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Connor Joseph Cavanagh

Associate Professor
  • E-mailconnor.cavanagh@uib.no
  • Phone+47 55 58 30 93
  • Visitor Address
    Fosswinckels gate 6
    Lauritz Meltzers hus
    5007 Bergen
  • Postal Address
    Postboks 7802
    5020 Bergen

My research interests are situated at the interface of human-environment geography, political ecology, and agri-environmental governance. As a result, I am a strong advocate for interdisciplinary research on land use change, environmental change, and related implications for human livelihoods. Where appropriate, this entails an inherent openness to collaboration both within the discipline of geography and with scholars working in related fields of study.

My research and publications to date have focused on three core areas. First, the political ecology of conservation, agricultural sustainability, and environmental management interventions, as well as their intersection with new schemes for the economic valuation of carbon sequestration or other ecosystem services. Second, the co-evolution of property regimes for the ownership of land and natural resources with the development of prevailing landscape taxonomies from the late nineteenth century onward. Thirdly, risk analyses of persistent conflicts, inequalities, and trade-offs in the governance of contemporary socio-ecological systems, with a focus on identifying alternative pathways towards more just and equitable solutions to pressing environment and development challenges.

In addition to the above, I also prioritize my responsibilities for academic service. I am a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 'Nexus assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health' and a Contributing Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group II – ‘Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability’). Further, I contribute regularly as a peer reviewer or referee for a number of international journals (50+ reports in the Publons database, 96th percentile). These include: Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Journal of Environmental Management, Political Geography, Geoforum, Biological Conservation, Human Geography, Review of African Political Economy, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, Land Use Policy, Environmental Conservation, Ecological Economics, Journal of Political Ecology, Area, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Journal of Rural Studies, Human Ecology, World Development, Antipode, Conservation and Society, International Journal of the Commons, and many others.

As a co-founder and Advisory Collective member of the international Political Ecology Network (POLLEN), I am passionate about our ongoing collaborations to expand the network, which has grown rapidly from just 8 member 'nodes' or institutional clusters in 2014, to more than 250 nodes across six continents today. For more information and guidance on how to get involved, please see the “POLLEN” tab on this webpage.

Teaching

I regularly contribute lectures in the following courses:

  • GEO 131: Mat, miljø og berekraftig utvikling ("Food, environment and sustainable development")

  • GEO 222: Sustainability in an Urbanising World

  • GEO 306: Methods in Human Geography

  • GEO 308: Theory of Science and Research Design for Geographers

  • GEO 330: Theories of Sustainable Land Use

  • GEO 337: Discourse, Politics, and Place: Critical Perspectives on Environmental Governance

Supervision 

I welcome supervision requests from Master students or prospective PhD candidates on topics that intersect with one or more of the below or related themes:

  • Human-environment geography, human ecology, or political ecology
  • Global climatic and environmental change
  • Agricultural development, rural transformation, and agrarian change
  • Property rights, tenure, and ownership regimes for land and natural resources
  • Land use change, land and food system governance, agriculture-forestry or agriculture-conservation interfaces
  • Global environmental change impacts: adaptation, mitigation, vulnerability, and inequality
  • Conservation and development, protected area-community relations, the "conservation revolution" and politics of alternative conservation models
  • Formalisation, informalisation, bureaucratisation, and “corruption” in environmental governance
  • Green growth, degrowth, post-growth, and various other "alternative sustainabilities"
  • African and East African studies; politics of citizenship and belonging; authority, identity, and territory relations
  • Interdisciplinarity and mixed-methods research in geography

If you are interested in making a supervision request, please send me an email (Connor.Cavanagh@uib.no) with a brief introduction to your research interests and background. If appropriate, we can then schedule an appointment or Zoom meeting to discuss further possibilities for working together.

List of publications (as of 07 March 2023): Edited Books and Journal Collections (4), Journal Articles and Book Chapters (34), Consultancy Assignments and Reports (10), Book Reviews and Journal Correspondence (4). Google Scholar data : h-index (19), i10-index (25), i100-index (4), 1861 total citations.

