Conference Presentations by Brototi Roy
Ecology, Economy and Society, 2019
Shrimp farming in India has been a booming industry in the recent past. Yet, this industry has va... more Shrimp farming in India has been a booming industry in the recent past. Yet, this industry has vast socio-economic and environmental consequences. The major problems associated with shrimp aquaculture are interlinked and create a complex web of interactions, trade-offs and conflicts, the most alarming of which is the conversion of mangroves into shrimp ponds resulting in the loss of biodiversity and livelihoods of local people. This is a major cause of concern because mangroves in India account for nearly three percent of the world’s mangrove vegetation. Yet, the ecological and socio-economic effects of shrimp farming are often neglected in the light of increased foreign earnings.
The poster offers a theoretical background and delves into the major conflicts between shrimp industry and the local people, and attempt to answer whether the shrimp export industry is a case of ecologically unequal exchange in India.
Magazine Articles by Brototi Roy
This article discusses the need for Degrowth from an Indian context, looking at different grassro... more This article discusses the need for Degrowth from an Indian context, looking at different grassroots initiatives which reject the capitalist system, and instead focus on commons, conviviality and sharing. This is the original version of the French translated article published in Moins!
Book Reviews by Brototi Roy
Papers by Brototi Roy
Global Environmental Change
Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal
With each passing year, defending land and water, livelihoods and cultures appears to become more... more With each passing year, defending land and water, livelihoods and cultures appears to become more violent. Against the alarming number of murders of environmental activists or environmental defenders, which is the easiest way to recognize violence, this article aims to analyse other visible and invisible ways in which violence is manifested. Using a multidimensional approach and referring to case studies from the EJAtlas and other sources, it looks at the multiple manifestations of violence. It concludes that a south-south collaboration in academic-activist coproduced research on environmental justice movements would shed light on realities which often escape mainstream ecological economics and political ecology.
Environmental Research Letters, 2020
In this article we undertake a systematic mapping of 649 cases of resistance movements to both fo... more In this article we undertake a systematic mapping of 649 cases of resistance movements to both fossil fuel (FF) and low carbon energy (LCE) projects, providing the most comprehensive overview of such place-based energy-related mobilizations to date. We find that (1) Place-based resistance movements are succeeding in curbing both fossil-fuel and low-carbon energy projects. Over a quarter of projects encountering social resistance have been cancelled, suspended or delayed. (2) The evidence highlights that low carbon, renewable energy and mitigation projects are as conflictive as FF projects, and that both disproportionately impact vulnerable groups such as rural communities and Indigenous peoples. Amongst LCE projects, hydropower was found to have the highest number of conflicts with concerns over social and environmental damages. (3) Repression and violence against protesters and land defenders was rife in almost all activities, with 10% of all cases analysed involving assassination of activists. Violence was particularly common in relation to hydropower, biomass, pipelines and coal extraction. Wind, solar and other renewables were the least conflictive and entailed lower levels of repression than other projects. The results caution that decarbonization of the economy is by no means inherently environmentally innocuous or socially inclusive. We find that conflicts and collective action are driven by multiple concerns through which community mobilization seeks to reshape the energy regime and its impacts. These include claims for localization, democratic participation, shorter energy chains, anti-racism, climate-justice-focused governance, and Indigenous leadership. Climate and energy policymakers need to pay closer attention to the demands and preferences of these collective movements pointing to transformative pathways to decarbonization.
Ecological Economics, 2021
Coal is on the rise in India: despite the devasting impacts of the climate crisis, the awareness ... more Coal is on the rise in India: despite the devasting impacts of the climate crisis, the awareness for land and forest rights, and political talk of a coal phase-out. In this article, we demonstrate that despite the renewables-led rhetoric, India is in the midst of a transition to (not away from) greater use of coal in its fossil energy system and in the electricity system in particular. We investigate this paradox by combining socio-metabolic and political ecological analysis of the Indian coal complex. Our framework integrates material and energy flow data as characterizing the Indian fossil energy transition, indicators on the development and structure of the coal industry , and studies of ecological distribution conflicts around coal. The dominant claim to expansive use of coal and the competing counterclaims are indicative of underlying power relations which can also be witnessed in other countries. In India, they extend into the conflicted development of renewable energy including hydropower, in which the land dispossession, exclusion, and injustices associated with the expansion of the coal complex are reproduced. We conclude that the current energy transition-in which coal continues to play a dominant role-is neither sustainable nor just.
Ecological Economics, 2020
Research by ecological economists on degrowth is a flourishing field. Existing research has focus... more Research by ecological economists on degrowth is a flourishing field. Existing research has focused on limits to (green) growth and on economic alternatives for prospering without growth. Future research, we argue here, should pay more attention to, and be written, from the "margins"-that is from the point of view of those marginalized in the growth economy. We conduct a comprehensive systematic review of the prevalent themes in the existing literature on the ecological economics of degrowth, and its engagements with North-South relations and gender issues. The analysis identifies seven research areas where ecological economics can better integrate these matters, namely: the study of post-growth policies for the Global South; the unequal exchanges that sustain an imperial mode of living; the deconstruction of ecological economic concepts that reproduce problematic Western or gendered assumptions; the study of the clash of metabolisms in peripheries of the Global South; the metabolism of care-work in growth economies; the leading role of women in ecological distribution conflicts, and the reproduction of gender inequalities in alternative post-growth spaces. We propose that ecological economics should welcome more contributions from critical feminist scholarship and scholars from the Global South.
