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Both environmental justice (EJ) and degrowth movements warn against increasing the physical size of the economy. They both oppose extractivism and debt-fuelled economies, as well as the untrammelled profit motive which fails to incorporate full environmental and social costs. They both rely upon social movements that have led scholarship in its activities and achievements, in part through challenging power structures. Therefore, some argue the existence of an obvious alliance between degrowth and EJ movements in the Global South. Yet, direct observation unveils concerns from EJ activists in the Global South about the plausibility of alliances until some significant divergences have been examined and reconciled. Activists inspire, promote and disseminate transformations that overcome several forms of domination. Their perspectives on degrowth advance informed cooperation. Our aim is thus to systematically evaluate tensions and possible analogies between the scope of action of EJ organisations operating in the Global South and the main propositions of the Degrowth movement. The argument relies on methodical scrutiny of core themes in the degrowth debate by critical thinkers in the Global South. It incorporates insights from EJ struggles in Ecuador, Italy, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uruguay, with important implications in Brazil, Mozambique, and Indonesia. The paper contributes to an exploration of the implications of the degrowth debate for the Global South, with the purpose of strengthening potential synergies, through an assertive recognition of the barriers to doing so. The authors thank support for open access publication from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the “María de Maeztu” program for Units of Excellence (MDM-2015-0552). The lead author acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement N° 797444 (CLAMOR).

In today`s globalized world, nations are increasingly concerned about how they are perceived by their publics, often carefully planning and executing policies to maintain a positive identity or shed a negative image. While some countries are able to execute nation branding, others are not. Using the Nigerian experience as a case study, this article shows how the character of a state can undermine its capacity for successful nation branding. We argue that countries are judged not just by what they say but also by what they do, and that inherent contradictions such as sectarian violence, ethnic tension, and corruption underline Nigeria`s underdevelopment and its reputation at home and abroad. We assess this trajectory in the context of state fragility and "prebendalization" politics in a country with a powerful colonial legacy, and suggest a duality of order and disorder involving formal and informal structures of governance that impinge significantly on re-branding efforts.

A notable feature of development aid since the 1960s has been a paradigm shift from centralised project planning and management to decentralised approaches. The transition from top-down to bottom-up elevates the concept of localism in project management for vulnerable groups. This change resonates well in community-based resource management schemes in privileging the locale in terms of generation of knowledge and how problems and remedies are enunciated. Localism conceptualised as devolving central-level government functions to non-state actors in social service delivery is contradictory and seems to negate state powers. This paper explores this trajectory to explicate the forms of localism and the contradictions from its multiple conceptualisations that influence energy access. Using qualitative methodology and interviews, it analyses renewable energy projects directed at poverty alleviation in rural communities in Nigeria while deploying a political ecology framework of power relations to highlight the ...

Since its emergence as a research field in the 1980s, political ecology has provided a useful tool to explicate violent environments, notably as hallmarks of natural resource-dependent economies. Practitioners regularly address what might be called ‘charismatic’ natural resources such as oil and other precious minerals to describe contestation over access and control of natural resources. Yet, where this focus exists, the political ecology of less economically valuable or ‘noncharismatic’ resources is thereby obscured. Thus, Nigeria's dependency on oil production has generated much scholarly attention with its unstable political economy described as a rentier state. In contrast, this paper draws on extensive field experience and knowledge about the country to assess in a preliminary manner some of the dimensions and ramifications of a less well known second-tier natural resource commodity that is gaining attention as part of a possible national economic diversification strategy. Using the case of bitumen, a viscous hydrocarbon mainly used in road surfacing and roofing work, I assess the trajectory of this relatively overlooked resource, thereby opening a window onto the political ecology of a noncharismatic resource. In contrast to the ubiquitous violence in the oil-based Niger Delta, I suggest that bitumen political ecologies, while also provoking political conflict and debate, nonetheless seem to being marked by new power dynamics that might augur a less violence prone path in terms of Nigeria's political economy of natural resource production.

