How can the study of Social Metabolism in Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology lead to Political Ecology, through the Arctic region?
For the 2023 Holberg Week four PhD candidates from the Nordic countries are invited to participate in a masterclass with the Holberg Prize Laureate, Joan Martinez-Alier. Ksenija Hanacek, Holberg symposium speaker and researcher in the field of political ecology, will also participate in the discussion.
The Arctic region can be seen as a growing and changing commodity extraction frontier, comparable to others around the world. PhD candidates will remember that the world industrial economy is not circular, but entropic. They will also remember concepts such as Social Metabolism, Ecological Distribution Conflicts, Frontiers of Commodity Extraction and Waste Disposal, as well as Valuation Languages. This masterclass will also be an occasion for PhD candidates to learn about the Environmental Justice Atlas.
Each participant will give a 5-minute presentation related to the topic and reading list chosen by the Holberg Prize Laureate. After the presentations there will be a free discussion moderated by the Holberg Prize Laureate.
The event is open to all.
Participants
Joan Martinez-Alier
Joan Martinez-Alier is professor emeritus at the Environmental Science and Technology Institute of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). He is also professor emeritus at Latin American Social Sciences Institute (FLACSO), Quito. His research focuses on ecological economics, political ecology, agrarian studies, environmental justice, and the environmentalism of the poor and the indigenous. In 2016 he was awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant for the project EnvJustice (A global environmental justice movement), 2016-21. Martinez-Alier is also a co-founder of the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas). Based on the EJAtlas, Martinez-Alier will publish the volume Land, Water, Air and Freedom: The Making of World Movements for Environmental Justice in 2023. The book will analyse hundreds of “ecological distribution conflicts” and the “valuation languages” displayed by poor and indigenous activists. In 2020, Martinez-Alier was awarded the Balzan prize, and in 2023 the Holberg prize.
Laima Nomeikaite
Photo: Private
Cultural Studies – Roskilde University
Laima Nomeikaite is currently a PhD candidate in cultural studies at Roskilde University in Denmark and University of South-Eastern Norway. In recent years she has worked on a variety of projects related to culture, heritage research and urban planning. She is particularly interested in the linkages between heritage, arts, political ecology and place.
Lisa Jokivirta
Photo: Private
Political Science – University of Jyväskylä
Lisa Jokivirta is a doctoral researcher, educator, and environmental and Indigenous rights activist. Her PhD is centred around constructing an Indigenous political ecology framework for mapping out environmental conflicts and resistance movements on the Finnish side of the Sámi Indigenous Homeland.
Elín Valsdottír
Photo: Private
Anthropology – University of Iceland
Valsdóttir‘s PhD project investigates the recent mining boom in Greenland and its social, political, and environmental implications. Here, the interplay between climate change, mining and the opening of the Arctic will be examined to shed light on the multifaceted nature of mining operations in Greenland as well as the stakeholders involved and affected by its development.
Shayan Shokrgozar
Photo: Private
Climate and Energy Transformation – University of Bergen
Shayan Shokrgozar is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen. Their research investigates the implication of solar energy transitions—and cognate aspects—on agropastoralists and the more-than-human in Rajasthan, India.
Ksenija Hanaček
Photo: Private
Global Development Studies – University of Helsinki
Ksenija Hanaček is a political ecologist and a “Margarita Salas” postdoctoral fellow at Global Development Studies, University of Helsinki & Global Atlas of Environmental Justice, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Her research focuses on environmental conflicts due to extractivist and big infrastructure projects in the Arctic.