Global Environmental Change, 2020
Ecology, Economy and Society, 2019
With each passing year, defending land and water, livelihoods and cultures appears to become more... more With each passing year, defending land and water, livelihoods and cultures appears to become more violent. Against the alarming number of murders of environmental activists or environmental defenders, which is the easiest way to recognize violence, this article aims to analyse other visible and invisible ways in which violence is manifested. Using a multidimensional approach and referring to case studies from the EJAtlas and other sources, it looks at the multiple manifestations of violence. It concludes that a south-south collaboration in academic-activist coproduced research on environmental justice movements would shed light on realities which often escape mainstream ecological economics and political ecology.
ñas que se oponen a la industria del petróleo, el gas y el carbón .
Environmental justice and conflicts by Brototi Roy
"Environmental conflicts and defenders: A global overview" (Global Environmental Change, 2020) By Arnim Scheidel, Daniela Del Bene, Juan Liu, Grettel Navas, Sara Mingorría, Federico Demaria, Sofía Avila, Brototi Roy, Irmak Ertör, Leah Temper and Joan Martínez-Alier Global Environmental Change, 2020
- Support of environmental defenders requires better understanding of environmental conflicts.
-... more - Support of environmental defenders requires better understanding of environmental conflicts.
- Environmental defenders employ largely non-violent protest forms.
- Indigenous environmental defenders face significantly higher rates of violence.
- Combining preventive mobilization, tactical diversity and litigation increases activists’ success.
- Global grassroots environmentalism is a promising force for sustainability.
Abstract
Recent research and policies recognize the importance of environmental defenders for global sustainability and emphasize their need for protection against violence and repression. However, effective support may benefit from a more systematic understanding of the underlying environmental conflicts, as well as from better knowledge on the factors that enable environmental defenders to mobilize successfully. We have created the global Environmental Justice Atlas to address this knowledge gap. Here we present a large-n analysis of 2743 cases that sheds light on the characteristics of environmental conflicts and the environmental defenders involved, as well as on successful mobilization strategies. We find that bottom-up mobilizations for more sustainable and socially just uses of the environment occur worldwide across all income groups, testifying to the global existence of various forms of grassroots environmentalism as a promising force for sustainability. Environmental defenders are frequently members of vulnerable groups who employ largely non-violent protest forms. In 11% of cases globally, they contributed to halt environmentally destructive and socially conflictive projects, defending the environment and livelihoods. Combining strategies of preventive mobilization, protest diversification and litigation can increase this success rate significantly to up to 27%. However, defenders face globally also high rates of criminalization (20% of cases), physical violence (18%), and assassinations (13%), which significantly increase when Indigenous people are involved. Our results call for targeted actions to enhance the conditions enabling successful mobilizations, and for specific support for Indigenous environmental defenders.
Keywords: Environmental justice, Environmentalism of the poor, Environmental conflicts, Sustainability, Statistical political ecology, EJAtlas
Journal articles by Brototi Roy
Energy Research & Social Science, 2021
The advance of renewable energy around the world has kindled hopes that coal-based energy is on t... more The advance of renewable energy around the world has kindled hopes that coal-based energy is on the way out. Recent data, however, make it clear that growing coal consumption in India coupled with its continued use in China keeps coal-based energy at 40 percent of the world’s heat and power generation. To address the consolidation of coal-based power in India, this article analyses an energy transition to, rather than away from, carbon-intensive energy over the past two decades. We term this transition India’s new coal geography; the new coal geography comprises new ports and thermal power plants run by private-sector actors along the coastline and fuelled by imported coal. This geography runs parallel to, yet is distinct from, India’s ‘old’ coal geography, which was based on domestic public-sector coal mining and thermal power generation. We understand the development of coastal thermal power as an outcome of long-term electrical energy shortages and significant public controversy within the old coal geography. By analysing the making of the new coal geography at a national level, and scrutinizing its localised manifestation and impact through a case study of Goa state, we outline the significant infrastructural investment and policy work of a dispersed network of public- and private-sector actors that slowly enabled this new coal energy avatar. We argue that the enormous effort to establish India’s new coal geography further entrenches the country’s reliance on coal. The result is that for India, energy security is a choice between domestic and imported coal.