Edited Books and Journal Collections

  1. CJ Cavanagh and A. Nel (eds). (2024). Frontiers of property: promises, pitfalls, and ambivalences of resurgent collectivisation in global land and resource governance. Virtual Special Issue (VSI),  Political Geography. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/political-geography/special-issue/101DLSVZLWL

  2. Sandbrook, C. and C.J.  Cavanagh  and D. Tumusiime (eds), (2018),  Conservation and Development in UgandaLondon and New York: Routledge / Earthscan. [Review: Colin A. Chapman in  Oryx  53 (3): 590-591 ]. 

  3. Cavanagh, CJ and H. Lein (eds). (2017),  Special Section: Political Ecologies of REDD + in TanzaniaJournal of Eastern African Studies  11 (3): 482-570.

  4. Cavanagh, CJ and TA Benjaminsen (eds). (2017). Special Section: Political Ecologies of the Green EconomyJournal of Political Ecology  34: 200-341.

Selected Publications

  1. Bluwstein, J. and Cavanagh, C.J. (2024). Rescaling the land rush? Global political ecologies of land use and cover change in key scenario archetypes for achieving the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target. In Ian Scoones, Saturnino M. Borras Jr.,Amita Baviskar, Marc Edelman, Nancy Lee Peluso and Wendy Wolford (eds), Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 394-426. [Reprint of Bluwstein and Cavanagh (2023) in Journal of Peasant Studies 50(1)]. Open access link:  https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/85297

  2. Cavanagh, C.J, & Brehony, P. (2024). First, do no harm? Dark logic models, social injustice, and the prevention of iatrogenic conservation outcomes. Biological Conservation, 289, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110380

  3. Cavanagh, C.J. (2023). ¿Infraestructura crítica del ecosistema? El vínculo entre los bosques y el agua en las tierras altas de Kenia. In R. Boelens, T. Perreault, J. Vos (eds), Justicia hídrica, poder y solidaridad. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala, pp. 441-460. [Translation of C.J. Cavanagh. (2018). Critical ecosystem infrastructure? Governing the forest-water nexus in the Kenyan highlands. In R. Boelens, T. Perreault, and J. Vos (eds), Water Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 302-315.]

  4. Bluwstein, J. and C.J. Cavanagh. (2023). Rescaling the land rush? Global political ecologies of land use and cover change in key scenario archetypes for achieving the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target. Journal of Peasant Studies 50(1): 262-294. [Contribution to the JPS Forum on Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies]. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2125386.

  5. Pas, A. and C.J. Cavanagh. (2022). Understanding ‘night grazing’: conservation governance, rural inequalities, and shifting responses ‘from above and below’ throughout the nychthemeron in Laikipia, KenyaGeoforum 134: 143-153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.04.015 .

  6. Cavanagh, C.J. and T.A. Benjaminsen. (2022). Conservation, Land Dispossession, and Resistance in Africa. In J. Borras and J. Franco (eds), Oxford Handbook of Land Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197618646.013.23 

  7. Branch, A. and F. Agyei, J. Anai, S. Apecu, A. Bartlett, E. Brownell, M. Caravani, C.J. Cavanagh, S. Fennell, S. Langole, M.B. Mabele, T.H. Mwampamba, M. Njenga, A. Owor, J. Phillips, N. Tiitmamer. (2022). From crisis to context: Reviewing the future of sustainable charcoal in Africa. Energy Research & Social Science 87, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102457. 

  8. Cavanagh, C.J. (2021). Limits to (de)growth: Theorizing ‘the dialectics of hatchet and seed’ in emergent socio-ecological transformations. Political Geography, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102479. [Viewpoint piece, Political Geography virtual forum on ‘Environmental limits, scarcity and degrowth’].

  9. Cavanagh, C.J. and P. Vedeld, JG Petursson, and A. Chemarum. (2021). Agency, inequality, and additionality: contested assemblages of agricultural carbon finance in western KenyaJournal of Peasant Studies 48(6): 1207-1227.

