Critical Ecologies

In this podcast, Aoife Murphy discusses the issue of housing and some of the movements and campaigns that have developed within the past couple of years. Housing is such a large and topical issue at the moment, and many different people within Ireland are affected. In recent years the government has begun to introduce new policies and schemes to try and help make this process easier on everyone involved, but this still isn’t enough. The movements that have developed like CATU and Raise the Roof, show people that they are not alone and create a space where people can share their issues and worries while trying to make a change.

In this podcast, Emilie Jessen discusses the concept of agro-ecology and how the movement emerged and have evolved as a wide concept today. Starting with a discussion on why agro-ecology emerged as a counter response to The Green Revolution in the 1960’s and the dominant agro-food system, we discuss why the movement met resistance in the beginning, and how agro-ecological farming is different from conventional agri-cultural farming. The podcast then goes on to discuss how agro-ecology is strongly related to the concept of ‘spatial justice’, and how grassroot organizations such as the Irish farming group Talamh Beo are doing an important work fighting for food sovereignty and restoring local wildlife habitats. To finish, we discuss some of the challenges that the agroecological movement face today and thoughts on what could be done on a national or international level to support small scale farmers and the transition to a more sustainable and resilient global food system through transitioning to agro-ecological farming. 

Historically in Ireland, bogs have been exploited for their resources by colonial powers, governments and semi-state bodies. This has resulted in extensive loss of peatlands in Ireland and this has had negative impacts on the communities and wildlife that rely on these spaces. In this podcast the concepts of spatial justice and multispecies justice are discussed in relation to the loss of peatlands in Ireland and are used to understand what this means for locals and wildlife who rely on these spaces. As society today moves towards reaching climate targets in a bid to reduce harmful emissions this podcast also examines the methods and aims of the Irish government around the “Just Transition” and how moves to cease turf extraction are affecting the communities who relied so heavily on this system for employment and resources for centuries.

Why in Ireland is just 8% of agricultural land used for crops, while the rest is devoted to animal production? This podcast with Shane Hanly delves into some of the reasons why the Irish agricultural system has become specialised with animal production. Factors such as membership of the European Union and globalisation of agri-food systems are discussed. A number of spatial justice implications, both in Ireland and abroad, that this dominant agricultural system brings about are highlighted. There is light at the end of the tunnel however, with resistance and alternative systems proposed by groups such as Talamh Beo emerging. 

In this episode MSc Environmental Psychology student, Róisín Reddy, discusses spatial and environmental justice in the context of Ireland. We explore how these concepts intersect and how both contribute to the critical analysis of perceptions of space and the role they play in unequal distributional patterns. Using the example of County Leitrim, Róisín highlights some of the main challenges being faced there in recent years, how the communities have responded and asks the question, why Leitrim? In light of this topic, we go on to discuss environmentalism in Ireland using Hilary Tovey’s (1993) work to explore how it relates to present environmental activist movements occurring in ‘rural’ Ireland.

In this podcast with Melanie Johnson, we go back to the 1300s to explore the origins of capitalism as we know it today and talk about the importance of space in its inception. The vital role of common space in human independence is discussed, and enclosure, privatization, and commodification are shown to be its violent antagonists. De-enclosure is a target to be achieved through a process called Degrowth, an intentionally subversive term meant to be understood as the opposite of what in this podcast is referred to as "the growth imperative." Degrowth is a counter-extractivist initiative that can only take place on a localized, grassroots level. We talk about the localization of economies and the integral role of ecology in carrying out such a goal, how small-scale subsistence is the counteraction to large-scale dominance, and how some communities in Ireland are already showing us how to carry out Degrowth by living amongst themselves and for each other. 

In this podcast, Jasmine Buckley discusses an environmental injustice, green gentrification. She discusses how green gentrification is a good example for demonstrating the links between environmental and spatial injustice. This podcast explores how the procedure of providing green space in urban neighbourhoods may not always have positive outcomes despite it being known for its health benefits. Examining the Liberties, an urban neighbourhood in Dublin, we learn about how green gentrification has affected this community and the struggle of trying to balance housing and greening. Looking at this, we learn greening does not always have positive outcomes.

