geopolitical ecology

In Canada, intensive resource extraction has long been baked into the country’s political economy and, arguably, to nation-building itself. Resource booms and policy choices have opened landscapes and livelihoods to large-scale mining and fossil fuel extraction, producing harms that are inseparable from the country’s colonial history.Today, as supply chains are restructured around critical minerals and trade regimes are overhauled, Canada faces urgent questions about sovereignty, consent, and justice: can extraction be reimagined in ways that respect Indigenous rights and ecological limits? Or will new geopolitical pressures and rising tensions with countries like the United States simply deepen old harms? To explore these questions, we spoke with Jess Dempsey, a professor at UBC, and Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch to get to grips with the state of Canada’s extractive industries. Later, we were joined by Tara Marsden, an independent consultant from the Lax Ganeda (Frog) Clan of the Gitksan peoples, who has spent 30 years advancing sustainable development and operationalizing free, prior and informed consent, and who spoke to us about how the history and shifting terrain of extraction in Canada has been shaped by the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty.Continental Shift is made possible by support from the Public Scholars Initiative at the University of British Columbia.

The ratification of NAFTA—the North American Free Trade Agreement—in 1994 transformed Mexico in profound ways. Over the next thirty years it deepened and expanded the resource frontier across the country, disproportionately benefiting national and global elites. Mining activity exploded, and with it the socio‑ecological violence that follows large‑scale extraction. Anti‑extractivist struggles cannot be ignored—especially as Morena, the self-proclaimed progressive political party that holds power in Mexico after breaking seven decades of political duopoly in 2018, tries to navigate competing pressures. Morena’s landmark program—the so-called “Fourth Transformation"—frames greater state involvement and control over strategic resources and royalties as a means to fund social programs and reclaim national sovereignty, though its policies and outcomes remain uncertain.This episode offers a closer look at extractivism in Mexico, tracing developments from the colonial silver boom to state‑led industrialization and from neoliberal open‑pit expansion to present-day state-led extractivism. Darcy Tetreault and Sol Pérez Jiménez join us from Mexico to offer granular historical knowledge and field‑based evidence, mapping how policy and capital have reshaped labor, land and water regimes. We discuss the deepening of resource frontiers, the persistence of elite mining interests, and the complex, contested forms of resistance—from legal reforms to grassroots refusal and struggle for territorial autonomy. Continental Shift is made possible by support from the Public Scholars Initiative at the University of British Columbia.

The term “critical minerals" suddenly seems to be all over the headlines. Securing access to this group of commodities, from familiar metals like lithium and copper to more obscure “rare earth elements” like yttrium, appears to be a growing priority of world leaders—particularly for those who consider China, currently the world's main producer of most critical minerals, a threat.But what exactly what makes these commodities so “critical” in the first place? Who defines them as such, and who benefits from that decision?In fact, whether a mineral is “critical” depends on who you ask, and what their strategic priorities are—whether that's producing electric vehicles, fighter jets, or AI infrastructure.Importantly, extracting these minerals has profound human and ecological impact. This is what makes their governance so challenging: because even in many green utopian visions of the future, with a world powered by renewables and running zero carbon transit, there’s no side-stepping either the need for these minerals, or some of the harms involved in their extraction. What, then, can be done?How should we understand the sudden push to control critical mineral supply chains? What is their role in competing visions of the future? How might we reduce the harms of extraction? And can there ever be an approach to extraction that is genuinely just or “sustainable”? To answer these questions, in this episode we're joined by Thea Riofrancos and Emily Iona-Stewart. Thea is Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College and author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism. Emily is Head of Policy and Advocacy at Global Witness. Continental Shift is made possible by support from the Public Scholars Initiative at the University of British Columbia.

