Format/Structure

Standard academic conference format with 4-5 presentations of 12-15 minutes followed by Q&A and plenary discussion. Possibility of multiple sessions.

Long Abstract

Political ecology has long provided critical insights into the entanglements of power, nature, and society, yet its geographical focus has largely centered on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. The Mediterranean—historically a crossroads of empire, extraction, and circulation—remains surprisingly underexplored within this tradition. This session addresses this gap by taking the Mediterranean as a dynamic and contested ecopolitical space, where struggles over land, water, energy, and mobility intersect with histories of coloniality, development, unequal exchange, and ecological degradation.

Building on critical geography and political ecology research, the session wants to connect scholarship on decoloniality, post-development, and pluriversal thinking, with particular attention to the "Southern Thought", as articulated by Franco Cassano. Rooted in Mediterranean contexts, the Southern Thought critiques modernity’s exclusions without essentializing the “South,” thus fostering open-ended dialogues attentive to justice and epistemic diversity. While the pluriverse is often associated with Latin American social movements—such as the Zapatistas in Mexico—we aim to stimulate Mediterranean scholarship and activism to engage more deeply with these debates, repositioning the region within broader conversations on modernity, coloniality, and resistance.

We invite theoretical and empirical contributions that interrogate Mediterranean ecologies through the lenses of decolonial critique, socio-environmental justice, and epistemic pluralism. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

● Political ecologies of border regimes and migration

● Decolonial environmental epistemologies and Southern Thought

● Agrarian struggles, water politics, and food sovereignty

● Marine extractivism, fisheries, and coastal transformations

● Climate change, energy infrastructures, and just transitions

● Conservation, tourism, and postcolonial landscapes

● Pluriversal politics and Mediterranean social movements

By bringing these perspectives together, this session seeks to reposition the Mediterranean as a critical site for rethinking political ecology and advancing global debates on environmental justice and decolonial futures.

Keywords: Political ecology; Mediterranean; decolonial studies; Southern Thought; pluriverse; environmental justice.

This Panel has 8 pending paper proposals.
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