When: Thursday, February 22, 2024, 4:30 PM - 6:30 PMWhere: G.O. Jones Building Lecture Theatre, Queen Mary, University of London, 327 Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
International Launch of Benjamin Neimark's New Book: 'Hottest of the Hotspots: The Rise of Eco-precarious Conservation Labor in Madagascar'
About the Book
Continually recognized as one of the “hottest” of all the world’s biodiversity hotspots, the island of Madagascar has become ground zero for the most intensive market-based conservation interventions on Earth.
Hottest of the Hotspots: The Rise of Eco-precarious Conservation Labor in Madagascar (The University of Arizona Press, November 2023) details the rollout of market conservation programs, including the finding of drugs from nature—or “bioprospecting”—biodiversity offsetting, and the selling of blue carbon credits from mangroves. It documents the tensions that exist at the local level, as many of these programs incorporate populations highly dependent on the same biodiversity now turned into global commodities for purposes of saving it. Proponents of market conservation mobilize groups of ecologically precarious workers, or the local “eco-precariat,” who do the hidden work of collecting and counting species, monitoring and enforcing the vital biodiversity used in everything from drug discovery to carbon sequestration and large mining company offsets.
Providing a voice for those community workers many times left out of environmental policy discussions, this volume proposes critiques that aim to build better conservation interventions with perspectives of the local eco-precariat.
About the Event
Professor Sian Sullivan will discuss the book with the author IHSS Fellow and a Senior Lecturer (School of Business and Management) Dr Benjamin Neimark.
Dr Shreya Sinha will chair the event.
The event is sponsored by the Centre for Labour and Sustainable Production (CLaSP), School of Business Management, Queen Mary University of London, Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IHSS) and Political Ecology Network, POLLEN, London-Node.
For those who cannot attend in person, a livestream via Zoom is available. Two days before the event, the link will be emailed to all registered attendees.
For more details and to book, please visit the Eventbrite page.