In this podcast, Jennifer O’Malley discusses the complex relationship between the agro-food industry and climate change in contemporary Ireland. Jennifer describes the emergence of the metabolic rift in the context of colonial Ireland in the nineteenth century to examine the complex interconnections that exist between nature and society. This system was based on extractive economic relations that resulted in Irish labour, soil and ecology being appropriated for consumption in the imperial core. Today the implications of this process are still relevant as Ireland’s thriving agro-food industry is reinforced by political and economic forces that see nature as a natural resource exploited. The interconnecting relationship between climate change and capitalistic processes of agricultural production in Ireland can be mostly determined through complex global commodity chains which sees the relationship between Ireland’s economy, exportation and climate change as a mix of social and environmental processes that are produced and re-produced across various sites and systems with each mutually constituting the other resulting in human and ecological consequences. We need to understand that Ireland’s contribution to our planet's ecological crisis remains one of unequal exchange which can only be corrected through new and innovative reforms to our agro-food industry.

Ireland has been an exemplar case for the struggle between green commitments and democratic responsibility and, since the Irish Agri-Food sector speaks for over one third of the nations’ emissions profile, the sector has been placed on the frontline of the struggle to combat climate change.  By all appearances, Ireland’s climate responsibility division debate is shifting from the classic rural-urban divide to a conversation of intra-rural inequality and recrimination, driven by bottom-up power dynamics. The potential sacrificing of Irish beef to make way for dairy expansion, remains a dominant source of contention within agri-discourse and amid whispers regarding national herd reduction, it is the aim of this discussion to shine light on the need for a Just Transition to low-carbon living, where the social and economic sustainability of all rural lives and livelihoods are more carefully considered. Fundamentally, climate action must be fast but, it must be fair.

The concept of slow violence is one that has gained recognition in recent years, providing a definition for events that are violent but not normally seen as such, due to its slow nature and continuation over many years. The current destruction being caused to communities and the environment in Leitrim by Sitka spruce plantations can be viewed as slow violence, as well as the area itself being referred to as a ‘sacrifice zone’. Leitrim’s small population, lack of media attention and small electorate have resulted in the area experiencing extreme changes to its environment, with afforestation also affecting community life. This podcast discusses the terms of ‘slow violence’ and ‘sacrifice zones’ and how they can be used to better understand what is happening in Leitrim, while also detailing an account of the field trip Maynooth University Geography students took in April to Leitrim, and a discussion of the impactful work of the group Save Leitrim.

This podcast episode explores the ideas of gentrification and slow violence. It also discusses how gentrification can be seen as the eventual product of a long period of slow violence through disinvestment and is functionally dependent upon a history of violence in an area. In order to make the links between the two spatial justice frameworks it looks on the case study of Inchicore. Dr. Bresnihan and his interviewee, postgraduate diploma student Séamus Murray, briefly go over a history of cycles of state disinvestment and disregard in the area before moving with particular focus onto the currently unfolding redevelopment and gentrification project on the last of the St. Michael's estate sites - and the work being done to resist it.

This podcast examines the intersections between issues of the built environment, sustainability and environmental justice in Ireland. Discussion around the environmental impact of buildings has become more prevalent in both policy and public discourse as we look towards zero-carbon futures, with Ireland taking on board the policies of the European Green Deal. In the public eye much of this topic has focused on retrofitting and issues of fuel poverty. Through these there are large questions as to how equitable and inclusive a roll out of retrofitting measures will be, especially following the Government’s recent moves to ban turf cutting. However, beyond this there is a need to bring together issues around the built environment (such as lack of housing & public space and high vacancy rates)  with our current ecological and climate crises. While this has already started to some degree (e.g. Anois Agency in Cork) furthering these links could usher in a new mode of environmental politics and activism which links both the rural and the urban.

