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Researcher
Catherine Windey
- Research Expertise:My broad scholarly interest lies in environmental politics, in uneven landscapes’ structures and histories, and in changing human-nature entanglements and their spatial-temporal aspects. My PhD thesis entitled "From geocoded to entangled landscape: Forests, REDD+ environmental rule and every practices in DR Congo" has explored Congolese forested landscapes as constituted both by renewed geoplanning attempts to reorganize forests and livelihoods into a ‘green plantation economy’ and by everyday lived practices that draw humans and nonhumans together. I have been working on the politics of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) policy scheme adopted by the Democratic Republic of Congo. I show that the natural forests REDD+ is concerned with, are in fact naturalcultural landscapes that are continuously shaped, over time and across scales, by multiple (violent) practical encounters between people and between people and things (such as land, trees, crops or weeds). My current postdoc research project focuses on the agriculture-conservation nexus in the Congo Basin and the multiple socio-ecological lifeways of native and nonnative tree (mono)crops, i.e. oil palm and cocoa, across space and time. My research works across the disciplines of anthropology, critical geography, science and technology studies, and related fields. I have conducted extensive fieldwork in DR Congo. My theoretical thinking is inspired by multidisciplinary posthumanist currents, and by feminist and decolonial epistemologies. While my work engages with complexity and multiplicity rather than linear thinking, it draws explicit links to various historical structures of domination and inequalities such as (neo)colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and racism in which the co-production of the human and nonhuman is embedded.
- Keywords:ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES, SOCIAL PRACTICES, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, SOCIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL CHANGE, CULTURE, ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS, Economics and applied economics
- Disciplines:Anthropology of economy and development, Ecological anthropology, Social and cultural anthropology, Development studies, Multilevel governance not elsewhere classified, Economic geography, Human geography not elsewhere classified, Other social and economic geography not elsewhere classified
- Research techniques:Ethnographic fieldwork, Semi-structured interviews, In-depth interviews, Focus groups, Participatory methods (e.g. participatory mapping, timeline, transect walks, etc.), Embodied/sensory approach
- Users of research expertise:Areas of expertise: Forest and biodiversity conservation, Social-ecological relations, Multispecies relations, Landscapes, Environmental governance, Sustainable agriculture, Disciplines: Political Ecology, Environmental Anthropology, Critical Geography, Feminist and decolonial epistemologies, Research methods: Ethnographic fieldwork, Semi-structured interviews, In-depth interviews, Focus groups, Participatory methods (e.g. participatory mapping, timeline, transect walks, etc.), Embodied/sensory approach