Defining Political and Ethical Relationships

Recognizing that ecological problems are not merely technical, but involve differential power relations both between humans and between humans and non-humans, this sub-theme attends to the role of ecological economics as a political practice. It aims to link Ecological Economics more closely with other social sciences and the humanities. We invite submissions that report and reflect on interdisciplinary collaborations, particularly from scholars of fields not obviously included in ecological economics, including but not limited to anthropology, psychology, sociology, political ecology, and critical geography. This is an opportunity to discuss how and why socio-ecological transformation happen. It is also a chance to understand who wins and who loses through environmental change and in different constructions of “nature” and the role of people within such constructions. These are areas in which ecological economists have much to learn from other ways of knowing, thinking, studying, and acting. This sub-theme aims to explore theoretical understandings of human-nature relations, ecological sustainability, economic justice, and the politics and power relations of moving toward a just, sustainable Canada and world.

  • – Queer, feminist, Indigenous, and sub-altern ecological economics 
    – Imaginative futures 
    – Environmental justice conflicts 
    – Historical, sociological, and anthropological approaches 
    – Insights from political ecology and critical geography
    – Ethics of economic study
    – Behavioral, psychological, and neurological sciences 
    – Reflecting on environmental and resource economics
    – Social theory and continental philosophy
    – Marxist and anarchist ecologies 
    – Critical whiteness and critical masculinity in ecological economics
    – Conservation as transformative versus as accumulation strategy 
    – Ecologising cities versus green gentrification
    – From theory to policy, practice, and action 
    – Political economy of environmentalism and conservation
    – Interrogating solutions from above

 

Subthemes