  10. Cavanagh, C.J. and T. Weldemichel and TA Benjaminsen. (2020). Gentrifying the African landscape: the performance and powers of for-profit conservation on southern Kenya's conservancy frontierAnnals of the American Association of Geographers 110(5): 1594-1612.

  11. Neimark, B. and J. Childs, A. Nightingale, C. J. Cavanagh S. Sullivan, T.A. Benjaminsen, S. Batterbury, S. Koot, and W. Harcourt. (2020). 'Speaking power to "post-truth": critical political ecology and the new authoritarianism. In J. McCarthy (ed), Environmental governance in a populist/authoritarian eraNew York and London: Routledge. [Reprint of Neimark et al. (2019) in Annals of the American Association of Geographers 109: 613-623].

  12. Cavanagh, C.J.  (2019). Dying races, deforestation and drought: the political ecology of social Darwinism in Kenya Colony's western highlandsJournal of Historical Geography 66: 93-103.

  13. Weldemichel, T. and TA Benjaminsen, C.J. Cavanagh, and H. Lein. (2019). Conservation: beyond population growthScience 365 (6449): 133[Response letter to Veldhuis et al. 2019 in Science 363 (6434), 'Cross-boundary human impacts compromise the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem'.]

  14. Neimark, B., and J. Childs, AJ Nightingale, C.J. Cavanagh , S. Sullivan, T.A. Benjaminsen, S. Batterbury, S. Koot, and W. Harcourt. (2019). Speaking power to 'post-truth': critical political ecology and the new authoritarianismAnnals of the American Association of Geographers 109: 613-623.

  15. Cavanagh, C.J. (2018). Political ecologies of biopower: diversity, debates, and new frontiers of inquiryJournal of Political Ecology 25: 402-425[Special section: 'Perspectives on Power in Political Ecology'.]

  16. Cavanagh, C.J. and C. Sandbrook and D. Tumusiime. (2018). Dynamics of conservation and development in Uganda. In Sandbrook, C. and C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in Uganda . London and New York: Routledge/Earthscan, pp. 3-15.

  17. D. Himmelfarb and C.J. Cavanagh . (2018). Managing the contradictions: conservation, communitarian rhetoric, and conflict at Mount Elgon National Park. In C. Sandbrook and C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in UgandaLondon and New York: Routledge / Earthscan, pp. 85-103.

  18. Cavanagh, C.J. and C. Sandbrook and D. Tumusiime. (2018). Conservation, development, and the politics of ecological knowledge. In Sandbrook, C. and C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in Uganda . London and New York: Routledge/Earthscan, pp. 249-264.

  19. Cavanagh, CJ. (2018). Enclosure, dispossession, and the 'green economy': new contours of internal displacement in Liberia and Sierra Leone? African Geographical Review 37 (2): 120-133.

  20. Cavanagh, CJ  (2018). Critical ecosystem infrastructure? Governing the forest-water nexus in the Kenyan highlands. In R. Boelens, T. Perreault, and J. Vos (eds). Water JusticeCambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 302-315.

  21. Fisher, J. and C. JCavanagh , T. Sikor, and D. Mwayafu. (2018). Linking notions of justice and project outcomes in carbon offset forestry projects: Insights from a comparative study in UgandaLand Use Policy 73: 259-268.

  22. Cavanagh, C.J.  (2018). Land, natural resources, and the state in Kenya's Second Republic. In A. Adeniran and L. Ikuteyijo (eds), Africa Now! Emerging Issues and Alternative Perspectives. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 119-147.

  23. Cavanagh, C. J. and TA Benjaminsen (2018). Guerrilla agriculture? A biopolitical guide to illicit cultivation within an IUCN Category II protected area. In M. Edelman et al. (eds), Global land grabbing and political reactions 'from below'. Critical Agrarian Studies Series . New York and London: Routledge, pp. 259-280. [Reprint of Cavanagh and Benjaminsen (2015) in Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (3-4)].

  24. Cavanagh, C.J. and A. Chemarum, P. Vedeld, and JG Petursson. (2017). Old wine, new bottles? Investigating the differential adoption of 'climate-smart' agricultural practices in western Kenya . Journal of Rural Studies 56: 114-123.

