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The New Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology (Routledge International Handbooks)
Author(s): Jessica Hope (Editor), Elia Apostolopoulou (Editor), Yolanda Ariadne Collins (Editor)
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: December 30, 2025
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 504 pages
- ISBN-10: 1032555009
- ISBN-13: 9781032555003
Book Description
The New Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology offers a state-of-the-art exploration of contemporary political ecology, grounded in the field’s radical foundations and its longstanding connections to political activism.
This book is organized around the field’s engagement with contemporary political issues, spanning 52 chapters. Part I explores Decolonizing Political Ecology, Part II examines Activism and Praxis, and Part III focuses on the Making of Twenty-First Century Natures. Adopting an inclusive, cross-disciplinary approach, the book features a gender-balanced and ethnically diverse range of authors, including contributions from scholars at various career stages. This diverse representation is reflective of a commitment to challenging established hierarchies within political ecology and recognizing the varying perspectives researchers themselves bring to the field. This editorial strategy has proven intellectually enriching, resulting in a dynamic collection that broadens and deepens our understanding of what political ecology is and what it can achieve.
Together, as editors and authors, we contribute a forward-looking overview of contemporary Political Ecology, offering an essential reference for scholars conducting research that is relevant, ethical, critical, and, hopefully, transformative, as well as for activists involved in environmental conflicts and struggles around the world.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This impressive handbook is a landmark text. It brings together an exciting and diverse range of authors to interrogate political ecology today and set out future directions for the field. It explores several specific examples – oceans, conservation, infrastructure, agriculture, genomics and more – to bring challenging theoretical approaches to light.”
Prof Rosaleen Duffy, University of Sheffield, UK
“In this new volume, Hope, Apostolopoulou and Collins present us with a new vision of political ecology. Pushing beyond the field’s Anglo-American roots and traditional focus on place-based case studies, the chapters in this volume reflect political ecology’s diversification and embrace of decolonial theory, praxis, and activism.”
Prof Thomas Perreault, Syracus University, North America
"This is a new handbook of political ecology speaking to a new era of climate breakdown, revamped colonialism, and a revanchist patriarchy. Political ecology still offers the concepts to make sense of what is going on, and how things could get better".
Prof Giorgos Kallis, ICTA-UAB, Spain
About the Author
Jessica Hope is Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Her ERC-funded research develops infrastructural political ecology, investigating road building and its alternatives in the Western Amazon in sites crucial for responses to climate change – Indigenous territories, conservation areas, and cities. She is an editor at Geoforum.
Elia Apostolopoulou is Associate Professor at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. Her research bridges Political Ecology and Human and Urban Geography, focusing on how infrastructure projects and investments in the built environment shape socionatures, places, and livelihoods, often intensifying environmental, social, and spatial injustices. A significant aspect of her work is understanding the responses of affected communities and the role of grassroots activism in fostering resistance and opening pathways for radically different futures. Elia is also Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge and an editor at Dialogues in Human Geography.
Yolanda Ariadne Collins is Senior Lecturer of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK. Her work lies at the intersection of climate change governance, environmental policy, and international development. More specifically, she analyses the interplay between market-based conservation and post-colonial development.
