the Director of the Northeastern Environmental Justice Research Collaborative. His research interests include political economy and economic crisis theory, environmental justice, the sociology of philanthropy, and issues of climate change. Among the courses he teaches is an undergraduate course on environmental justice politics and a graduate course titled “Political Ecology and Capitalism.” He also serves as an editorial board member of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Journal of Socialist Ecology and is the author of several articles and books including, Capitalizing on Environmental Injustice: The Polluter-Industrial Complex in the Age of Globalization (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).
Lisa Cliggett is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Kentucky, where she teaches the upper level undergraduate course “Ecological and Social Practice”, an undergraduate honors course titled “Living within Limits: Environmental Impacts of Food Production,” and offers graduate seminars exploring ecological anthropology and perspectives on environment and development. From 2004-2007 she and Deborah Crooks (Anthropology, University of Kentucky) ran an NSF funded field school in Zambia, teaching ethnographic research methods for anthropology graduate students. Since the early 1990s, she has carried out ethnographic research in Zambia on household economy, family dynamics, environmental change and migration. Since 2001, her research has taken her to the border zones of the Kafue National Park, Zambia’s largest national park, where she has participated in several National Science Foundation funded collaborative projects with colleagues in geography and anthropology. Her articles have been published in American Anthropologist, Human Organization and Human Ecology. Her books include Grains from Grass: aging, gender and famine in rural Africa (Cornell University, 2005), Economies and Cultures: foundations of Economic Anthropology, co-authored with Richard Wilk (Westview Press, 2007), and Economies and the Transformation of Landscape, co-edited with Christopher Pool (Alta Mira, 2008).
Robert Wilson is an Associate Professor of geography at Syracuse University, whose work straddles the intersection between environmental history and historical geography. His 2010 book, Seeking Refuge: Birds and Landscapes of the Pacific Flyway (University of Washington), focuses on the development and management of wildlife refuges for migratory birds in the American West. His current projects include an environmental history of Japanese incarceration during World War II and the geographies of the climate movement and protests against the Keystone XL pipeline. Dr. Wilson is broadly interested in landscape transformations, environmental governance, environmental movements, and human-animal relations.
Morgan Robertson is an Assistant Professor of geography at the University of Kentucky where he has developed undergraduate and graduate survey courses on political ecology and a graduate seminar titled “Critical Theories of Nature and Environment.” His teaching and research draws on a background in social theory, wetland biogeography, and 2 ½ years spent working at the Headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency developing federal wetlands rules. His research has explored the current attempts to create “markets in nature,” such as wetland credit markets, habitat and biodiversity offset markets, and carbon credit markets. Morgan is currently collaborating with Martin Doyle (Environmental Science, Duke University) and Rebecca Lave (Geography, Indiana University) on a National Science Foundation funded project titled The Emerging Commodity of Restored Streams: Science, Policy, and Economics in New Markets for Ecosystem Service Commodities. This work extends to the social constitution of nature as an object of desire, commodification and scientific knowledge, and the relationship between political power and scientific concepts of ecology and nature. Morgan’s work has been published in the journals Progress in Human Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Antipode, and Conservation Biology, among others.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
FRIDAY APRIL 13, 2012
Registration: 9:00am – 12:00pm and 1:00pm – 7:00pm Outside Small Ballroom (3rd floor of Student Center)
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 1: 10:00am – 11:40am
Session: Undergrad Symposium
Student Center 206
Chair: Tim Brock (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Discussant: Christopher Oliver (Sociology, University of Kentucky)
