Lecture series on the IASS Focal Topic Year on “justice in sustainability”

Leah Temper: The transformative power of resistance against extractivism
28.04.2022, 17:00

In April’s Focal Topic Justice in Sustainability/Public lecture, Leah Temper draws on a forthcoming book she has co-edited along with Mariana Walter and Iokiñe Rodriguez, to examine the nature of transformation through the lens of locally-led processes by sharing the results of the Acknowl-EJ project (Academic and Activist co-produce knowledge of Environmental Justice) where academics and resistance movements across the world worked together analyzing and learning from citizen-led transformations. Drawing from case studies from India, Turkey, Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela, Belgium, Canada and Lebanon, she will discuss successes and challenges in the efforts of resistance movements from below in cracking regimes of extractivism and putting forward new proposals, new economies and new ways of being. Through this analysis and resulting frameworks for understanding transformative processes, Leah will shed light on “just transformations to sustainability” from the perspectives of those fighting in the ground to achieve it, the strategies they use to make it happen, and what ultimately changes, or not, as a result and why..

Dr. Leah Temper is an ecological economist, scholar activist and filmmaker based at McGill University, Montreal and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is the founder and co-director of the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice, Research Associate for the Leadership for the Ecozoic program and PI of the ACKnowl-EJ project (Activist-academic Co-production of Knowledge for Environmental Justice) which examines how transformative alternatives are born from resistance against extractivism. Previously, she was the Director of USC Canada’s Seeds of Survival Program International, which supports farmer-led research in plant genetic resources, agro-biodiversity and agro-ecology in 10 countries; and the scientific coordinator of the EJOLT (Environmental Justice Organizations Liabilities and Trade) project.

Please register for the Zoom session using this link.