In this podcast, Will Stringer discusses his research into climate activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) and their demand for climate citizens’ assemblies. Drawing upon the idea of participation as an issue of justice through the work of political theorist Nancy Fraser, this episode explores what approaches to inclusion we can see within XR’s structures and demands. Before finally considering what implications these structures and demands have for two different affiliate groups, XR Aotearoa and XR Ireland, and how these can reveal the need to be attentive to local particularities when building inclusive movements for climate action.

It is becoming ever more clear that we face widespread and worsening ecological breakdown. However, while these issues are global, their causes and disastrous effects are not evenly distributed. The poorest often already facing the worst of the disruption, endangering lives and livelihoods. Is there a connection between what has made regions poor and the climate harms they face? In this podcast, Paul Goldrick-Kelly discusses the concept of uneven ecological exchange. Over the course of the conversation, Paul discusses how this theory developed, how it might explain the link between material and ecological poverty globally, where Ireland fits within global uneven ecological exchange, and the implications of all this for spatial and environmental justice.

In this podcast, Nicola Whelan traces the historical development of Ireland’s agricultural industry since the colonial period. Starting with a discussion of Karl Marx and his account of the Irish ‘metabolic rift’ under British rule, we consider some of the lasting impacts this period of intensive production has had on the farming landscape of Ireland today. Nicola suggests that following independence, Ireland inadvertently turned to other forms of imperialism, looking particularly at the power that modern science and technology continues to hold over conventional farming methods. We discuss both the opportunities and risks presented by an agricultural future built around digital and techno-fixes. Nicola then introduces the concept of agroecology, outlining the potential of this growing movement as a solution to agriculture’s most harmful practices. To finish, we consider some of the systemic changes that would be needed to mainstream an agroecological approach, highlighting the important work that Irish farming group Talamh Beo are doing in this regard.

Katlyne Armstrong joins Patrick Bresnihan in this podcast to explore bogs as a living intersection where heritage, planning, and resistance collide. More specifically, Katlyne introduces the borrowed concept of a hurting heritage and how this might be playing out in the Irish context. Colonialism, for example, continues to structure life in Ireland and it is important to consider the ways in which this has implications for how we think about, use and engage with landscapes such as bogs. Here, we discuss enclosure, waste, and value through colonialism’s robbery of nature as well as Bord na Mona’s beginnings and present day climate enterprise. Despite these colonial mindsets, local resistances and knowledges emerge and provide for alternatives, which is illustrated through community projects at Sliabh Beagh, activism for the rights of nature among Friends of the Ardee Bog, and Leitrim groups blocking forestry developments and wind turbines on bogland. 

In this podcast, John Bohan asks: who are the polluters, the big energy consumers, the tax dodging tech giants, the water devourers in our communities? Why do I see the Intel logo all about North Kildare? What’s the craic with that factory by the river? When the benevolent corporate presence in my community says they’re committed to maintaining “environmental stewardship” and “provide jobs and investment in the community, what do they mean by that?

We need to talk about Intel.

We live on an island overrun by tax dodging and resource ravenous multinationals, with a state dedicated to their profit at any cost. Saving our planet and climate systems is going to mean more than just “taxing the polluters”, but if we’re to win in any form of struggle it will have to happen on, and be organised at, a community level. We need to understand what a corporation like Intel does at an everyday level - how they are tangibly placed within our communities and what they do with the power and influence they have built for themselves. There’s a sleeping antagonism in the community here, between the needs of a profit driven multinational like Intel and the needs of the community.