Reassessing the "Roving Bandits": Small-scale fisheries governance in Mafia Island, Tanzania –
Coleman Allums, (Sustainability Science, Furman University) Ian Bryceson (Sustainability Science, Furman University), & Betsy Beymer-Farris (Sustainability Science, Furman University)
Denatured ecosystems by any other name: public attitudes and perceptions of two transformed landscapes in Kentucky – Kylie Schmidt (Natural Resource Conservation, University of Kentucky) & Dr. John Cox (Natural Resource Conversation, University of Kentucky)
East End Blues: Race and Planning in an Urban Kentucky Neighborhood – Laura Webb (Anthropology, Centre College)
Agricultural Modernization in Norte Grande, Argentina: A case analysis through the Tuhama Diversion Dike – Luis Alberto Lei (Geography, Sarah Lawrence College)
Quinoa: Gold of the Inca: Western Mining Anew – Nina Sparling (Geography, Sarah Lawrence College)
Exploring Food Secure Frameworks for Market Integration: Farmers' Cooperatives in Samdrup Jongkhar, Bhutan – Dahlia Colman (Geography, Sarah Lawrence College)
Session: Rural Social Movements
Student Center 357
Chair: Eric Nost (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Transforming Landscapes and Rural Social Movements: Exploring the Relations between Political Ecology and Political Sociology – Javier Rodriguez (Rural Sociology, Ohio State University)
The Future in Ruins: Reverse Imperialist Nostalgia, Agrarian Imaginaries, and the Meaning of Justice on Darjeeling Tea Plantations – Sarah Besky (Anthropology, University of Wisconsin – Madison)
Libertarian Ecology: Permaculture as a Post-Development Agrarian Movement – Rafter Sass Ferguson (Agroecology/Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Session: Greater Common Goods: Solidarities in Ethical Commodity Networks
Student Center 359
Chair: Meg Maurer (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
Contested Solidarities: The Moral Ambiguity of the Fair Trade Consumer Movement – Sarah Lyon (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
Defetishization and refetishization: Fair Trade’s agrarian imaginary and the making of “real bananeros’ – Sandy Brown (Geography, University of California – Berkeley)
Measured Invisibility: Ghumauri and Lack of Effective Solidarities within Fair Trade Systems in India – Debarati Sen (International Conflict Management and Anthropology, Kennesaw State University)
Loyalties, Labels and Lives: The Moral Economies of the Fair Trade Coffee Contract in Nicaragua – Bradley Wilson (Geography, West Virginia University)
Solidarity and the Quality Imperative in fair trade-organic (gourmet) coffee – Tad Mutersbaugh (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Session: (De)Valued Landscapes
Student Center 249
Chair: Alicia Fisher (Sociology, University of Kentucky)
Ecological Rent: The Political Economy of Displaced Environmental Degradation – Kirk S. Lawrence (Sociology, St. Joseph’s College) & Seth Abrutyn (Sociology, University of Memphis)
Labeling E-waste Economies: Value, Power, and Embeddedness in Electronic Waste Governance – Graham Pickren (Geography, University of Georgia)
The Political Economy of Trash in Haiti– Michele Flippo Bolduc (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Reading Ecological Economics Politically: Or The Ecology of Value Struggles – Pat Huff (Anthropology, University of Georgia)
Session: Industrial Ecologies
Student Center 363
Discussant: Harold Perkins (Geography, Ohio University)
Discussant: Harold Perkins (Geography, Ohio University)
Chair: Brian Grabbatin (Geography, University of Kentucky)
More Than Just a Barrier – The politics of inundation and infrastructure in a human-dominated deltaic ecosystem – Joshua A. Lewis (Systems Ecology, Stockholm University)
Producing a Post-Political Landscape: Urban Wilderness, Race, and Nature in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Nate Millington (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Towards a Political Ecology of Urbanization – Hillary Angelo & David Wachsmuth (Sociology, New York University)
Industrial ecology and the question of urban nature – Amy Zhang (Anthropology & Forestry, Yale)
LUNCH: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 2: 1:00pm – 2:40pm
Session: Moral Economies of Consumption
Student Center 249
Chair: Tim Brock (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Place-based simplicity: the impact of bioregional characteristics on consumptive behaviors. – Lauren Drakopulos (Environmental Science and Policy, University of South Florida, Saint Petersburg)
Sustainability Through Design Science: Re-Imagining Option Spaces Beyond Eco-Efficiency – Laura Alex Frye-Levine (Environmental Studies, Center of Sustainable Cities, University of Kentucky)