  25. Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Anthropos into humanitas: civilizing violence, scientific forestry, and the 'Dorobo question' in eastern AfricaEnvironment and Planning D: Society and Space. 35 (4): 694-713.

  26. Cavanagh, C.J. and TA Benjaminsen. (2017). Political ecology, variegated green economies, and the foreclosure of alternative sustainabilitiesJournal of Political Ecology 24: 200-216.

  27. Cavanagh, C.J. and O. Freeman. (2017). Paying for carbon at Mount Elgon: two contrasting approaches at a transboundary park in East Africa. In S. Namirembe, B. Leimona, M. van Noordwijk, and P. Minang (eds), Co-investment in ecosystem services: global lessons from payment and incentive schemes. Nairobi: World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF).

  28. Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Mapping the state's Janus face: green economy and the 'green resource curse' in Kenya's highland forests. In A. Williams and P. Le Billon (eds), Corruption, Natural Resources, and Development: From Resource Curse to Political Ecology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 106-116.

  29. Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Resilience, class, and the antifragility of capitalResilience: International Policies, Practices, and Discourses 5 (2): 110-128. [Special issue - 'Resilience and the Anthropocene'].

  30. Holmes, G. and CJ Cavanagh. (2016). A review of the social impacts of neoliberal conservation: formations, inequalities, contestationsGeoforum 75: 109-199.

  31. Vedeld, P. and C. J. Cavanagh, J. G. Petursson, C. Nakakaawa, R. Moll, and E. Sjaastad. (2016). The political economy of conservation at Mount Elgon, Uganda: between local deprivation, regional sustainability, and global public goodsConservation and Society 14 (3): 183-194.

  32. Cavanagh, C.J. and TA Benjaminsen. (2015). Guerrilla agriculture? A biopolitical guide to illicit cultivation within an IUCN Category II protected areaJournal of Peasant Studies 42 (3-4): 725-745.

  33. Cavanagh, C.J. and P. Vedeld and LT Traedal. (2015) Securitizing REDD+? Problematizing the Emerging Illegal Timber Trade and Forest Carbon Interface in East AfricaGeoforum 60: 72-82.

  34. Cavanagh, C.J. and D. Himmelfarb. (2015). 'Much in Blood and Money': Necropolitical Ecology on the Margins of the Uganda ProtectorateAntipode 47 (1): 55-73.

  35. Nakakaawa, C., Moll, R., Vedeld, P., Sjaastad, E., & Cavanagh, C. J. (2015). Collaborative resource management and rural livelihoods around protected areas: A case study of Mount Elgon National Park, UgandaForest Policy and Economics 57: 1-11.

  36. Cavanagh, C.J. (2014). Biopolitics, Environmental Change, and Development StudiesDevelopment Studies Forum 41 (2): 273-294.

  37. Cavanagh, C.J. and T.A. Benjaminsen. (2014). Virtual Nature, Violent Accumulation: The 'Spectacular Failure' of Carbon Offsetting at a Ugandan National ParkGeoforum 56: 55-65.

Reports and Consultancy Assignments

  1. Lead Author (ongoing, 2022-present), Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Nexus Assessment, Chapter 6 -- Options for delivering sustainable approaches to public and private finance for biodiversity-related elements of the nexus. https://ipbes.net/nexus

  2. Contributing author for Begum et al. (2022), ‘Chapter 1: Point of Departure and Key Concepts’, in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter01.pdf

  3. Contributing author for Birkmann et al. (2022), ‘Chapter 8: Poverty, Livelihoods and Sustainable Development’, in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter08.pdf

  4. Contributing author for O’Neill et al. (2022), ‘Chapter 16: Key Risks Across Sectors and Regions’, in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter16.pdf

  5. Cavanagh, C.J. (2015). Upscaling climate-smart agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: On whose terms? Report to NORAD from the FARA-NORAD Climate-Smart Agriculture conference, 10-12 March 2015, Nairobi, Kenya. Noragric Consultancy Reports Series. Ås: Noragric, NMBU.