Environmental Research Letters, 2020
In this article we undertake a systematic mapping of 649 cases of resistance movements to both fo... more In this article we undertake a systematic mapping of 649 cases of resistance movements to both fossil fuel (FF) and low carbon energy (LCE) projects, providing the most comprehensive overview of such place-based energy-related mobilizations to date. We find that (1) Place-based resistance movements are succeeding in curbing both fossil-fuel and low-carbon energy projects. Over a quarter of projects encountering social resistance have been cancelled, suspended or delayed. (2) The evidence highlights that low carbon, renewable energy and mitigation projects are as conflictive as FF projects, and that both disproportionately impact vulnerable groups such as rural communities and Indigenous peoples. Amongst LCE projects, hydropower was found to have the highest number of conflicts with concerns over social and environmental damages. (3) Repression and violence against protesters and land defenders was rife in almost all activities, with 10% of all cases analysed involving assassination of activists. Violence was particularly common in relation to hydropower, biomass, pipelines and coal extraction. Wind, solar and other renewables were the least conflictive and entailed lower levels of repression than other projects. The results caution that decarbonization of the economy is by no means inherently environmentally innocuous or socially inclusive. We find that conflicts and collective action are driven by multiple concerns through which community mobilization seeks to reshape the energy regime and its impacts. These include claims for localization, democratic participation, shorter energy chains, anti-racism, climate-justice-focused governance, and Indigenous leadership. Climate and energy policymakers need to pay closer attention to the demands and preferences of these collective movements pointing to transformative pathways to decarbonization.
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Conference Presentations by Brototi Roy
The poster offers a theoretical background and delves into the major conflicts between shrimp industry and the local people, and attempt to answer whether the shrimp export industry is a case of ecologically unequal exchange in India.
Magazine Articles by Brototi Roy
Book Reviews by Brototi Roy
Papers by Brototi Roy
Environmental justice and conflicts by Brototi Roy
- Environmental defenders employ largely non-violent protest forms.
- Indigenous environmental defenders face significantly higher rates of violence.
- Combining preventive mobilization, tactical diversity and litigation increases activists’ success.
- Global grassroots environmentalism is a promising force for sustainability.
Abstract
Recent research and policies recognize the importance of environmental defenders for global sustainability and emphasize their need for protection against violence and repression. However, effective support may benefit from a more systematic understanding of the underlying environmental conflicts, as well as from better knowledge on the factors that enable environmental defenders to mobilize successfully. We have created the global Environmental Justice Atlas to address this knowledge gap. Here we present a large-n analysis of 2743 cases that sheds light on the characteristics of environmental conflicts and the environmental defenders involved, as well as on successful mobilization strategies. We find that bottom-up mobilizations for more sustainable and socially just uses of the environment occur worldwide across all income groups, testifying to the global existence of various forms of grassroots environmentalism as a promising force for sustainability. Environmental defenders are frequently members of vulnerable groups who employ largely non-violent protest forms. In 11% of cases globally, they contributed to halt environmentally destructive and socially conflictive projects, defending the environment and livelihoods. Combining strategies of preventive mobilization, protest diversification and litigation can increase this success rate significantly to up to 27%. However, defenders face globally also high rates of criminalization (20% of cases), physical violence (18%), and assassinations (13%), which significantly increase when Indigenous people are involved. Our results call for targeted actions to enhance the conditions enabling successful mobilizations, and for specific support for Indigenous environmental defenders.
Keywords: Environmental justice, Environmentalism of the poor, Environmental conflicts, Sustainability, Statistical political ecology, EJAtlas
Journal articles by Brototi Roy
The poster offers a theoretical background and delves into the major conflicts between shrimp industry and the local people, and attempt to answer whether the shrimp export industry is a case of ecologically unequal exchange in India.
- Environmental defenders employ largely non-violent protest forms.
- Indigenous environmental defenders face significantly higher rates of violence.
- Combining preventive mobilization, tactical diversity and litigation increases activists’ success.
- Global grassroots environmentalism is a promising force for sustainability.
Abstract
Recent research and policies recognize the importance of environmental defenders for global sustainability and emphasize their need for protection against violence and repression. However, effective support may benefit from a more systematic understanding of the underlying environmental conflicts, as well as from better knowledge on the factors that enable environmental defenders to mobilize successfully. We have created the global Environmental Justice Atlas to address this knowledge gap. Here we present a large-n analysis of 2743 cases that sheds light on the characteristics of environmental conflicts and the environmental defenders involved, as well as on successful mobilization strategies. We find that bottom-up mobilizations for more sustainable and socially just uses of the environment occur worldwide across all income groups, testifying to the global existence of various forms of grassroots environmentalism as a promising force for sustainability. Environmental defenders are frequently members of vulnerable groups who employ largely non-violent protest forms. In 11% of cases globally, they contributed to halt environmentally destructive and socially conflictive projects, defending the environment and livelihoods. Combining strategies of preventive mobilization, protest diversification and litigation can increase this success rate significantly to up to 27%. However, defenders face globally also high rates of criminalization (20% of cases), physical violence (18%), and assassinations (13%), which significantly increase when Indigenous people are involved. Our results call for targeted actions to enhance the conditions enabling successful mobilizations, and for specific support for Indigenous environmental defenders.
Keywords: Environmental justice, Environmentalism of the poor, Environmental conflicts, Sustainability, Statistical political ecology, EJAtlas