Contested Seascapes: The moral economies of commercial and recreational fishing in North Carolina – Noëlle Boucquey (Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University)
Growing Movements to Revitalize Traditional Food Economies: Toward a Political Ecology of Diabetes in Native America – Janna Lafferty (Environmental Anthropology, Florida International University)
Session: Transitional Livelihoods
Student Center 363
Discussant: Karen Rignall (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
Chair: Britteny M. Howell (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
"Obsolete archaism, utopian dreams and manure": Biogas and dairy livelihoods in Vermont – Thomas Loder (Geography, University of Kentucky)
“Staying Like Prisoners”: Resettlement, Livelihoods Transformation and the Politics of Land Tenure Insecurity in the Benet Resettlement Area – Dave Himmelfarb (Anthropology, University of Georgia)
Land conflicts and participatory processes in the aboriginal community Potae Napocna Novogoh in Formosa Argentina – Nancy Arizpe (Ecological Economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Session: Historical Political Ecology & Environmental History I
Student Center 359
Discussant: Robert Wilson (Geography, Syracuse University)
Chair: Nate Millington (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Producing “Prehistoric” Life: Galápagos giant tortoise preservation from collection to captive breeding– Elizabeth Hennessy (Geography, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill)
Reading Wendell Berry as Critical Theorist: Agrarianism, Environmental History, and Political Ecology – Levi Van Sant (Geography, University of Georgia)
The quick and the dead: slugs, slime, backyard fantasy – Franklin Ginn (Geography, University of Edinburgh)
Ecotourism and Extractive Economies in Madre de Dios, Amazonia Peru - Gordon Lewis Ulmer & Jeffery Cohen (Anthropology, Ohio State University)
Session: Governing Nature
Student Center 357
Chair: Bob Sandmeyer (Philosophy, University of Kentucky)
Broccoli Greens and the Wary Palate: Environmentality in Community Supported Agriculture – Michael Nesius (Geography, Florida State University)
Biopolitics and the State – Quinn Lance (Public Administration and Environment and Natural Resources, University of Wyoming)
Governance, Governmentality, and the Persistence of Sovereignty in Post-Sovereign Climate Change Politics – Kevin Grove (Geography, Dartmouth College), David Lansing (Geography & Environment Systems, University of Maryland- Baltimore County), and Jennifer Rice (Geography, University of Georgia)
Defining Sustainability: Examining the Backstage of the Leonardo Academy’s Sustainable Agriculture Standard – Jason Konefal & Maki Hatanaka (Sociology, Sam Houston State University)
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 3: 3:00pm – 4:40pm
Session: Urban Political Ecology
Student Center 357
Chair: Jessa Loomis (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Urbanization, Gentrification, and Resistance: The Changing Role of Green Space in North Portland – Patrick Hammons (Geography, Pennsylvania State University)
Urban agriculture in Chicago: An analysis of the spatial distribution of home and community food gardens – John R. Taylor (Crop Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) & Sarah Taylor Lovell (Crop Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
The Need to Feed: Urban Metabolic Struggles for Social (Re)Production – Joshua Sbicca (Sociology, University of Florida)
Growing Just Cities? Assessing the property dynamics of organized garden projects in California food justice movements- K. Michelle Glowa (Environmental Studies, University of California- Santa Cruz)
Session: Organismal Actors and Political Economy
Student Center 363
Chair: Derek Law (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Socio-Structural Dimensions of Global Aquaculture Production – Stefano B. Longo (Department of Sociology & Anthropology, East Tennessee State University) & Brett Clark (Sociology, North Carolina State University)
Reframing the work of bees and beekeepers: the relevance of political ecology for apiculture – Tony Stallins (Geography, University of Kentucky) and Kelly Watson (Geography, Eastern Kentucky University)
Kill or Be Killed: (Api)cultural Geographies of the Africanized Honey Bee – Kevin S. Fox (Geography, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill)
Session: Historical Political Ecology & Environmental History II
Student Center 359
Discussant: Harold Perkins (Geography, Ohio University)
Chair: Nate Millington (Geography, University of Kentucky)