This podcast with Rúadhán Clerkin looks at an environmental injustice issue (Green Gentrification) that is becoming an increasingly more prominent urban phenomenon. Countries all over the world are putting forward new and more radical greening policies and objectives to tackle climate change. However, the outcome of these greening polices can sometimes lead to green gentrification. This podcast takes a lot at what green gentrification is and where it is happening. This podcast also discusses the greening policies and objectives taking place in the Dublin City Region, most particularly those that were put forward by Dublin City Council in their Dublin Development Plan 2016-2022. The podcast then takes a look at who is benefiting from these greening polices, focusing on the greening polices in the Liberties in Dublin 8 as an example. Finally, this podcast looks at the ‘Just Green Enough’ strategy which offers a possible solution to the phenomena of green gentrification from taking place.

In this podcast, Sophie Thiessen discusses feminist political ecology and poetic dwelling in relation to forestry in Ireland, focussing on County Leitrim. Sophie describes the history of forestry in Ireland and how forestry policy has developed in the present day in relation to climate change. Situating our discussion in Leitrim we talk about how forestry in Leitrim has been and continues to be contested and resisted by locals, through pre-existing complaint channels, pickets, and protests, with a focus on the Save Leitrim Action Group. More broadly, we discuss how individuals have found alternative ways to practice forestry that are more sustainable and permanent. Sophie talks about the examples of Sioned Jones in County Cork who took direct action against sitke spruce forestry, and Cathy Fitzgerald in County Carlow who formed a slow art practice around transforming a plantation forest into a close-to-nature forest.

This podcast with Rob Keogh examines the role the state has played in creating enabling environmental and material conditions for inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ireland from the 1950s onwards, by focusing on a particular case study. The initial investment, and subsequent expansion, of Pfizer in Cork Harbour in the 1970s is examined, with a focus on water resources and infrastructures. While Ireland’s success in attracting FDI is conventionally attributed to policies such as the low corporation tax and generous financial grants, as well as factors such as access to EU markets and an educated, English-speaking workforce (all of which are certainly important), environmental factors have generally been overlooked. This case study suggests, however, that water resources have been an important material condition for enabling FDI in Ireland. While the future is uncertain, the existence of an extractivist logic that values Ireland’s water resources as a “competitive advantage” in a world of climate crisis might lead to the further targeting of water-intensive industry as an opportunity for FDI in Ireland. Attention to the material conditions for FDI,  and the state’s role in creating these conditions, raises important questions of environmental and social justice that should be central to any discussion of Ireland’s economic policy.

This podcast with Laure Detymowski offers a brief insight on how housing quality and environmental justice have been linked both in the literature and in social and environmental justice campaigns, mostly in the US and Irish contexts. In this discussion, the issue of housing quality is extended to encompass physically and mentally harmful living conditions that may have received less attention than toxic exposure so far such as overcrowding, pest infestation, dampness and other forms of material hazard. While green, climate and other environmental policy is increasingly being implemented along with innovative eco-housing concepts, this generalised green turn has also been criticised as mostly disconnected from existing social inequities. In a context of growing risk of extreme weather event and pandemics, it appears more important than ever to ensure that everyone is included in discussions around what constitutes a safe, healthy, quality home. Failure to secure inclusiveness in these discussions may lead to historically-marginalised social groups continuing to bear the burden of health-damaging, life-threatening housing conditions in the face of existing as well as future hazards and their cumulative effects.

The Irish government plans to produce 70% of its electricity from domestic renewable energy by 2030. Onshore wind production is the cornerstone of these targets, with projects developing across the country that seeks to reassemble the energy system. New pressures and tensions are emerging at different scales between private networks, the state, and the communities enrolled in these new renewable energy regimes. In this podcast, Conchúr Ó Mhaonaigh describes developments within the Finn Valley region of Donegal, Ireland, paying particular attention to the Meenbog wind farm. Using secondary analysis of state documents, newspaper articles, and social media posts, Conchúr explores the relationship between Meenbog Wind Farm’s political-economic configurations and the agency and knowledge expressed through the anti-wind politics found in the Finn Valley region. We discuss the politics of scale that is playing out in Meenbog and Finn Valley’s onshore wind developments, opening up useful questions for future scholarship and activism on renewable energy and decarbonization.