Insurgent Ecologies - Book Launch

Join us for the book launch of Insurgent Ecologies today - a transnational discussion on horizons of possibility, published by Fernwood Publishing. 

This book is a collection of stories about how movements against environmental and climate injustice globally converge into broader struggles for overcoming the racist, patriarchal and colonial structures of global capitalism while creating worlds of life, dignity and justice.

Insurgent Ecologies takes readers on an inspiring journey across key sites of ecological crisis and contestation, showing how revolutionary politics can emerge from the convergences between place-based, often disconnected struggles. These essays speak to longstanding debates in political ecology and radical thought around how to advance transformations in, against and beyond capitalism.

The collection starts from the belief that the environmental struggles taking place across the Global South and North are a necessary component of such transformations. The book presents the visions and strategies of struggles organized around sovereignty, land, climate, feminisms and labour, written by scholar-activists rooted in territories around the globe, offering locally grounded yet global perspectives.

Each story reflects on how to build solidarity and comradeship across diverse struggles and how new political subjects and transformative collective projects for social-ecological justice are created.

Insurgent Ecologies: Between Environmental Struggles and Postcapitalist Transformations (Fernwood Press, 2024) is edited by Undisciplined Environments, a collective of political ecology researchers founded in 2014 and organized around an online platform by the same name. The collective’s main purpose is to contribute to socio-ecological struggles and radical thought and practice, toward more egalitarian and ecologically sound futures. Furthermore, it aims to encourage the growth of radical political ecology networks at a transnational level.

Speakers: 

Bengi Akbulut is Associate Professor in the department of Geography, Planning, and the Environment at Concordia University and is acting director of the Social Justice Centre.  

Rita Calvario is a researcher at DINAMIA'CET-Iscte in Lisbon. Her experience covers multidisciplinary research as an agronomist, social scientist and specialist in political ecology, focussing on agrarian social movements, environmental conflicts in rural areas, social and gender inequalities and struggles for food and environmental justice.

Annette Aurélie Desmarais is the past Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Social Justice and Food Sovereignty at the University of Manitoba. She is a scholar activist, professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology and the Department of Environment and Geography, and president of the National Farmers Foundation (nationalfarmersfoundation.ca/).

Gustavo García-López is an engaged scholar, educator and apprentice organizer from the islands of Puerto Rico, working on transformative initiatives and movements for commons and environmental justice. He is an Assistant Researcher at the Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, co-coordinating the Ecology and Society Workshop (ECOSOC). 

Omar Jabary Salamanca is a research fellow and co-director of the Observatory of the Arab and Muslim Worlds (OMAM) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research concentrates on development, urban studies, political ecology and settler colonial studies, with a focus in Palestine and the Middle East. 

Vijay Kolinjivadi is an assistant professor at the School for Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University. His research seeks to understand in what ways social justice struggles make and reshape ecologies of abundance. He is co-author of the recent book: The Sustainability Class: How to take back our future from lifestyle environmentalists. 

Tatiana Roa Avendaño is an engineer, activist and environmentalist. She is a founding member of the Censat Agua Viva Colombia and the Ecosocial Pact of the South. She has participated in Oilwatch, the Colombia Free of Fracking Alliance and the Social Mining, Energy and Environmental Roundtable for Peace.