  6. Vedeld, P. and C.J. Cavanagh and J. Aune. (2015). Appraisal of the Alliance for Religion and Conservation (ARC) and the Alliance for Faithful Food and Farming - Climate Smart Agriculture programs. Prepared for NORAD. Ås, Norway: Noragric, NMBU.

  7. Cavanagh, C.J. (2014). Protected area governance, carbon offset forestry, and environmental (in)justice at Mount Elgon, Uganda . Report prepared for the EU Research Council Project 'I-REDD' at the University of East Anglia. Primary Investigator: Prof. Thomas Sikor. Norwich, UK: DEV Reports and Policy Paper Series, University of East Anglia.

  8. Vedeld, P. and C.J. Cavanagh and LT Traedal. (2014) Program Appraisal, ' Illegal Timber Trade and REDD + Interface in East Africa: A Pilot '. Appraisal on behalf of NORAD for INTERPOL, UNODC, and UN-REDD. Noragric Report No. 72. Ås: Noragric, NMBU

  9. Cavanagh, C.J. (2012) Unready for REDD +? Lessons from Corruption in Ugandan Conservation Areas. U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Center Policy Brief. Bergen, Norway: Chr. Michelsen Institute.

  10. Cavanagh, CJ  (2011)  Protected Areas and Poverty in Africa: Four Cases. Report for the Human-Environment Unit, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA). Oslo: NINA.

Book Reviews and Journal Correspondence

  • 1. Weldemichel, T. and TA Benjaminsen,  CJ Cavanagh,  and H. Lein. (2019). Conservation: beyond population growth - response to Ogutu et al. [eLetter response to Ogutu et al. 2019 and Veldhuis et al. 2019 in   Science  365 (6449): 133-134.]

  • 2. Cavanagh, CJ  (2014). Review:  Constructions of Neoliberal Reason  by Jaime Peck. Canadian Geographer  58 (3): 53-54.

  • 3. Cavanagh, CJ  (2013). Review:  The Political Economy of Environment and Development in a Globalized World: Exploring the Frontiers, Essays in Honor of Nadarajah Shanmugaratnam  by DJ Kjosavik and P. Vedeld (eds). Forum for Development Studies  40 (1): 177-180.

  • 4. Cavanagh, CJ  (2010). Review:  Knowledge to Policy: Making the Most of Development Research  by Fred Carden . Canadian Journal of Development Studies  31 (3-4): 517-218.

 

