“Down with the fumes!” The Year of the Shootings and its relevance for mining today

by Félix Talego and Juan Diego Pérez On February 4, 1888, a demonstration called by the “League Against Calcinations” to protest against acid rain ended up with a massacre of civilians by the Spanish army. Researchers Félix Talego and Juan Diego Pérez argue that the commemoration of this event is an opportunity to spread the …

Punk, not cool. Assessing the degrowth debate

By Emanuele Leonardi * Leonardi reviews Giorgos Kallis’ new book “In defense of degrowth”, a volume that provides activists and academics alike with a detailed map of the degrowth discourse, with its theoretical controversies and opportunities for political alliances to come. What struck me first and foremost in the process of reading In defense of degrowth …

The boomerang of green gentrification: an interview with Isabelle Anguelovski

By Michele Catanzaro* The creation of city parks, green belts and ecological corridors in urban neighbourhoods attracts upmarket estate agencies and new residents with more purchasing power than longstanding residents. The rise in housing prices pushes the original population out: a frustrating phenomenon known as “green gentrification”. Barcelona’s Parc del Poblenou is the kind of …

Ecología política del turismo

La revista Ecología Política acaba de publicar su Número 52, dedicado al turismo. El presente número de la revista Ecología Política está dedicado al turismo, una actividad que ha obtenido menor atención que otros temas de la ecología política. Esta entrega de la revista—editada por Macià Blázquez, Ivan Murray y Grettel Navas—recoge un total de veinticuatro artículos que nos ofrecen …

El paso sigiloso de la autoridad

Por Christos Zografos* Las luchas ambientales para la recuperación de sedimentos atrapados río arriba y el caudal ecológico en el Delta del Ebro están relacionadas a temas de inseguridad al cambio climático y formas insidiosas del ejercicio del poder. Un viernes del mayo 2011, decidía dejar mi trabajo de campo en el Delta del Ebro …

Energy struggles: combating energy poverty in Catalonia

A diverse range of social and environmental collectives have come together in the past few years in Barcelona to form the Alliance Against Energy Poverty, successfully mobilising and fighting to stop energy and water cuts for families unable to pay their bills.* Household access to energy and water remains an urgent issue for well over …

Reclaiming democracy through alternative food economies

How can agrifood alternatives become part of activist strategies, which embody a politics of extending conflict and social struggle to confront the capital-state nexus, rather than just aiming at building difference or autonomy in the cracks of capitalism? Alternative agrifood movements such as organic farming, fair trade, slow food, community-supported agriculture, and local food networks have proliferated since …

What does virtual water conceal?

By María J. Beltrán. Virtual water and water footprint studies, when disembedded from all institutional and political processes alter our understanding of ecosystems,  from complex systems thinking toward simple flow analysis. The concept of ‘virtual water’ was defined by Professor Tony Allan in the early 1990s. It is a revolutionary concept because it describes something …

Solidarity needed: Stopping the eviction of the PAH’s BlocLaBordeta in Barcelona

We, the ENTITLE collective, have signed the manifesto to support an occupied housing block in Barcelona named BlocLaBordeta – recuperated in February by the PAH, a potent housing rights movement with over 220 local groups across the Spanish state – against a possible eviction. The manifesto is reproduced below in English, following a one and …

“Liquid Power”: An interview with Erik Swyngedouw

Erik Swyngedouw, Professor of Geography at the University of Manchester, on his new book, research experiences in Spain, Spanish literary inspirations and next research project. For most (urban) political ecologists, Erik Swyngedouw needs little introduction. Erik is a prolific writer and inspiring intellectual whose research over the past decades has focused on geographical political economy,  …