A Spatial History of Bangalore’s Waters: Governmentalities, State Formation, and the Production of Difference – Malini Ranganathan (Geography, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Lost in the Shadow of Blair Mountain: Political Ecologies of Abandonment in the Era of Mountaintop Removal – William Hunter (Cultural Resource Analysts)
'Remembering Kearneytown': Lessons in Environment & Justice from Warren County, North Carolina – Pavithra Kathanadhi (Geography, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill)
The historical-geographical production of the urban riskscape of Phoenix, Arizona – Juan Declet-Barreto (Geography/Environmental Social Science, Arizona State University)
Session: Knowledge - Politics, Process and Expertise
Student Center 249
Chair: Tim Vatovec (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Provenance of an Amenity Landscape: Actor-Network Theory Applied to the Arizona Trail– Elizabeth Kelly (Geography, University of Missouri)
Evaluating public participation in California's Global Warming Solutions Act: A mixed methods approach – Alex Karner (Civil Engineering, University of California, Davis)
The Politics of Blame and Misinformation in the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project – Shereen D'Souza (Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale)
5:15pm-7:00pm PLENARY ADDRESS: DR. ERIK SWYNGEDOUW
LOCATION: SMALL BALLROOM, STUDENT CENTER
· University Welcome: Dr. Theodore Schatzki (Dean of Faculty, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Kentucky)
· Conference Introduction: Jairus Rossi and Allison Harnish (Political Ecology Working Group, University of Kentucky)
· Speaker Introduction: Nate Millington (Geography and Political Ecology Working Group, University of Kentucky)
· Plenary Address: Dr. Erik Swyngedouw - "Desalting the Seas: Re-assembling Hydro-Modernities in Spain"
Reception (7:30pm- 10:00pm)
Location: Gaines Center (Bingham-Davis House and Commonwealth Houses located on 232 East Maxwell Street). Food and drink provided.
SATURDAY, April 14, 2012
Registration: 7:30am outside room 211 (2nd floor Student Center Addition)
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 4: 8:00am – 9:40am
Session: Political Ecologies of Success & Failure I
Student Center 228
Discussant: Tad Mutersbaugh (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Chair: Patrick Bigger (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Normative Adaptation to Sea Level Rise: Contested Knowledge Claims and Adaptation Policies in Suriname – Ravic Nijbroek (Geography, University of South Florida)
An Urban Political Ecology of Failure?: Defining goals and measuring outcomes in Yahara watershed governance – Sean Gillon (Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin – Madison)
A Political Ecology Challenge to the Resource Curse- Jennifer Lawrence (The Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical and Cultural Thought, Virginia Tech)
Ambivalent outcomes: Political ecology, water governance, and technology in New Mexico – Eric Perramond (Environmental Science & Southwest Studies, Colorado College)
Session: Situating and Engaging with Feminist Political Ecology I: Climate Change, Conservation, and Development
Student Center 230
Chair: Allison Harnish (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
Gender, Local Soil Knowledge, and Management Practices for Conservation Agriculture: A case-study from the Andean Region of Bolivia – Keri Agriesti (Geography, Virginia Tech)
Evaluating Criticisms of Community-Based Conservation Based on Women’s Experiences in Kwandu Conservancy, Caprivi, Namibia – Libby Khumalo (Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana)
Climate Justice, Sumak Kawsay (Good Living), Indigenous Movements in South America, and the Role of Indigenous Women – Maria Moreno (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
From Genipapo to Açai: A Feminist Political Ecology Perspective on Women, Fruits, and Forests in Amazonia – Laura Zanotti (Anthropology, Purdue University)
Session: Political Ecology of Social Movements I: Climate & Justice
Student Center 211
Chair: Eric Nost (Geography, University of Kentucky)
On the Politics of Climate Knowledge: Sir Giddens, Sweden, and the Paradox of Climate (in)Justice and (in)Action – Cindy Isenhour (Environmental Studies, Centre College)
Theorizing South African Environmentalism – Mary Lawhon (African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town)
Environmental Justice and Equity Concerns in the Neoliberal Turn – Morgan Robertson (Geography, University of Kentucky)
