geopolitical ecology

In this episode we speak with Alyssa Battistoni about her most recent book, Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature published back in August 2025 by Princeton University Press.Alyssa is a political theorist with research interests in environmental and climate politics, feminism, Marxist thought, political economy, and the history of political thought. She is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal published by Verso in 2019. We highly recommend reading both of these books, found here: Free GiftsA Planet to Win Battistoni writes frequently for publications including the Nation, Dissent, Jacobin, n+1, and Boston Review, and is on the editorial boards of Jacobin and Dissent. She received her PhD from Yale in 2019 and previously held the position of Environmental Fellow at Harvard University.  This episode explores the political work done by the idea that nature is either “inside” or “outside” the production process. We unpack how nature can function as a so-called free gift to capital, how it is sometimes strategically left alone in order to remain cheap or undervalued, and how it is, at other times, simply resistant to capture—unruly, uneven, and not fully governable by capitalist logics. Drawing on feminist political economy and eco-feminist thought, Alyssa reflects on what these traditions make visible—and where they fall short. We talk about how capitalism defines economic value, what counts as productive activity, and how vast realms of work are rendered invisible or treated as “free,” whether implicitly or explicitly. This leads us into a discussion of externalities, not only as technical economic categories, but as deeply political mechanisms that displace responsibility, undermine democratic decision-making, and fracture possibilities for collective action.A key thread running through the conversation is the insistence that nature works. It labors. It is not a passive backdrop or inert input, but a dynamic ensemble of living beings, processes, and labor the fruits of which are routinely appropriated by capital. While capital recognizes only waged labour as work, Alyssa draws a careful parallel between feminist critiques of unwaged reproductive labour and the unwaged labour performed by nature while also pushing against some of the limits of these analogies, and asking what they obscure as much as what they reveal.This conversation only scratches the surface of the richness and density of Free Gifts. It’s important to mention this as we live through content overload and informational overstimulation, we want to be clear that this episode is an entry point, not a substitute. If you’re able to, we strongly encourage you to read the book and support Alyssa’s work. I am joined by my colleague Nick Gottlieb. Thanks for being part of this, Nick! :) If this episode resonates, please share it with others who might find it generative as well. 

In this episode, we talk with Jessica Dempsey and Rosemary Collard about how to think about the capitalist state not as a unified actor, but as a contradictory and often incoherent set of institutions, practices, and relationships that both authorize extraction and seek legitimacy. We explore how environmental governance in Canada is shaped by this contradiction: despite laws and frameworks that are supposed to protect nature, we end up with continued and expanded ecological harm.We also dig into how Jess and Rosemary draw from feminist and abolitionist thought to analyze the state as a supplier of nature to capital, a manager of resistance, and a key player in the reproduction of racial and sexual hierarchies. We touch on patriarchy as an ecological regime, and think through how capitalism can both destroy the conditions of life (cannibalistically) and adapt to ecological collapse (parasitically).The conversation then moves to global environmental politics; why international agreements like the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity must be understood in relation to trade, debt, and tax regimes and what it means to build a political internationalism in response.This is a conversation about the complexity of power and the need to confront it clearly. Jess and Rosemary bring sharp analysis, grounded in struggle, to help us make sense of the terrain we’re fighting on.---Jessica Dempsey and Rosemary Collard run the Extinction Paradox research group. Together, they’ve theorized and investigated how the Canadian state manages the deep contradictions at the heart of environmental governance—passing laws to protect nature while simultaneously enabling capital’s ongoing exploitation and destruction of ecosystems. Their feminist critiques of capitalism and the capitalist state unearth dynamics that are often obscured by design. These include how dominant narratives of ecological collapse—even when critical vis-à-vis denialism—often fail to name the structural drivers of crisis, or to acknowledge how racial and sexual hierarchies are central to how ecological harm is organized, justified, and sustained.Jess is professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia, researching the political economies of biodiversity conservation and the contradictions of environmental governance under capitalism. Her work combines Marxist, feminist, and anti-colonial theory to examine how states, corporate, and financial actors navigate the ecological crises they help produce. She is the author of Enterprising Nature, a book that critically explores market-based conservation efforts.Rosemary is professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University, whose work focuses on the intersections of wildlife, capitalism, and the state. She draws from feminist political economy and multispecies studies to explore how wild animals are governed within regimes of extraction and enclosures. Her book, Animal Traffic, traces how wild animals are made into lively capital in the global exotic pet trade. We highly recommend reading both of their books, and to keep an eye out for a book they’re working on together now for future publication. Some of their featured writings:- Patriarchy is an Ecological Regime- Capitalist Natures in Five Orientations- A Manifesto for Abundant Futures- IPBES Transformative Change Assessment: Chapter 4. Overcoming the challenges of achieving transformative change towards a sustainable worldBrowse the research group’s page: Extinction Paradox

