The session recording will be archived on the site until June 25th, 2023

This session was streamed but not recorded

Curated Track: 

Description:

This session builds from the tradition of critical social-environmental analysis in, from, and of Latin America by questioning how critical physical geography (CPG) might open new avenues to assess and rethink the politics of environmental justice in the current conjuncture. Latin America plays a central role in critical geographic scholarship on social-environmental relationships. This is evident in long-standing debates about the politics of extractivism, neoliberal natures, (post)development pathways, coloniality/decoloniality, and indigeneity. Political ecologists and science studies scholars have been influential in shaping these conversations. What does CPG contribute to these debates? We suggest that CPG’s justice-focused, integrative approach enables new lines of inquiry for social-environmental research in Latin America. Moreover, within CPG scholarship, Latin America is largely overlooked. The session fosters conversations about CPG in/from/of Latin America. We welcome papers in English and Spanish.

Session themes and questions to discuss include (but are not limited to):

1) The uneven geographies of climate and environmental justice.
2) Climate change: from adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage to extractive relations and the critical resources necessary for global decarbonization.
3) The politics of water: from hydro-social cycles and novel waterscapes to atmospheric circulation and the implications of snowpack and glacial change.
4) Extractivism and neoliberal natures in their many forms.
5) Urbanization: Life and uneven development in rapidly growing cities.
6) Conservation: How might CPG inform conservation practice and assessment of conservation impacts and outcomes?
7) How might CPG contribute new approaches to research on the human dimensions of environmental change?
8) De/colonial politics: How might CPG open other ways of thinking about coloniality and decoloniality? How do CPG methods and analysis enable new forms of decolonial critique (or do they)?
9) Knowledge claims: Critical development, political ecology, and science studies scholars have shown that the concept of “natural resources” is simultaneously economic and colonial with deep implications on gender, race, ethnicity, and class relations in Latin America. How does CPG contribute to these debates in the context of Latin America?
10) Praxis: What types of GPG research are people doing in Latin America? We welcome papers that discuss CPG praxis in/of/from Latin America with a focus on methodologies and engaged, public research that seeks to foster more just futures.

Non-Presenting Participants