For all its vitality political ecology often appears to be a project in which work by Anglo-Americans in particular, if it is not privileged, certainly predominates. This trend reflects wider language and intellectual tendencies in human geography and the social sciences that distort the development of the field by downplaying or obscuring the contributions of many non-Anglo-Americans and by naturalizing Anglo-American assumptions at the heart of research. The latter in turn determine what constitutes ‘good’ work – even as there is no single definition of political ecology. Arguing against this tendency, this paper draws on postcolonial thinking to emphasize the need to reassess and reorient the field as ‘other’ political ecologies are feasible and desirable.

In their own battles and strategy meetings since the early 1980s, EJOs (environmental justice organizations) and their networks have introduced several concepts to political ecology that have also been taken up by academics and policy makers. In this paper, we explain the contexts in which such notions have arisen, providing definitions of a wide array of concepts and slogans related to environmental inequities and sustainability, and explore the connections and relations between them. These concepts include: environmental justice, ecological debt, popular epidemiology, environmental racism, climate justice, environmentalism of the poor, water justice, biopiracy, food sovereignty, "green deserts", "peasant agriculture cools downs the Earth", land grabbing, Ogonization and Yasunization, resource caps, corporate accountability, ecocide, and indigenous territorial rights, among others. We examine how activists have coined these notions and built demands around them, and how academic research has in turn further applied them and supplied other related concepts, working in a mutually reinforcing way with EJOs. We argue that these processes and dynamics build an activist-led and co-produced social sustainability science, furthering both academic scholarship and activism on environmental justice. Depuis le début des années 80, à travers leurs propres luttes et réunions stratégiques, les EJOS (Organisations de Justice Environnementale) et leurs réseaux ont introduit quelques concepts différents d'écologie politique qui ont été repris par le monde académique et par les décideurs politiques. Dans cet article, nous expliquons les contextes qui ont promu l'émergence de ces concepts, et offrons des définitions pour un large ensemble de concepts et de slogans lies aux inégalités environnementales et à la protection durable de l'environnement, et nous explorons les connections entre eux. Ces concepts incluent: La justice environnementale, la dette écologique, l'épidémiologie populaire, le racisme environnemental, la justice climatique, l'environnementalisme des pauvres, la justice hydrique, la bio-piraterie, la souveraineté alimentaire, «les déserts verts», «l'agriculture paysanne rafraichit la terre», la prise des terres (land grabbing), l'Ogonisation et la Yasunisation, les plafonds de ressources, la responsabilité des entreprises, l'écocide, les droits indigènes territoriaux, et quelques autres. Nous examinons comment les activistes ont inventé ces termes, construit des demandes autour d'eux, et comment la recherche académique les a appliqués, et ensuite comment elle a offert de nouveaux concepts, travaillant de manière symbiotique avec les EJOS. Nous argumentons que ces processus et dynamiques construisent une science du développement durable conduite et co-produite par les activistes, ce qui renforce ainsi la littérature académique et l'activisme sur la justice environnementale. Desde el inicio de la década de 1980, las OJAs (organizaciones de justicia ambiental) y las redes que ellas forman introdujeron diversos conceptos de ecología política en sus campañas y en sus reuniones para determinar estrategias, que han sido adoptados también por académicos y por tomadores de decisiones. En este artículo explicamos los contextos que dieron lugar a esas nociones, compilamos muchos conceptos y lemas que se refieren a inequidades ambientales y a la sustentabilidad, examinando sus interrelaciones. Dichos conceptos incluyen, entre otros, los siguientes: justicia ambiental, deuda ecológica, epidemiología ambiental, racismo ambiental, justicia climática, ecologismo de los pobres, justicia hídrica, biopiratería, soberanía alimentaria, "desiertos verdes", el lema "la agricultura campesina enfría la Tierra", acaparamiento de tierras, Ogonización y Yasunización, topes al uso de recursos, pasivos ambientales y responsabilidad ambiental empresarial, ecocidio y derechos territoriales indígenas. Estudiamos cómo los activistas de las OJAs acuñaron tales conceptos configurando exigencias políticas a partir de ellos, y cómo los investigadores académicos también los han aplicado y, a su vez, han aportado otros conceptos, en un proceso de fortalecimiento mutuo. Estos procesos y dinámicas dirigidos por activistas co-producen y construyen una ciencia social de la sustentabilidad, que apoya tanto el trabajo científico como el activismo, favoreciendo así nuevos logros en favor de la justicia ambiental.