📢New issue of TIBG📢

Transactions' September Issue features two interventions on environmental crisis & geographies of creativity, 21 papers, and two commentaries on the war in Ukraine.

22/25 pieces are #OpenAccess and available to read here⬇️

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14755661...

🌍 New paper published in Progress in Environmental Geography 🌎

'The Radical Edge of More-Than-Human Political Ecology: A Clarification of Scope and Approach' by Valerio Donfrancesco

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @vdonfrancesco.bsky.social

What do we mean when we say that carnivores and other wildlife are "habituating" to people? Who actually habituates to whom? Is this bad or god? Who decides? All of this and more in our new paper, expertly led by @ethanddoney.bsky.social, out now in @peopleandnature.bsky.social.

Early word we'll have funding to recruit a Post-Doc in the Human Dimensions of Wildlife space - specifically working on hunter behaviors in deer management across several midwestern states. On the ground work, experiments, many academic & agency partners! Spread the word to any potential applicants.

OnlineFirst - "Agrarian change and predators’ mobilities: A more-than-human political ecology of wolf impacts" by @vdonfrancesco.bsky.social and @csandbrook.bsky.social:

#wolf #agrarianchange

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Wishing I could be there in person. Looking forward to Zooming in to present on "Multispecies Storytelling for Catastrophic Times" (Sat morn in Europe, evening in Australia). Anyone interested can join the zoom! More info here: mesh.uni-koeln.de/events/meshw...

@lilyvaneeden.bsky.social @drcairns.bsky.social @euanritchie.bsky.social and many others

📄 Our paper has been recognised as among the 10% most read articles in Conservation Science and Practice in 2023.

Emerging from a collaborative effort of many dingo scholars, it frames 'conflict over values' and 'conflict over evidence' in polarised wildlife management.

doi.org/10.1111/csp2...

#OpenAccess paper in TIBG:

'From biopower to affirmative biopolitics: A (bio)political ecology of becoming with wolves' by @vdonfrancesco.bsky.social & @csandbrook.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geo #geosky

Open access article: doi.org/10.1111/tran...
Funding: ESRC (UKRI)
#coexistence #wolves #farming #politicalecology

We argue for embracing affirmative biopolitics rather than biopower. Wolves could be valued beyond their services. Local ways of relating to wolves could be better recognised. Structural drivers of interspecies violence need tackling. Multispecies flourishing depends on this. 8/8

Caring for wolves is more complex than simply meaning not killing them. We engage with feminist ethics of care to articulate an approach to caring that is attendant to interspecies violence. Coexistence needs to be made a systemic project. 7/8

Yet, cost-of-living crises and socioeconomic hardships, under neoliberal policies that incentivise competitiveness and economies of scale, make wolf presence and impacts hard to manage locally. This increases the need for wolf culling, undermining coexistence. 6/8

Local ways of relating to wolves are fraught and embroiled. Depredations can be tolerated. Simultaneously, killing wolves can be a hands-on representation of what it might mean to navigate the intricacies of coexistence, rather than being at odds with caring for wolves. 5/8

We show how farmers can value wolves beyond the services they may provide, but based on the necessity of learning to live with other beings – a defining experience of being a farmer. We articulate these local ethical propensities as affirmative biopolitics. 4/8

Wolves are not a uniform category. Their ecological effects are dynamic, not always unfolding as expected. Their assumed economic benefits can be inequitably accessible locally. When wolves are framed by their benefits and these fail to materialise, conflict escalates. 3/8

Current wolf management approaches frame wolves as bringers of ‘ecological balance’ and economic benefits, seeking to foster greater acceptance of and tolerance for wolves, locally. We articulate these approaches as exercises of biopower. 2/8

I led this work in Tuscany, Italy exploring human-wolf relations through ethnography, participant observation and interviews. Wildlife is often associated with services, to promote its conservation. We show the limits of this approach and highlight an alternative. 1/8

New paper from my PhD, in Transactions (@tibg.bsky.social) coauthored by @csandbrook.bsky.social. On wolves, farmers and interspecies violence.
"From biopower to affirmative biopolitics: A (bio)political ecology of becoming with wolves"
rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
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