In this episode, we’re joined by Ricardo Tranjan, political economist and author of The Tenant Class (2023). Ricardo’s work reframes housing—not as a temporary crisis—but as a long-standing, for-profit system that deliberately extracts wealth from tenants to enrich landlords, developers, and investors. Ricardo dismantles the conventional supply‑and‑demand narrative embraced by policymakers and the real estate industry—where building more is assumed to bring prices to "equilibrium"—showing instead how incentives for private developers can fuel speculation and steadily drive prices out of reach, all while wages stagnate or grow at a slower rate than inflation. He argues that the very frame of housing as a technical problem obscures its political dimensions: the pressure should be on collective tenant power, class solidarity—especially strong partnerships with labor unions—and moving beyond for-profit delivery models toward universal housing security. Ricardo Tranjan works at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Previously, he managed the City of Toronto’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Office and taught in universities in Ontario and Quebec.His early academic work focused on the political economy of development in Brazil, his native country. His current research and commentary focus on Ontario public finances, and the economics of social policy, especially income supports, education, and rental housing. His book, The Tenant Class, published by Between the Lines in 2023, has become a national bestseller.Important Resources:​The Tenant Class;​High Rises and Housing Stress;​Vancouver Tenants Union; ​Syndicat de Locataires (MTL);​Toronto housing rights FAQ; https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2025/04/16/alternative-approach-to-economic-development-in-inuit-nunangat/​

In this episode, we speak with Emily Iona Stewart to unpack the complex and deeply political dynamics behind the global rush for critical minerals.Why are these minerals—like lithium, cobalt, copper, and nickel—so important? Where are they found? What are the implications of their extraction for Indigenous communities, ecosystems, and the development trajectories of post-colonial nations?We explore how critical minerals sit at the intersection of climate technologies, militarism, and digital technologies. From defense-for-minerals deals between the US and Ukraine or the DRC, to stockpiling strategies that prioritize military use over energy justice, this conversation highlights the geopolitical, economic, and ethical stakes of today’s mineral boom.As Emily reminds us, it’s not enough to decarbonize. We must ensure that the transition to a zero-carbon world doesn’t reproduce the same systems of exploitation, dispossession, and inequality.Emily is the Head of Policy and EU Relations at Global Witness, a leading international NGO known for its investigative work exposing the connections between natural resource exploitation, environmental destruction, corruption, and human rights abuse.Emily has played a major role in shaping European climate and sustainability policy, including contributions to the European Green Deal. At Global Witness, she leads efforts to ensure that the extraction and use of transition minerals is not only responsible, but also just—centering the rights of affected communities and advocating for transparency and accountability.About Global Witness:For over 30 years, Global Witness has been investigating and exposing the systems that enable environmental harm, conflict, and corruption. Their work holds powerful actors accountable and supports movements fighting for climate justice and the protection of human rights. Learn more at ⁠globalwitness.org⁠.Resources: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/1/2/modern-plunderers-lobito-corridor-plans-bring-fear-hesitation-in-drchttps://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/transition-minerals/fuelling-the-future-poisoning-the-present-myanmars-rare-earth-boom/https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/congo-eyes-us-minerals-deal-by-end-june-ft-reports-2025-05-25/https://globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/clean-energy-dirty-consequences-mining-for-renewable-technologies-linked-to-global-social-unrest/https://smi.uq.edu.au/article/2022/12/54-per-cent-projects-extracting-clean-energy-minerals-overlap-indigenous-lands

In this episode, we speak with Priti Narayan about the devastating floods that hit Chennai, India—a city grappling with the compounding effects of climate change and urban inequality. Reflecting on the floods a decade later, Priti unpacks how such dramatic events both reveal and deepen the everyday structural violence embedded in urban life.We explore how climate disasters are experienced unevenly, shaped by social, economic, and spatial injustices, and how responses to these events often reproduce the same inequalities they expose.Priti also shares powerful reflections on the role of public scholarship and activism—especially in moments when violence is not always visible, but deeply felt by marginalized communities.Priti is an Assistant Professor at UBC Geography. Her research and teaching interests center around urban processes and politics, particularly in India. In her primary research project, she examines how contemporary urban development interacts with state-society relations in Chennai, India. She uses ethnographic and archival methods to investigate how residents negotiate with local politicians, bureaucrats, and activists to preserve citizenship in urban landscapes marked by violent, large-scale slum evictions. She has been learning from collective struggles for tenure security for the urban poor in Chennai for over 13 years now. Priti is passionate about collaborative activist scholarship which highlights lived experiences — drawing on the politics of expertise and knowledge production, feminist methodologies, and public scholarship. She frequently collaborates to write about economic and social protections for unorganized workers and urban development in Tamil Nadu. Her writing has appeared in news and media outlets such as The Times of India, The Hindu, OpenDemocracy, and Kafila, among others.We encourage you to read Priti’s public articles, such as these:Slow violence and the Spectacle – Dispossession, segregation, and the Chennai Floods: Priti NarayanRosenman, E. and P. Narayan. 2023. Economic geography for and by whom? Rethinking expertise and accountability.Chapters:(00:00) Introduction & Experience(08:25) 2015 Chennai floods(15:35) How come is preparedness for disaster weak? (19:00) Is it "corruption"?(23:30) Actors of unevenness (41:00) On slow violence(46:43) Public scholarship(56:24) Suppression of dissent(1:11:00) Critical hope