Environmental Justice Incommensurabilities Framework: monitoring and evaluating environmental justice concepts, thought styles and human-environment relations

Environmental justice concepts have undergone significant changes from being solely distributive to include underlying power asymmetries. Consequently, we are now faced with a wide array of different interpretations of what environmental justice is. This calls for a fundamental reflection on what environmental justice stands for, how and most importantly why it is used. To achieve this goal, this paper elaborates on the genesis of environmental justice. Recurring challenges of environmental justice research and activism will be identified. Addressing those challenges, as well as breaking down environmental justice concepts into smaller patterns and Fleck’sian thought styles, the Environmental Justice Incommensurabilities Framework (EJIF) is introduced. This evaluation and monitoring tool encourages actors (and especially researchers) to reflect upon ideological positionings and axiological interpretations of human-environment relations as well as justice, making research on and with environmental justice more transparent and comparable

The Anthropocene: Thought styles, controversies and their expansions. A review

This review article uses the 2000 appearance of the Anthropocene as a conceptual anchor to further explore and embed thought styles on human-environment relations. In so doing, three main points are made: First, the Anthropocene is nothing new. Pre-ideas of a proto-Anthropocene, i.e. the importance of humans in human-environment relation have been previously explored. Second, while the first half of the 2000s was predominantly of stratigraphic concerns, the second half showed controversies between normative embeddings of good, bad and alternative thought styles on the Anthropocene. Third, with a scientific lag of approximate 15 years, multiplicities of alternative wordings have made their way as thought style expansions on the Anthropocene, re-framing and -branding existing thought styles (in e.g. ecomodernist, critical feminist, political ecologist fashion) in an attempt to achieve virality with other, more concrete wordings of the Anthropocene

Resourcing Salta. Viticulture, soy farming and the contested commodification of land

In recent years, the increased significance and internationalisation of land tenancy and purchase has led to intensive scientific discussions. In so doing, a majority of the studies try to draw conclusions of the extent and relevance of the land rush by analysing macro-economic data and structures. In our paper, we extend this analysis by applying an ethnographic, local-regional perspective. Argentina has experienced a strong neo-liberal phase in the 1990s; modernisation and particularly globalisation of agriculture has played a central role. The intensification of land use was coupled with new actor constellations, whereby land ownership and tenancy structures changed fundamentally. Embedded in this national context we contrast two production peripheries in the province of Salta: viticulture in the Andean Calchaquí Valleys and soy farming in the Chaco lowlands. In the context of the Chaco’s soy production the agrarian restructuring goes along with the appearance of actors fol-lowing a short-term logic of capital accumulation (almost exclusively through tenancy-relationships). More often than not, so-called pooles de siembra (driven by financial capital) or national agro-actors use the Chaco Salteño as expansion territory and for risk diversification, fostering monofunctional land use. In contrast, actors of wine business in the Calchaquí Valleys follow predominantly long-term logics: Via land purchase and high-level investments in cultivation and irrigation quality wines are produced for a national and international niche market. Due to the association of wine with amenity quality and social status, a tourism and real estate boom has emerged, whereby the storing of and speculation with (surplus) capital is a crucial factor. Land becomes an attractive capital investment due to massively rising prices. The goal of our paper is to analyse and contrast land use changes in the respective study areas and, by doing so, we aim to contribute to the ongoing discussion on the current land rush/land grabbing in Latin America

Thinking the Anthropocene

This editorial gives a short introduction to the different strands of the Anthropocene and ties together the contributions of this Special Issue

Territorio, territorialidad y territorialización en las redes de producción globales

Global production networks (GPN) provide a powerful multi-scalar approach for analyzing the organization of production, but lack the means for conceptualizing social-ecological issues. Territory and territoriality underscore the epistemological character of socio-environmental problems. Territoriality is an underdeveloped conceptual resource for analyzing a GPN’s territorial configuration. Discussing different contextual conceptions of territory, territoriality and territorialization (e.g. in the Anglophone, Francophone and Latin American debate), we propose an analytical framework to enable a more structured operationalization in GPN research.  As a result, we introduce the five P of territoriality – pluralistic, polysemic, process, power relations and physical space.Las redes globales de producción (GPN por sus siglas en inglés) ofrecen un enfoque multiescalar muy potente para analizar la organización de la producción, pero carecen de medios para conceptualizar las cuestiones socio-ecológicas. El territorio y la territorialidad subrayan el carácter epistemológico de los problemas socioambientales. La territorialidad es un recurso conceptual poco desarrollado para analizar la configuración territorial de un GPN. Discutiendo diferentes concepciones contextuales del territorio, la territorialidad y la territorialización (en el debate anglófono, francófono y latinoamericano), proponemos un marco analítico que permita una operacionalización más estructurada en la investigación de la GPN. Como resultado, introducimos las cinco P –en inglés– de territorialidad: pluralista, polisémica, de proceso, de relaciones de poder y de espacio físico. &nbsp

Resourcing Salta. Viticulture, soy farming and the contested commodification of land