Welcome to Continential Shift, a series from The Break—Down and Geopolitical Ecology, where we examine the global rush for critical minerals and the struggle for resource dominance on the North American continent.The phrase "trade regimes" may sound dry, but these rules and agreements are a defining architecture of the global economy. They determine who gets to exploit a country’s resources, and who profits from it. They determine whether states can be sued by private investors and corporations, or whether domestic sovereignty—of the state, or of Indigenous peoples, for example—is protected.In our first episode we’re joined by historian Quinn Slobodian and economist Isabel Estevez to unpack how longstanding trade rules, investor protections and liberalization have shaped how resources are extracted and governed in North America. After the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement entered limbo last week when negotiators failed to make the July 1st deadline for agreeing a new deal, those same rules and institutions are suddenly more shaky than they’ve been for years, raising big questions about how, and in whose interest, the global race to dominate critical minerals will be run.Continental Shift is made possible by support from the Public Scholars Initiative at the University of British Columbia.

In this episode we speak with Alyssa Battistoni about her most recent book, Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature published back in August 2025 by Princeton University Press.Alyssa is a political theorist with research interests in environmental and climate politics, feminism, Marxist thought, political economy, and the history of political thought. She is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal published by Verso in 2019. We highly recommend reading both of these books, found here: Free GiftsA Planet to Win Battistoni writes frequently for publications including the Nation, Dissent, Jacobin, n+1, and Boston Review, and is on the editorial boards of Jacobin and Dissent. She received her PhD from Yale in 2019 and previously held the position of Environmental Fellow at Harvard University.  This episode explores the political work done by the idea that nature is either “inside” or “outside” the production process. We unpack how nature can function as a so-called free gift to capital, how it is sometimes strategically left alone in order to remain cheap or undervalued, and how it is, at other times, simply resistant to capture—unruly, uneven, and not fully governable by capitalist logics. Drawing on feminist political economy and eco-feminist thought, Alyssa reflects on what these traditions make visible—and where they fall short. We talk about how capitalism defines economic value, what counts as productive activity, and how vast realms of work are rendered invisible or treated as “free,” whether implicitly or explicitly. This leads us into a discussion of externalities, not only as technical economic categories, but as deeply political mechanisms that displace responsibility, undermine democratic decision-making, and fracture possibilities for collective action.A key thread running through the conversation is the insistence that nature works. It labors. It is not a passive backdrop or inert input, but a dynamic ensemble of living beings, processes, and labor the fruits of which are routinely appropriated by capital. While capital recognizes only waged labour as work, Alyssa draws a careful parallel between feminist critiques of unwaged reproductive labour and the unwaged labour performed by nature while also pushing against some of the limits of these analogies, and asking what they obscure as much as what they reveal.This conversation only scratches the surface of the richness and density of Free Gifts. It’s important to mention this as we live through content overload and informational overstimulation, we want to be clear that this episode is an entry point, not a substitute. If you’re able to, we strongly encourage you to read the book and support Alyssa’s work. I am joined by my colleague Nick Gottlieb. Thanks for being part of this, Nick! :) If this episode resonates, please share it with others who might find it generative as well. 

In this episode, we talk with Jessica Dempsey and Rosemary Collard about how to think about the capitalist state not as a unified actor, but as a contradictory and often incoherent set of institutions, practices, and relationships that both authorize extraction and seek legitimacy. We explore how environmental governance in Canada is shaped by this contradiction: despite laws and frameworks that are supposed to protect nature, we end up with continued and expanded ecological harm.We also dig into how Jess and Rosemary draw from feminist and abolitionist thought to analyze the state as a supplier of nature to capital, a manager of resistance, and a key player in the reproduction of racial and sexual hierarchies. We touch on patriarchy as an ecological regime, and think through how capitalism can both destroy the conditions of life (cannibalistically) and adapt to ecological collapse (parasitically).The conversation then moves to global environmental politics; why international agreements like the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity must be understood in relation to trade, debt, and tax regimes and what it means to build a political internationalism in response.This is a conversation about the complexity of power and the need to confront it clearly. Jess and Rosemary bring sharp analysis, grounded in struggle, to help us make sense of the terrain we’re fighting on.---Jessica Dempsey and Rosemary Collard run the Extinction Paradox research group. Together, they’ve theorized and investigated how the Canadian state manages the deep contradictions at the heart of environmental governance—passing laws to protect nature while simultaneously enabling capital’s ongoing exploitation and destruction of ecosystems. Their feminist critiques of capitalism and the capitalist state unearth dynamics that are often obscured by design. These include how dominant narratives of ecological collapse—even when critical vis-à-vis denialism—often fail to name the structural drivers of crisis, or to acknowledge how racial and sexual hierarchies are central to how ecological harm is organized, justified, and sustained.Jess is professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia, researching the political economies of biodiversity conservation and the contradictions of environmental governance under capitalism. Her work combines Marxist, feminist, and anti-colonial theory to examine how states, corporate, and financial actors navigate the ecological crises they help produce. She is the author of Enterprising Nature, a book that critically explores market-based conservation efforts.Rosemary is professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University, whose work focuses on the intersections of wildlife, capitalism, and the state. She draws from feminist political economy and multispecies studies to explore how wild animals are governed within regimes of extraction and enclosures. Her book, Animal Traffic, traces how wild animals are made into lively capital in the global exotic pet trade. We highly recommend reading both of their books, and to keep an eye out for a book they’re working on together now for future publication. Some of their featured writings:- Patriarchy is an Ecological Regime- Capitalist Natures in Five Orientations- A Manifesto for Abundant Futures- IPBES Transformative Change Assessment: Chapter 4. Overcoming the challenges of achieving transformative change towards a sustainable worldBrowse the research group’s page: Extinction Paradox

