This paper is an introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Political Ecology on "Ecologies of Hope."The authors argue that discrete, specific, and often, local actions can create spaces that are bettering humanlives and livelihoods. The five papers identify actions and movements that are situated in the "middle"between the individual and larger social and economic formations...

In Suriname, the Maroons have practiced shifting cultivation for generations, but now the increasing influence of modern society is causing a trend of decreasing fallow periods with potentially adverse effects for the vulnerable tropical soils. Adoption of appropriate soil fertility management (SFM) practices is currently slow. Combining methods from cultural ecology and environmental psycholog...

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Industrial ecologists study phenomena at several distinct levels, and linking the resulting insights could advance the field. The disciplines of ecology and economics have each attempted, with partial success, to accomplish this by building a behavioral micro foundation, and industrial ecology should do the same. These fields all study evolving systems made up of autonomous in...

In the last few decades European industrial cities have experienced major transformations which implied need to rethink role of nature. Re-naturing city, reconnecting urban planning and nature enhancing sustainability, means taking into account ecosystems biodiversity through a social approach reconsiders as product re-examines city–nature relationships, way Urban Political Ecology (UPE) sugges...

In this article, I explore what a critical environmental perspective would look like in Melanesia, where the distinction between nature and culture, and the expectation that science interprets the former in terms of the latter, may not apply. I consider changes in scientific knowledge production and the shift from cultural ecology to political ecology in Melanesian anthropology, including the a...