On June 20th, 2018, I was honored to give one of the keynote addresses at the 2018 POLLEN conference in Oslo, Norway. The talk I gave, “Critical Approaches to Dispossession in the Melanesian Pacific: Conservation, Voice, and Collaboration” was a co-authored piece I wrote with my long-time research partner John Aini. In it I drew out three interrelated themes that, if we think about together, we can use to make Political Ecology a stronger, more equitable, and potentially decolonial field. One of those themes had to do with the gendered nature of the genealogies of knowledge we draw on and reproduce in the field. Here is what I said about this in the keynote address:
“I want us to think about the genealogies of knowledge that we produce and replicate in Political Ecology and while I love you all and I love this field, we are a field that valorizes and draws on the scholarship of white male scholars over that of other kinds of scholars and that draws on European philosophical traditions to the exclusion of other philosophical traditions. Additionally, across the field, men are cited as making theoretical contributions and pushing the field forward while women are characterized as producing “case studies” that show the effects that are theorized and analyzed by their male colleagues. These practices make our field less robust than it could and should be.”
“So here is my second conceptual thread – I ask, how do we as a field value and produce knowledge through our reading, citing, AND teaching of some scholars and not others? Who do we give primacy in our construction of the genealogy of the field and why? What are the politics of relegating women’s scholarship to the realm of the case study? Why do, predominantly, white male scholars become the theoretical stars of the field? And what does this foreclose? What kinds of epistemic advances don’t happen because we fail to expand our ideas of whose work matters and what kinds of work count as theory and what kinds don’t?”
During the Q and A period someone asked me to provide a list of women who I read who I think are key to the field of Political Ecology. Here is that list, with some additions by a few of my friends. Please note: I know that this is super North American focused and I know this is a limitation on my scholarly practice, so send me names, I will add them. Lets make a robust list that spans the planet.
Amber Huff https://www.ids.ac.uk/people/amber-huff/
Judith Verweijen https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/politics/people/academic-staff/judith-verweijen
Andrea Brock https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p322495-andrea-brock
Farhana Sultana: https://www.farhanasultana.com
Sian Sullivan: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/sian-sullivan/
Diane Rouchelau: https://bit.ly/2M7fqyS
Molly Doane: https://bit.ly/2MaVn2z
Nicole Peterson: https://bit.ly/2K612qd
Nancy Peluso: https://bit.ly/2M8ZWdH
Bonnie McCay: https://bit.ly/2yrS7xT
Amelia Moore: https://bit.ly/2McEGUG
Kristina Baines: http://kristinabaines.com/
Amanda Stronza: https://bit.ly/2K83jV8
Jessica Cattelino: https://bit.ly/2JS6C3c
Martha Macintyre: https://bit.ly/2K5IAOq
Veronica Davidov: https://bit.ly/2JWXfzt
Jaskiran Dhillon: https://bit.ly/2MJ0fNv
Debarati Sen: https://bit.ly/2M8FbyQ
Hokulani Aikau: https://bit.ly/2MJVTFO
Kim TallBear: http://kimtallbear.com/
Rebecca Witter: https://bit.ly/2M6F5Yz
Bridget Guarasci: https://bit.ly/2ysvBVJ
Becky Zarger: https://bit.ly/2Kb5bwi
Antina von Schnitzler: https://bit.ly/2I92juR
Melissa Johnson: https://bit.ly/2MKVOSd
Laura Mentore: https://bit.ly/2tssC9R
Marama Muru Lanning: https://bit.ly/2MLXg7d
Diane Russell: https://bit.ly/2I9WYDA
Jenny Newell: https://bit.ly/2IaW49M
Emma Kowal: https://bit.ly/2oTpNy3
Sarah Vaughn: https://bit.ly/2JX04Az
Mona Bahn: https://bit.ly/2McJ6Lg
Noenoe Silva: https://bit.ly/2tl6WMS
Zoe Todd: https://bit.ly/2yumnrM
Nora Haenn: http://norahaenn.org/
Danielle Dinovelli-Lang: https://bit.ly/2yuggDZ
Tess Lea: https://bit.ly/2MHqUKx
Laura Ogden: https://bit.ly/2MNbgx8
Aletta Biersack: https://bit.ly/2lnPnYU
Cindy Isenhour: https://bit.ly/2ts1t6W
Sally Babidge https://social-science.uq.edu.au/profile/624/sally-babidge
Lisa Kelley https://ourenvironment.berkeley.edu/people/lisa-kelley
Kimberly Carlson https://carlson-lab.org/
Suraya Afiff https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Suraya_Afiff
Julie Trottier http://cnrs.academia.edu/JulieTrottier
Genese Sodikoff https://ncas.rutgers.edu/about-us/faculty-staff/genese-sodikoff
Juanita Sundberg https://www.geog.ubc.ca/persons/juanita-sundberg/
Sharlene Mollett http://geography.utoronto.ca/profiles/assistant-professor/
Diana Ojeda http://javeriana.academia.edu/DianaOjeda
Jennifer Devine http://www.jenniferdevine.com/
Laurie Medina https://sites.google.com/a/ualberta.ca/laurie_adkin/
Liza Grandia https://nas.ucdavis.edu/faculty/liza-grandia
Yuko Suzuki and Carolyn Faria (who’s websites I can’t find right now but I will update soon).
Wendy Wolford: https://goo.gl/2TXnRz
Tania Li: https://goo.gl/vuHmB8
Celia Lowe: https://goo.gl/vGN9Au
Julie Guthman: https://goo.gl/cw3ZUX
Suzana Sawyer: https://goo.gl/wVFsQ2
Silvia Federici: https://goo.gl/9tkKYv
Susanne Freidberg: https://goo.gl/AcMz7C
Judith Carney: https://goo.gl/ptM9vu
Pamela McElwee: https://goo.gl/K8MoK9
Verena Stolcke: https://goo.gl/x9ybcU
Susanna Hecht: https://goo.gl/np1jvx
Rosaleen Duffy: https://goo.gl/PBVbrF
Esther Marijnen: https://goo.gl/yH2QEU
Lotje de Vries: https://goo.gl/xXeuTv
Jane Carruthers: University of South Africa, but I can’t find her website.
Elizabeth Lunstrum: https://goo.gl/7P2T5i
Haripriya Rangan: https://goo.gl/RxX5Ux
Rebakah Daro Minarchek: https://goo.gl/xWpjh9
Harriet Friedmann: https://goo.gl/dkbMS1
Sarah Whatmore: https://goo.gl/3jeSB4
Juanita Sundberg: https://goo.gl/7tDfNr