In this episode, we’re joined by Ricardo Tranjan, political economist and author of The Tenant Class (2023). Ricardo’s work reframes housing—not as a temporary crisis—but as a long-standing, for-profit system that deliberately extracts wealth from tenants to enrich landlords, developers, and investors. Ricardo dismantles the conventional supply‑and‑demand narrative embraced by policymakers and the real estate industry—where building more is assumed to bring prices to "equilibrium"—showing instead how incentives for private developers can fuel speculation and steadily drive prices out of reach, all while wages stagnate or grow at a slower rate than inflation. He argues that the very frame of housing as a technical problem obscures its political dimensions: the pressure should be on collective tenant power, class solidarity—especially strong partnerships with labor unions—and moving beyond for-profit delivery models toward universal housing security. Ricardo Tranjan works at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Previously, he managed the City of Toronto’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Office and taught in universities in Ontario and Quebec.His early academic work focused on the political economy of development in Brazil, his native country. His current research and commentary focus on Ontario public finances, and the economics of social policy, especially income supports, education, and rental housing. His book, The Tenant Class, published by Between the Lines in 2023, has become a national bestseller.Important Resources:​The Tenant Class;​High Rises and Housing Stress;​Vancouver Tenants Union; ​Syndicat de Locataires (MTL);​Toronto housing rights FAQ; https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2025/04/16/alternative-approach-to-economic-development-in-inuit-nunangat/​

In this episode, we speak with Emily Iona Stewart to unpack the complex and deeply political dynamics behind the global rush for critical minerals.Why are these minerals—like lithium, cobalt, copper, and nickel—so important? Where are they found? What are the implications of their extraction for Indigenous communities, ecosystems, and the development trajectories of post-colonial nations?We explore how critical minerals sit at the intersection of climate technologies, militarism, and digital technologies. From defense-for-minerals deals between the US and Ukraine or the DRC, to stockpiling strategies that prioritize military use over energy justice, this conversation highlights the geopolitical, economic, and ethical stakes of today’s mineral boom.As Emily reminds us, it’s not enough to decarbonize. We must ensure that the transition to a zero-carbon world doesn’t reproduce the same systems of exploitation, dispossession, and inequality.Emily is the Head of Policy and EU Relations at Global Witness, a leading international NGO known for its investigative work exposing the connections between natural resource exploitation, environmental destruction, corruption, and human rights abuse.Emily has played a major role in shaping European climate and sustainability policy, including contributions to the European Green Deal. At Global Witness, she leads efforts to ensure that the extraction and use of transition minerals is not only responsible, but also just—centering the rights of affected communities and advocating for transparency and accountability.About Global Witness:For over 30 years, Global Witness has been investigating and exposing the systems that enable environmental harm, conflict, and corruption. Their work holds powerful actors accountable and supports movements fighting for climate justice and the protection of human rights. Learn more at ⁠globalwitness.org⁠.Resources: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/1/2/modern-plunderers-lobito-corridor-plans-bring-fear-hesitation-in-drchttps://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/transition-minerals/fuelling-the-future-poisoning-the-present-myanmars-rare-earth-boom/https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/congo-eyes-us-minerals-deal-by-end-june-ft-reports-2025-05-25/https://globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/clean-energy-dirty-consequences-mining-for-renewable-technologies-linked-to-global-social-unrest/https://smi.uq.edu.au/article/2022/12/54-per-cent-projects-extracting-clean-energy-minerals-overlap-indigenous-lands