In recent years, the increased significance and internationalisation of land tenancy and purchase has led to intensive scientific discussions. In so doing, a majority of the studies try to draw conclusions of the extent and relevance of the land rush by analysing macro-economic data and structures. In our paper, we extend this analysis by applying an ethnographic, local-regional perspective. Argentina has experienced a strong neo-liberal phase in the 1990s; modernisation and particularly globalisation of agriculture has played a central role. The intensification of land use was coupled with new actor constellations, whereby land ownership and tenancy structures changed fundamentally. Embedded in this national context we contrast two production peripheries in the province of Salta: viticulture in the Andean Calchaquí Valleys and soy farming in the Chaco lowlands. In the context of the Chaco’s soy production the agrarian restructuring goes along with the appearance of actors fol-lowing a short-term logic of capital accumulation (almost exclusively through tenancy-relationships). More often than not, so-called pooles de siembra (driven by financial capital) or national agro-actors use the Chaco Salteño as expansion territory and for risk diversification, fostering monofunctional land use. In contrast, actors of wine business in the Calchaquí Valleys follow predominantly long-term logics: Via land purchase and high-level investments in cultivation and irrigation quality wines are produced for a national and international niche market. Due to the association of wine with amenity quality and social status, a tourism and real estate boom has emerged, whereby the storing of and speculation with (surplus) capital is a crucial factor. Land becomes an attractive capital investment due to massively rising prices. The goal of our paper is to analyse and contrast land use changes in the respective study areas and, by doing so, we aim to contribute to the ongoing discussion on the current land rush/land grabbing in Latin America

Toward a Smart EU Energy Policy: Rationale and 22 Recommendations

We are in desperate need of an EU Energy Policy. The facts are that, yes, there is indeed an EU Energy Policy. It is a policy based on a vision, a vision with three components. The policy is aiming for “markets, competition and efficiency”, it is equally focussing on “a sustainable energy economy”, and thirdly, it wants to “secure the EU’s energy supply”. Three objectives, three separate action lines. Balancing the three objectives in an integrated approach is challenging and difficult. To what extent is the market approach consistent with the other two policy packages? What impact does a climate package with tradable emission rights and non-tradable targets for green energy have on the market designs for gas and electricity? Are the necessary investments in new pipes and wires for securing our energy supplies sufficiently coming under the prevailing regulatory framework? Or, to put it differently; are we smart enough in the way in which we are making implementing steps in order to meet our stated objectives? Our paper ends with a proposed new vision and a set of 22 recommendations to the new European Commission.energy policy; climate change; security of energy supply; EU internal marke

Toward a Smart EU Energy Policy: Rationale and 22 Recommendation

QM-AI-10-003-EN-C (print)/QM-AI-10-003-EN-N (online)In the spring of 2007, the European Council agreed on a policy vision with three components: the green component (to promote a sustainable energy economy), the market component (to enhance efficiency and competition) and the security of supply component (to secure the EU’s energy supply). With regard to these three components, distinct implementing paths and action lines were developed. The existence of separate implementing paths entails some coordination issues. Coordination is necessary here to guarantee that the three action lines are integrated into a consistent EU Energy Policy. EU Energy policy needs to get smarter and align the incentives deriving from the three components to produce an integrated vision that moves beyond 2020. 22 policy recommendations can then be formulated for the most relevant energy-related issues which the EU is facing nowadays

REVIEWS: Professional Materials

Science Learning: Processes and Applications. Carol Minnick Santa and Donna E. Alvermann (Eds.) 1991. Books for Children and Young Adults: The Day Patch Stood Guard; The Day Veronica Was Nosy; The Day Sidney Ran Off; The Day the Ducks Went Skating; The Pumpkin Man and the Craft Creeper; Monster Goes to School; Monster\u27s Birthday Hiccups; Fast Forward; Reynard the Fox; Androcles and the Lion and Other Aesop\u27s Fables; Tales of Edgar Allen Poe; Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince and Other Storie

(Counter-)Imperial Mode of Living and Surviving: contextualizations from South America

The notion of the imperial mode of living (IML) has been widely taken up in both academic, activist and sociopolitical contexts. More recently, scholars have begun to explore the concept not only theoretically, but also empirically, dealing with how the IML works in practice. We see great potential for human geography to ground the IML. To do so, in this article we introduce a set of five geographical cornerstones on the IML, stating that (1) the IML demonstrates that capitalism requires a non-capitalist outside, (2) the IML relies on infrastructural colonialism constituted by global value chains, (3) the IML is tied to current notions of development, (4) the critique of the IML concept challenges the patriarchal order and that (5) the IML conditions a counter-imperial mode of living. Reflecting on soybean cultivation, transhumance and lithium mining in South America, we show that grounding the IML not only requires a critical analysis of the dominant power relations, but also a consideration of opposing tendencies. In this context, we observe that a reproduction of global discourses inherent to the IML often leads to an ‘imperial mode of surviving’ locally. In contrast, we understand protest movements and conflicts as a ‘counter-imperial mode of living’