Researcher-Activists and their role in neoliberal environmental governance

Abstract

The effectiveness of policy responses to the urgency of global socio-ecological crises raises important issues around governance, political agency and knowledge translation. This panel seeks to stimulate debate around the nexus of these issues by inviting papers that can contribute to a better understanding of the relationships between environmental policy, researchers and activism. These relationships are evolving within a context where on the one hand neo-liberal universities wish to foster particular forms of knowledge translation under the banner of ‘research impact’ while on the other it is increasingly apparent that effective responses to issues such as climate change demand radical transformation of governance and economic systems, often aligned to the calls of those outside the political mainstream. This tension raises many questions over whether critical environmental researchers should become more directly aligned with activist movements, and whether there is a more engaged role for activists in the realm of knowledge translation. The panel welcomes papers that can clarify these relationships through empirical case studies, conceptual frameworks or those that explore the policy and governance implications of new alignments of researchers and activists.

Title	Details
Local environmental action in the UK: Reflecting on the role and prospects for the researcher-activist.	View Paper Details
The professionalisation of marine community science as a limitation to researcher-activist participation	View Paper Details
Developing a minifesta for effective academic-activist collaboration in the context of the climate emergency	View Paper Details
Social economies, community wealth and applied research	View Paper Details