Academic article
  • Show author(s) (2023). Securing conservation Lebensraum? The geo-, bio-, and ontopolitics of global conservation futures. Geoforum.
  • Show author(s) (2023). First, do no harm? Dark logic models, social injustice, and the prevention of iatrogenic conservation outcomes. Biological Conservation.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Understanding ‘night grazing’: Conservation governance, rural inequalities, and shifting responses ‘from above and below’ throughout the nychthemeron in Laikipia, Kenya. Geoforum. 143-153.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Rescaling the land rush? Global political ecologies of land use and cover change in key scenario archetypes for achieving the 1.5 °C Paris agreement target. Journal of Peasant Studies. 262-294.
  • Show author(s) (2022). From crisis to context: Reviewing the future of sustainable charcoal in Africa. Energy Research & Social Science.
  • Show author(s) (2020). Gentrifying the African Landscape: The Performance and Powers of for-Profit Conservation on Southern Kenya’s Conservancy Frontier. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 1594-1612.
  • Show author(s) (2020). Agency, inequality, and additionality: contested assemblages of agricultural carbon finance in western Kenya. Journal of Peasant Studies. 1207-1227.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Speaking Power to “Post-Truth”: Critical Political Ecology and the New Authoritarianism. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 613-623.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Dying races, deforestation and drought: the political ecology of social Darwinism in Kenya Colony's western highlands. Journal of Historical Geography. 93-103.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Political ecologies of biopower: diversity, debates, and new frontiers of inquiry. Journal of political ecology. 402-425.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Linking notions of justice and project outcomes in carbon offset forestry projects: Insights from a comparative study in Uganda. Land Use Policy. 259-268.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Enclosure, dispossession, and the green economy: new contours of internal displacement in Liberia and Sierra Leone? African Geographical Review. 120-133.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Political ecology, variegated green economies, and the foreclosure of alternative sustainabilities. Journal of political ecology. 200-216.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Old wine, new bottles? Investigating the differential adoption of ‘climate-smart’ agricultural practices in western Kenya. Journal of Rural Studies. 114-123.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Anthropos into humanitas: Civilizing violence, scientific forestry, and the ‘Dorobo question’ in eastern Africa. Environment & Planning. D, Society and Space. 694-713.
  • Show author(s) (2016). The Political Economy of Conservation at Mount Elgon, Uganda: Between Local Deprivation, Regional Sustainability, and Global Public Goods. Conservation and Society. 183-194.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Resilience, class, and the antifragility of capital. Resilience - International Policies, Practices and Discourses. 19 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2016). A review of the social impacts of neoliberal conservation: Formations, inequalities, contestations. Geoforum. 199-209.
  • Show author(s) (2015). “Much in Blood and Money”: Necropolitical Ecology on the Margins of the Uganda Protectorate. Antipode. 55-73.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Securitizing REDD+? Problematizing the emerging illegal timber trade and forest carbon interface in East Africa. Geoforum. 72-82.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Guerrilla agriculture? A biopolitical guide to illicit cultivation within an IUCN Category II protected area. Journal of Peasant Studies. 725-745.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Collaborative resource management and rural livelihoods around protected areas: A case study of Mount Elgon National Park, Uganda. Forest Policy and Economics. 1-11.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Virtual nature, violent accumulation: The ‘spectacular failure’ of carbon offsetting at a Ugandan National Park. Geoforum. 55-65.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Biopolitics, environmental change, and development studies. Forum for Development Studies. 273-294.
Report
  • Show author(s) (2015). Protected area governance, carbon offset forestry, and environmental (in)justice at Mount Elgon, Uganda. 13. 13. .
  • Show author(s) (2015). Illegal Timber Trade and REDD+ Interface in Eastern Africa: A Pilot. 74. 74. .
  • Show author(s) (2015). Appraisal Report: Alliances for Religions and Conservations (ARC) “Faith Engagement in Climate Smart Agriculture and Sustainable Land Management in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. .
  • Show author(s) (2014). Programme Appraisal: INTERPOL, UNODC, UN-REDD, 'Illegal Timber Trade and REDD+ Interface in East Africa: A Pilot'. .
  • Show author(s) (2012). Unready for REDD+? Lessons from corruption in Ugandan conservation areas. .
Lecture
  • Show author(s) (2017). Tenure, labour, and class: contested assemblages of agricultural carbon offsets in western Kenya.
  • Show author(s) (2016). New bottles, old vinegar? Investigating the (non)adoption of 'climate smart' agricultural practices in western Kenya.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Nature, territory, and the afterlives of empire: genealogies of resurgent hunter-gatherer dispossession in eastern Africa.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Differentiated dispossession: 'hunter-gatherer' responses to institutional failure in the Embobut Forest Reserve, western Kenya.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Deforestation, rent capture, and REDD+ readiness in Kenya: Querying the population–extensive agriculture thesis.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Critical ecosystem infrastructure: governing the forests-water nexus in the Kenyan highlands.
Academic lecture
  • Show author(s) (2023). Rescaling the land rush? (Re)articulations of conservation and agrarian change at the agriculture-forest interface.
  • Show author(s) (2023). Conservation, Land Dispossession, and Resistance in Africa.
  • Show author(s) (2021). Planetary afforestation: greenmentality and emergent trajectories of land cover change in key IPCC scenario archetypes.
  • Show author(s) (2021). Global climate and land use change: which pathway(s) to transformation, and on whose terms?
