Canada’s ecological political economy and the climate crisis: an interview with Dr. Laurie Adkin

Abstract

Dr. Laurie Adkin is one of Canada’s pre-eminent environmental political theorists. In this wide-ranging interview, she draws connections across the political, economic, and personal challenges involved in taking on a capitalist political economy bent on the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources in the face of climate destabilization. Adkin discusses why it is important for concerned researchers and citizens to continue to speak out about these issues, and makes the links between environmental activism, decolonization struggles, and democratization.

Keywords:

• Climate crisis
• decolonization
• ecological democracy
• oil sands

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the production team of The Ecopolitics Podcast for their support in recording, transcribing, and publishing the interview online. In particular, we thank Nicole Bedford, Adam Gibbard, and Kika Mueller.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For an early work by Herman Daly, see Herman, Steady-State Economics.

2 See, for example, Gorz, Ecology as Politics.

3 Alain Lipietz makes this argument in several works, starting with Lipietz, Choisir L’Audace.

4 Giorgos Kallis is one of a number of European degrowth thinkers. See, for example, Kallis, “In Defence of Degrowth.”

5 Adkin’s involvement in responses to successive rounds of budget cuts to the postsecondary sector in Alberta goes back to the Klein years. On the restructuring of Alberta’s universities in the context of the petrostate, see Adkin, “Petro-Universities and the Production of Knowledge,” and Adkin and Cabral, Knowledge for an Ecologically Sustainable Future? Adkin is currently working on an analysis of the United Conservative Party’s “take-over” of the postsecondary sector in Alberta.

6 For work by Adkin that examines the political ecology of Alberta, see Adkin, First World Petro-Politics.

7 See the Corporate Mapping Project (https://www.corporatemapping.ca/).

8 One aspect of hegemonic struggle to determine the outcomes of the global ecological crisis which we did not get to in the interview, but which has been highlighted by the work of the Corporate Mapping Project, is the “climate capitalist” hegemonic project of big capital and its political allies. Adkin argues that “innovation” policy and discourse are significant components of this project. See Adkin, “Crossroads in Alberta” and Adkin, “Technology Innovation as a Response to Climate Change.”

9 These arguments are developed further in works published since the early 1990s, notably in Adkin, The Politics of Sustainable Development, and Adkin, “Ecological Politics in Canada.”

10 See, for example, Adkin, ed., Environmental Politics.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryan Katz-Rosene

Ryan Katz-Rosene teaches in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Peter Andrée

Peter Andrée teaches in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.