Events

Is Politics More-than-Human? How American (local) Government is Created by the Environment

#esiStateOfTheArt talk by Dr Joanie Willett

In the discipline of politics, we tend to view the environment along a spectrum of something that humans have to make decisions about protecting; to environmental disasters that limit human action, and require political responses. This talk questions these assumptions, asking to what extent to the nature and structures of our politics are entangled and co-evolving with the environments that we live in, and the kinds of economic opportunities that local geologies, ecologies, and geographies afford. The paper draws on ethnographic research in communities the mountains of southern Appalachia, and in the Cornish gold mining town of Grass Valley, California to explore the extent to which the natural environment, communities, and polities, are inseparably entangled.

Event details

Abstract

This talk will be held in the ESI Trevithick Room. Please email esidirector@exeter.ac.uk if you would like a Teams link to her talk.

Biography

Joanie Willett is Associate Professor in Politics with the University of Exeter and a proud Cornishwoman.  Her work explores the entangled relationships between people and their environments, the relationships between identities and regional economic development, and  local government.  Professor Willett has contributed to a number of Parliamentary Inquiries, including the Environmental Audit Committee ‘Green Jobs’ report.  She is co-convenor of the Political Studies Association Local Governance Specialist Group, and the Regional Studies Association Edgenet research network on peripheral economies.  Her first book Affective Assemblages and Local Economies explored what economic development looks like from the position of local people, drawing on case studies in Cornwall, and in SW of the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA, and her edited textbook An Introduction to UK Politics: Place, Pluralism and Identities will be released in spring 2024.  This current project formed part of Joanie’s Fullbright Scholarship to the USA in 2022/2023.

Location:

Environment and Sustainability Institute