  • Show author(s) (2019). The 'blind empiricist': logics of inquiry, the late Foucault, and environmentality studies.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Protecting natives, nature, and 'natives-in-nature': colonial entanglements of conservation and 'protection' from the Aborigines' Society to the present conjuncture.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Contours of the green economy in Kenya: emerging results from the 'Greenmentality' project.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Conservation and Development in Uganda: Key Themes and Considerations for Future Research.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Can wildlife pay its way? The performance and 'powers' of for-profit conservation on Kenya's conservancy frontier.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Agency, inequality, and additionality in agricultural carbon finance.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Agency, additionality, and agrarian change: contested assemblages of agricultural carbon finance in western Kenya.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Dynamics of uneven conservation and development in Uganda.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Divergent arborealizations: law, identity, and community forest properties in Kenya's Second Republic.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Contested assemblages of agricultural carbon offsets in western Kenya.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Conservation and Development in Uganda: Key Messages and Directions for Future Research.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Virtual nature, violent accumulation: the 'spectacular failure' of carbon offsetting at a Ugandan national park.
  • Show author(s) (2016). The Politics of Conservation and Development in Uganda.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Revaluing the African landscape? Governing carbon in Western Kenya’s Agro-pastoral-forest mosaic.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Payments for Ecosystem Services and Environmental Justice in Uganda.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Differentiated dispossession: genealogies of resurgent forest cleansing in Kenya.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Differentiated dispossession: 'hunter-gatherer' responses to violent eviction from the Embobut Forest Reserve, western Kenya.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Differentiated dispossession: 'hunter-gatherer' responses to violent eviction from the Embobut Forest Reserve, western Kenya.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Critical ecosystem infrastructure? Informal accumulation and the securitization of the forests-water nexus in Kenya's highlands.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Social impacts of neoliberal conservation: formations, inequalities, contestations.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Scientific forestry, colonial biopolitics, and the Dorobo question in eastern Africa.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Purifying the forest: Genealogies of resurgent hunter-gatherer dispossession in East Africa.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Purifying the forest: Genealogies of hunter-gatherer dispossession in Eastern Africa.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Killing to make human? Civilizing violence, scientific forestry, and the 'Dorobo question' in Kenya Colony.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Killing to make human? Civilising violence, scientific forestry, and the Dorobo question in East Africa.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Justices and injustices of carbon forestry: insights from villagers’ reactions to two projects in Uganda.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Genealogies of Resurgent Hunter-Gatherer Dispossession in the East African Rift.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Deforestation, patronage, and REDD+ readiness in Kenya: Querying the population–agricultural expansion thesis.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Civilizing violence: scientific forestry, racial science, and the "Dorobo question" in Kenya Colony.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Understanding why people do or do not mobilize for environmental justice: carbon forestry initiatives in Uganda.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Securitizing REDD+? Problematizing the emerging illegal timber trade and forest carbon interface in East Africa.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Nature, territory, and the afterlives of empire: genealogies of upland hunter-gatherer dispossession in East Africa.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Environmental Injustice in Conservation: Evidence from Tanzania and Uganda.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Enclosure, Dispossession, and the Green Economy: New Contours of Internal Displacement in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Book review
  • Show author(s) (2014). Review of 'Constructions of neoliberal reason' by Jamie Peck. The Canadian Geographer (TCG). 53-54.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Review of 'The Political Economy of Environment and Development in a Globalised World: Exploring the Frontiers, Essays in Honour of Nadarajah Shanmugaratnam'. Forum for Development Studies. 177-180.
Academic anthology/Conference proceedings
  • Show author(s) (2018). Conservation and Development in Uganda. Routledge.
Interview
  • Show author(s) (2015). Flere tusen ugandere ble jaget fra sine hjem da skogen skulle bevares.
Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
  • Show author(s) (2023). ¿Infraestructura crítica del ecosistema? El vínculo entre los bosques y el agua en las tierras altas de Kenia. 20 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Conservation, Land Dispossession, and Resistance in Africa. 1 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Managing the contradictions: conservation, communitarian rhetoric, and conflict at Mount Elgon National Park. 19 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Dynamics of uneven conservation and development in Uganda. 13 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Critical ecosystem infrastructure? Governing the forests-water nexus in the Kenyan highlands. 14 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Conservation, development, and the politics of ecological knowledge in Uganda. 16 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Mapping the state's Janus face: green economy and the 'green resource curse' in Kenya's highland forests. 11 pages.
Chapter
  • Show author(s) (2020). Speaking power to “post-truth”: critical political ecology and the new authoritarianism. . In:
    • Show author(s) (2020). Environmental governance in a populist/authoritarian era. Routledge.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Land, Natural Resources and the State in Kenya’s Second Republic. 119-147. In:
    • Show author(s) (2018). Africa Now! Emerging Issues and Alternative Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan.