An Inconvenient Dilemma: The UNFCCC and Rival Movement Networks – Scott Byrd (Sociology, Murray State University)
Session: Shifting Properties
Student Center 205
Chair: Matthew Wilson (Geography, University of Kentucky)
The Labor of Heirs: Locke, law, and property in coastal South Carolina – Brian Grabbatin (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Environmental Protection, Property Rights, and the Takings Clause – Jack Schieffer (Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky)
Land-use management in the Northwoods: Local governments and the politics of “smart growth”– Christina Locke (Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin – Madison)
Environmental Politics in a Central Appalachian Town – Philip Lewin (Sociology, University of Georgia)
Session: Critical Engagements with Resilience Theory
Student Center 231
Organizer and Chair: Daniel J. Murphy (Department of Society and Conservation, University of Montana)
The social organization of resilience – Lisa Cliggett (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
Hazardous Hybrids: Anthropogenic Vulnerabilities and the Ontologies of Disaster in Rural Mongolia – Daniel J. Murphy (Department of Society and Conservation, University of Montana)
Empowerment and Disempowerment: How SES Frames Both Catalyze and Inhibit Political Action to Address Environmental Change on Montana Ranchlands – Laurie Yung and Nicky Phear (Department of Society and Conservation, University of Montana)
Sometimes People Choose Change: Challenges to Resilience Theory from Neoliberal Consumerism – Nora Haenn (North Carolina State University), Casey Collins (North Carolina State University), Birgit Schmook (El Colegio de la Frontera Sur), and Claudia Radel (Utah State University)
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 5: 10:00am – 11:40am
Session: Forest Management
Student Center 205
Chair: Chris Van Dyke (Geography, University of Kentucky)
In defense of heritage: citizenship and identity in native species restoration efforts - Christine Biermann (Geography, Ohio State University)
Divided into stands, together they fall: Deforestation and the metabolic rift – Emily Howard (Planning, Governance, and Globalization, Virginia Tech)
Are livelihoods of the poor improved when forest environmental services are traded? A case study of Da Nhim, Vietnam – Hanh Nguyen (International Development Studies, Ohio University)
The Panguipulli Forestry Complex: Chile’s exception to the neoliberal rule? – Jenny Baca (Geography, University of California – Berkeley)
No Place Like Home - Invasional Meltdown in the New Pangaea – Kyle Burchett (Philosophy, University of Kentucky)
No Place Like Home - Invasional Meltdown in the New Pangaea – Kyle Burchett (Philosophy, University of Kentucky)
Session: Political Ecologies of Success & Failure II
Student Center 228
Discussant: Tad Mutersbaugh (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Chair: Patrick Bigger (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Rethinking Resilience through a Political Ecology Lens: Producing Biodiversity in Tanzania's Mangrove Forests – Betsy A. Beymer-Farris (Sustainability Science, Furman University)
Toxic consequences: State-industry partnerships, routine regulatory failure, and the case of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in reformulated gasoline (RFG) – Christopher Oliver (Sociology, University of Kentucky)
Conservation in Africa: does political ecology have any traction – Leif Brottem (Geography, University of Wisconsin)
A Conflation of Karls: the Unfortunate Jumbling of Marx and Polanyi within the Concept of Neoliberalism – Jason Strange (Geography, UC, Berkeley)
Session: Situating and Engaging with Feminist Political Ecology II: Environmental Ethics, Labor, and Dispossession
Student Center 230
Chair: Rebecca Lane (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Ecofeminist Ethics and Rural/Urban Dualism – Tammy Clemons (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
Identity, Agency, and Environmental Action: Feminist Political Ecology’s Applications to American Indian Women’s Interaction with Environmental Issues – Amanda Magee (Environmental Studies, University of Colorado – Boulder)
Emotional Ecosystems Under Duress: The Personal and Political of Beijing Urban
Redevelopment – Melissa Yang Rock (Geography, Dartmouth College)
“I work hard to make my home energy efficient”: U.S. eco-moms and the gendered labor of producing a healthy atmosphere – Autumn Thoyre (Geography, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill)
Session: Political Ecology of Social Movements II: Food
Student Center 211
Discussant: Bradley Wilson (Geography, West Virginia University)
