New Books in Geography - Hamza Hamouchene and Katie Sandwell, "Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region" (Pluto Press, 2023)

Hamza Hamouchene and Katie Sandwell, "Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region" (Pluto Press, 2023)

02/16/24 • 50 min

Just in Time - the urgent need for a just transition in the Arab region. The newly published book Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate justice in the Arab Region (Pluto Press, 2023) edited by Hamza Hamouchene and Katie Sandwell questions the development of sustainable energy production in the middle eastern and north African region. Positioning itself as part of a wider discussion of just transition, it provides wonderful insight into the colonial and capitalist narratives used to legitimise projects coming from the Global North. Furthermore, it highlights the fact that there is a need to deconstruct environmental orientalism to tackle questions of power at a local, regional, and international level.

Hamza Hamouchene is a researcher, activist and the programme coordinator for Africa at the Transnational Institute, based in the UK. Originally from Algeria, he brings wide understanding of climate and social justice.

Sarah Vogelsanger is a master student at SOAS in "Environment, Politics, and Development" and passionate about feminist approaches to social justice and political ecology.

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Sarah Vogelsanger is a master student at SOAS in "Environment, Politics, and Development" and passionate about feminist approaches to social justice and political ecology.

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Previous Episode

Jennifer Sdunzik, "The Geography of Hate: The Great Migration through Small-Town America" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

During the Great Migration, Black Americans sought new lives in midwestern small towns only to confront the pervasive efforts of white residents determined to maintain their area’s preferred cultural and racial identity. Jennifer Sdunzik explores this widespread phenomenon by examining how it played out in one midwestern community. Sdunzik merges state and communal histories, interviews and analyses of population data, and spatial and ethnographic materials to create a rich public history that reclaims Black contributions and history. She also explores the conscious and unconscious white actions that all but erased Black Americans--and the terror and exclusion used against them--from the history of many midwestern communities.

An innovative challenge to myth and perceived wisdom, The Geography of Hate: The Great Migration through Small-Town America (U Illinois Press, 2023) reveals the socioeconomic, political, and cultural forces that prevailed in midwestern towns and helps explain the systemic racism and endemic nativism that remain entrenched in American life.

Omari Averette-Phillips is a doctoral student in the Department of History at UC Davis. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Next Episode

Language Makes the Place

Ingrid Piller speaks with Adam Jaworski about his research in language and mobility.

Adam is best known for his work on “linguascaping” – how languages, or bits of languages, are used to stylize a place. A welcome sign may index a tourist destination, artistic arrangements of word blocks like “love”, “peace”, or “joy” may index consumption and leisure spaces, multilingual signage may index a cosmopolitan space, and the absence of language may suggest the quiet luxury of the super-rich.

As these examples suggest, Adam’s focus, often in collaboration with his colleague Crispin Thurlow, has been on privileged mobilities: European tourists in West Africa, business class travelers, and those frequenting the consumption temples of our time, upmarket shopping malls.

Such research is vital to understanding the intersection between language and inequality, as Adam explains in our interview. Privilege is the other side of the inequality coin, and a side that sociolinguists have often neglected.

First published on January 17, 2022.

“Chats in Linguistic Diversity” is a podcast about linguistic diversity in social life brought to you by the Language on the Move team. We explore multilingualism, language learning, and intercultural communication in the contexts of globalization and migration.

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