Archive
Urban Political Ecology III: The Gendered and Queer Century
Here is my third and final report on urban political ecology (UPE) in Progress in Human Geography. A shout out to Noel Castree for excellent editorial guidance on the lot of these.
Abstract:
Given the ongoing importance of nature in the city, better grappling with the gendering and queering of urban political ecology offers important insights that collectively provides important political possibilities. The cross-currents of feminist political ecology, queer ecology, queer urbanism and more general contributions to feminist urban geography create critical opportunities to expand UPE’s horizons toward more egalitarian and praxis-centered prospects. These intellectual threads in conversation with the broader Marxist roots of UPE, and other second-generation variants, including what I have previously called abolition ecology, combine to at once show the ongoing promises of heterodox UPE and at the same time contribute more broadly beyond the realm of UPE.
Toward an Abolition Ecology
This is one of my earliest essays on what is much larger project on abolition ecology. I was happy to have been asked to participate on the Editorial Review Board of the new Abolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics which quickly became a logical home for this essay which will be in the inaugural issue:
“Abolitionist politics continue to evolve in response to the ways racial capitalism exploits, oppresses and commits violence through uneven racial development. As environmental relations have always been part of this, in this short essay, Nik Heynen starts to grapple with what an ‘abolition ecology’ would look like.”
Urban political ecology II: The abolitionist century in Progress in Human Geography
My second UPE review titled “Urban political ecology II: The abolitionist century” in now on Progress in Human Geography’s on-line first page.
Abstract
Attention to the urban and metropolitan growth of nature can no longer be denied. Nor can the intense scrutiny of racialized, postcolonial and indigenous perspectives on the press and pulse of uneven development
across the planet’s urban political ecology be deferred any longer. There is sufficient research ranging across antiracist and postcolonial perspectives to constitute a need to discuss what is referred to here as ‘abolition ecology’. Abolition ecology represents an approach to studying urban natures more informed by antiracist, postcolonial and indigenous theory. The goal of abolition ecology is to elucidate and extrapolate the interconnected white supremacist and racialized processes that lead to uneven develop within urban environments.
Keywords: abolition ecology, antiracism, cities, environmental justice, political ecology, postcolonial, urban geography, urban political ecology (UPE)
New Hungarian Translated Collection on Critical Urban Studies (Kritikai Városkutatás) includes Swyngedouw and Heynen (2003)
A new book on Critical Urban Studies (Kritikai Városkutatás) has just been published by L’Harmattan Budapest. It was edited by Csaba Jelinek, Judit Bodnar, Marton Czirfusz, and Zoltan Gyimesi. In addition to a number of exciting translations by other urban scholars the collection also includes a paper I wrote with Erik Swyngedouw published in Antipode in 2003.
Urban Forests and Political Ecologies in Toronto
Tested out some new ideas about “Abolition Ecology” with talk at the Urban Forests & Political Ecologies conference in Toronto, April 18-20th, 2013. The conference was hosted by the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University; Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto; and the Humber Arboretum & Centre for Urban Ecology. It was a well organized and interesting event. Thanks to Adrina Bardekjian and Sadia Butt for their efforts as well as other organizers.