Chair: Eric Nost (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Stalking the Wild Beginning Farmer: Unpacking the provenance and purpose of Beginning Farmer – Lily Brislen (Rural Sociology, University of Kentucky)
Scaling Up: Local Foods as Communities or Commodities? – Eric Nost (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Subsistence and the City: Making an Urban Food Commons? – Billy Hall (Global & Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University)
Food Justice and Farm Labor: Strengthening Coalitions for Equity in the Food Movement – Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern (Geography, University of California – Berkeley)
Session: Planning Conservations
Student Center 231
Chair: Hugh Deaner (Geography, University of Kentucky)
The politics of protected areas: Electoral competition theory and congressional behavior related to the creation of new protected areas – Tiffany Espinosa (Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University)
Landscape-Level Conservation: A Case Study on Namibia’s Protected Landscape Conservation Areas Initiative – Leigh Whelpton (Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale)
The state, suburban development, and conservation planning in Southern California: exploring the spatially contingent connections between the ‘political’ and ‘ecological’ – Andrew E.G. Jonas (Geography, Hull University)
Cultures of Toxic Clean-up: Military natures and the politics of remediation at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard – Lindsey Dillon (Geography, University of California – Berkeley)
LUNCH: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
CONCURRENT SESSION 6: 1:00pm – 2:40pm
Session: The Production of Power: Energy and Development
Student Center 205
Chair: Thomas Loder (Geography, University of Kentucky)
(Em)powering the Local? An Actor Network Assessment of the Woody Bioenergy Development in Michigan – Weston Eaton (Sociology, Michigan State University)
State and Oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon: Toward a Political Ecology of Environmental Suffering – Nicolle Etchart (Anthropology, FLACSO-Ecuador)
Mine Tailings in the Alberta Tar/Oilsands: a case study in co-constitutive socionature – Hugh Deaner (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Turning Greenbacks into Green Juice: Issues of citizen trust in the financing of a biomass fueled electricity generation plant and ecological modernization in Gainesville, Florida – Kevin A. Lynn (Environmental Sociology, University of Florida)
Atomic Landscapes: The Commodification of the Colorado Plateau – Eric W.Mogren (History, Northern Illinois University)
Session: Water
Student Center 230
Chair: Jimbo Jahnz (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Water management in the Crans-Montana-Sierre region (Switzerland): power games between technical experts and local politicians – Christine Homewood (Geography and Geosciences, University of Fribourg)
Moving the Levers of Power to Enforce the Clean Water Act in the U.S. – Kendall Thu (Anthropology, Northern Illinois University) and Danielle Diamond (Anthropology, Northern Illinois University)
EIAs and the Social Production of Knowledge at Belo Monte – John Ben Soileau (Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Water Landscapes as Relational Juridical Spaces (Argentina, Brazil, Chile) – Stephanie C. Kane (Department of Criminal Justice, Indiana University)
Session: Political Ecology of Social Movements III: Communities
Student Center 211
Discussant: Brian Grabbatin (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Chair: Eric Nost (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Landowner Coalitions in the Marcellus Shale: A Political Ecology Perspective – Eleanor Andrews (Geography, Penn State University)
Development as Struggle: A Gramscian Approach to Community Forestry in Nepal – Elsie Lewison (Geography, University of Toronto)
Beyond "NIMBY:" Considering "Wise-use" values in place-protective politics of wind energy development in the rural West – Shawn Olson (Environmental Studies, University of Colorado – Boulder)
Land conflicts and participatory processes in the aboriginal community Potae Napocna Novogoh in Formosa Argentina – Nancy Arizpe (Ecological Economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Session: Developing Environmental (In)securities
Student Center 231
Chair: Derek Ruez (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Shifting identities and contested lands: Cattle, crops, and the cultural politics of herder-farmer conflict in Kenya – Scott Matter (Anthropology, Rutgers University)