More information in national current research information system (CRIStin)

Research Council of Norway, SAMEVAL programme, PE-NET: Support to the Political Ecology Group (NMBU) and Norwegian Political Ecology Network (POLLEN-Norway). Duration: 2021-2023. The PE-NET project will organize a series of political ecology PhD courses in Norway, each of which will enhance collaboration between Norwegian and international 'nodes' or institutional clusters in the POLLEN network. Courses will be held at SUM/UiO (2021), NMBU (2022), UiB (2023), and OsloMet (2023). More information is available at the project website: http://politicalecology.space/about-the-forum/. Further information about the June 2022 PhD course at NMBU, 'Political Ecology of Scarcity, Limits, and Degrowth', is available here: https://www.nmbu.no/en/faculty/landsam/department/noragric/news/node/44249

Research Council of Norway, FRIPRO-Toppforsk, Greenmentality: A Political Ecology of the Green Economy in the Global SouthPI: Tor Arve Benjaminsen (Norwegian University of Life Sciences). Duration: 2016-2021. Partners: Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) (Nitin Rai, Suhas Bhasme), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison (Paul Robbins), French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) (Sara Benabou), Sheffield Institute of International Development, University of Sheffield (Dan Brockington, Frances Cleaver), Oslo Metropolitan University (Hanne Svarstad), Department of Geography, University of Dar es Salaam (Christine Noe). Website: https://greenmentalityblog.wordpress.com/

 

As a co-founder and Advisory Collective member of the international Political Ecology Network (POLLEN), I am passionate about our ongoing collaborations to expand the network, which has grown rapidly from just 8 member 'nodes' or institutional clusters in 2014, to more than 215 nodes across six continents today. For more information about the network and guidance on how to get involved, please visit  https://politicalecologynetwork.org/contact/
 

Useful POLLEN Resources

Literature Lists: https://politicalecologynetwork.org/literature-lists/

Course Descriptions/Syllabi: https://politicalecologynetwork.org/course-descriptions/

Documentaries and Podcasts: https://politicalecologynetwork.org/documentaries-and-podcasts/

"POLLEN TV" Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNoG_ZLJWntebA7a6afkoVw

Past, Present, and Future Conferences

Fourth Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN22/3). Political Ecology: North, South, and Beyond. Durban, South Africa. NB! Rescheduled due to pandemic complications. New dates: 27-29 June 2023. https://pollen2022.com/

Third Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN20), Contested Natures: Power, Possibility, Prefiguration. Organizers: ESRC STEPS Centre (Institute of Development Studies/SPRU, University of Sussex) and the POLLEN Secretariat. Hosts: Radical FuturesUniversity of Brighton; European Research Council BIOSEC project; Sheffield Institute for International Development (SIID), University of Sheffield. Brighton, UK, 22-25 September 2020. https://pollen2020.wordpress.com/

Second Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN18), Political Ecology, the Green Economy, and Alternative Sustainabilities. Co-organized by the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU); Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo; Department of International Studies and Interpreting Education, Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). Oslo, Norway, 19-22 June 2018. Video recordings of keynotes: https://politicalecologynetwork.org/category/pollen-tv/ 

First Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN16),  Political Ecologies of Conflict, Capitalism and Contestation (PE-3C). Wageningen University and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Wageningen, the Netherlands, 07-09 July 2016.  https://www.wur.nl/en/activity/PE-3C-International-Conference.htm