In this episode, we speak with Priti Narayan about the devastating floods that hit Chennai, India—a city grappling with the compounding effects of climate change and urban inequality. Reflecting on the floods a decade later, Priti unpacks how such dramatic events both reveal and deepen the everyday structural violence embedded in urban life.We explore how climate disasters are experienced unevenly, shaped by social, economic, and spatial injustices, and how responses to these events often reproduce the same inequalities they expose.Priti also shares powerful reflections on the role of public scholarship and activism—especially in moments when violence is not always visible, but deeply felt by marginalized communities.Priti is an Assistant Professor at UBC Geography. Her research and teaching interests center around urban processes and politics, particularly in India. In her primary research project, she examines how contemporary urban development interacts with state-society relations in Chennai, India. She uses ethnographic and archival methods to investigate how residents negotiate with local politicians, bureaucrats, and activists to preserve citizenship in urban landscapes marked by violent, large-scale slum evictions. She has been learning from collective struggles for tenure security for the urban poor in Chennai for over 13 years now. Priti is passionate about collaborative activist scholarship which highlights lived experiences — drawing on the politics of expertise and knowledge production, feminist methodologies, and public scholarship. She frequently collaborates to write about economic and social protections for unorganized workers and urban development in Tamil Nadu. Her writing has appeared in news and media outlets such as The Times of India, The Hindu, OpenDemocracy, and Kafila, among others.We encourage you to read Priti’s public articles, such as these:Slow violence and the Spectacle – Dispossession, segregation, and the Chennai Floods: Priti NarayanRosenman, E. and P. Narayan. 2023. Economic geography for and by whom? Rethinking expertise and accountability.Chapters:(00:00) Introduction & Experience(08:25) 2015 Chennai floods(15:35) How come is preparedness for disaster weak? (19:00) Is it "corruption"?(23:30) Actors of unevenness (41:00) On slow violence(46:43) Public scholarship(56:24) Suppression of dissent(1:11:00) Critical hope

I had the honor to host Dr. Hicham Safieddine, a brilliant Lebanese scholar and historian at the University of British Columbia. His work has included a detailed study of the emergence and transformation of global and national monetary regimes and financial systems under capitalist expansion, debt, war, colonial conquest, national liberation and revolution. He also works on the history of economic thought, as well as modern Arab and Islamic thought, with an emphasis on the age of anti-colonial national liberation in the mid-20th century. In this episode, we discuss Hicham’s conception of the border regime that defines the geographies of zionist settler-colonialism. He put forth the conception of “a state without borders, borders without states” to help us hone in on an adequate framing to what’s happening in our homelands today. Then, we discuss what the new phase of US empire in terms of Trump’s ethnic cleansing plans for Gaza as well as all the tools of US empire he inherits, which have been used, albeit in variegated ways, all over the Global South throughout history. I ask Hicham to dissect and discern all the imperial tools that the US has at its disposal to assert and reassert its hegemony. Finally, we tackle the silencing and censorship we see in and out of the academy, specifically leaning on Hicham’s experiences at UBC as well as having taught and lived in the UK previously. As usual, we end with a note of critical hope. I ask Hicham what keeps him going, and I’m pleased that he felt comfortable enough to share it with me, despite the fact that he has personally been impacted by zionist violence. Please check out Hicham’s work, starting here:Banking on the State: The Financial Foundations of LebanonMahdi Amel, Arab Marxism and National Liberation: Selected Writings