The Impacts of Drug Trafficking on Central America’s Biodiversity and Rural Livelihoods – Zoe Pearson (Geography, Ohio State University) and Kendra McSweeney (Geography, Ohio State University)
Capitalism and Communism in the Mountains: Decision making about development technologies in Himalayan Nepal – Catherine L. Sanders (Anthropology, University of Montana)
Environmentally Induced Migration and the Politics of Development as Security – Jonathan Austin Crane (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Globalization and Environmental Challenges in sub-Saharan Africa; the Transnational Oil Corporations’ operations in the 2ist Century Nigeria – Soji Oyeranmi (History, University of South Africa)
Session: Racialized Landscapes: Embodiment, Mutable Natures, and Environmental Politics I
Student Center 228
Discussant: Rich Schein (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Chair: Sarah Watson (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Food for the People: Farmers Markets in Miami's Inner City Caribbean Black and African American Neighborhoods – Sheila Sutton (Sociology, Florida International University)
Localization of the Agrarian Image: Historic, Geographic, and Socio-Political Influences on the “Family Farm” and the Implications for Farm Labor Practices – Thea Rittenhouse (Community/Regional Development, University of California – Davis)
Landscapes of indigeneity and nation-state border security: The case of the Tohono O'odham in Southern Arizona – Carrie Mott (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Nature, Race, and Nationalism in the Making of South Africa’s Waterscape, from colonialism to liberation. – Anne-Marie Debbane (Geography, San Diego State University)
CONCURRENT SESSIONS 7: 3:00pm – 4:40pm
Panel: Teaching Political Ecology
Student Center 230
Moderator: Morgan Robertson (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Featuring Dr. Daniel Faber (Sociology, Northeastern University), Dr. Lisa Cliggett (Anthropology, University of Kentucky) and Dr. Robert Wilson (Geography, Syracuse University)
Political ecologists are adept at producing texts that pull together diverse actors, processes, discourses, and materialities. Our collective labor has redefined environmental issues as multiply situated, and transcending ontological, epistemological, and disciplinary boundaries. At the same time, the nonlinear complexity of our narratives can present significant challenges in their telling. This panel explores methods for effectively communicating political ecological narratives to our students, the public, and even to our colleagues and potential collaborators. Additionally, panelists will reflect on how students and collaborators participate in the creation of these narratives.
Session: Hydropower
Student Center 231
Chair: Hugh Deaner (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Climate Change, Hydro-development and Water Governance in the Himalayas – Costanza Rampini (Environmental Studies, University of California – Santa Cruz)
Similar Strokes for Different Folks: The Online Struggles over the Building of the Belo Monte Dam – Flávia Leite (Sociology, University of Florida)
Tapping the roof of Egypt: water, tourism and urbanization around Mount Sinai - Joshua Lohnes (Geography, West Virginia University)
Politics of Hydopower development in the Eastern Himalayas, India – Mabel Denzin Gergan (Geography, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill)
Restructuring and rescaling water governance for extractive industries in Peru: the co-production of uneven waterscapes – Jessica Budds (Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading)
Session: Urban Inequalities
Student Center 205
Discussant: Melissa Yang Rock (Geography, Dartmouth College)
Chair: Jessa Loomis (Geography, University of Kentucky)
An Urban Socio-ecological Inquiry into South Florida's Socio-spatial Marginalization of Elderly Pedestrians – Rosibel Roman (Geography, Florida International University)
Localism, Renewable Energy and Urban Political Ecology in the United States – Jason Morris (Cultural Studies, George Mason University)
Inside Dhobi ghats: Development, Technological change and Washerpeople in Delhi, India – Varsha Patel (Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India)
Environmental inequality in the city: How classic industrial urbanized spaces in the United States encourage the repetition of the disproportionate distribution of environmental hazards on human populations – Jessica Pulliam (Global and Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University)
Session: Political Ecology and Science & Technology Studies: Boundaries and Engagements
Student Center 211
Discussant: Rebecca Lave (Geography, Indiana University)
Chair: Jairus Rossi (Geography, University of Kentucky)
The politics of gene-environment interactions and their implications for contextualizing health disparities – Christopher D Hartmann, Aaron Goldenberg, Patricia A Marshall (Bioethics, Case Western Reserve University)
The Science of Recycling: Risk, Efficiency and Global Electronic-Waste Mining – Freyja Knapp (Environmental Science and Policy Management, University of California – Berkeley)
Collaboratively defining the hydrosocial cycle of coastal North Carolina – Amy Freitag (Marine Science and Conservation, Duke University)
“Global Resources” – Materialities, Politics, and the Production of the “Global” Scale – Jason Beery (Statistics, University of Pittsburgh)
Session: Archaeologies of Ecology
Student Center 203
Chair: Meg Maurer (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
The hill of El Fuerte de Unión Zapata: a preliminary discussion of the political ecology surrounding a world heritage site in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico – Antonio Martinez Tuñon (Geography, Colegio de Michoacán)
Exploring the models of panarchy and resilience in the history of terracing and urbanism in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, México - Verónica Pérez Rodríguez (Anthropology, Northern Arizona University)
The Political Ecology of Archaeological Climatic Research – Victoria Dekle (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
Born of Fire and Water: A Political and Ecological History of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala - Gavin Davies (Anthropology, University of Kentucky)
Session: Racialized Landscapes: Embodiment, Mutable Natures, and Environmental Politics II
Student Center 228
Discussant: Rich Schein (Geography, University of Kentucky)
Chair: Nate Millington (Geography, University of Kentucky)
The Contested Landscape of a “Cornfield”: The Politics of Race and Urban Nature in Los Angeles – Esther G. Kim (Environmental Science, University of California – Berkeley)
The urban political ecology of biodiversity—Circuits of knowing urban natures in post-apartheid Cape Town – Henrik Ernstson (Urban Political Ecology/African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town / Stockholm University)
Whose Everglades? Whose Whiteness?: The Cultural Politics of Nature and the Rise of the Gladesmen Folk Culture in the Florida Everglades – Rebecca Garvoille (Anthropology/Global and Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University)
Illegal Crossings: United States’ Hazardous Waste in India – Lucy D. McAllister (Environmental Studies, University of Colorado – Boulder)
5:15pm – 7:00pm: KEYNOTE ADDRESS DR. JULIE GUTHMAN
Student Center - Center Theater
· Conference welcome: Russell Williams, Student Sustainability Council, University of Kentucky
· Announcement of paper competition winners: Brian Grabbatin and Patrick Bigger
· Introduction: Michelle Flippo (University of Kentucky Geography and Political Ecology Working Group)
· Keynote: Dr. Julie Guthman – “Plastic bodies: What epigenetics can (and can’t) do for political ecology”
CONFERENCE AFTERPARTY 7:30pm-10:00pm*
LOCATION: AL’S BAR, LIMESTONE AND 6TH (dinner, including vegan, available)
* Al’s Bar has a concert scheduled the same evening and will begin collecting a $5 cover for the band at 10 PM, but conference goers should feel free to stick around!
University of Kentucky Sponsors
Vice President for Research
Student Sustainability Council
College of Arts & Sciences
Department of Anthropology
Department of Sociology
Department of Geography
The Graduate School
International Geographical Honors Society
Student Government Association
National Sponsors
Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers
Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association
Anthropology and the Environment Section of the American Association of Anthropologists
Student Sustainability Council Statement of Support
The University of Kentucky Student Sustainability Council is a student-run group that administers the university's environmental stewardship fee. The SSC funds and develops projects that promote sustainable practices while enhancing the student experience. From dormitory resource conservation, to a campus bicycle shop, to fashion shows featuring reclaimed materials from local businesses, to world-class academic research and discourse, the SSC advances the theory, practice, and reality of sustainability at the University of Kentucky. Naturally, the SSC is pleased to support the work of UK's Political Ecology Working Group and the 2012 Dimensions of Political Ecology conference.
