About the Podcast

The Ecopolitics Podcast offers conversations with professors, policy-makers and practitioners about the state of environmental politics in Canada and around the world. The podcast was created in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to share core course content with university students studying ecopolitics in Canada.

Season 1, released in the fall of 2020, focuses on Canadian environmental politics. Season 2, released in winter 2021, addresses major themes in global ecopolitics. The show is created and co-hosted by Dr. Ryan Katz-Rosene (University of Ottawa) and Dr. Peter Andrée (Carleton University), and funded by the Shared Online Projects Initiative.

All episodes are freely available for use under a Creative Commons Licence 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND). Instructors and students of environmental politics everywhere are invited to use the podcasts in their own teaching and learning. Episodes cover a range of themes central to the study of environmental politics in a Canadian context, from environmental justice to federalism to climate action and more! Enjoy the show, and let us know what you think.

The Team

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Peter Andrée  is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University. He is cross-appointed in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies and in the Institute of Political Economy. Prof Andrée’s research focuses on the politics of food and the environment. His most recent project examines how the dairy sector in Aotearoa/New Zealand is responding to the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, considering this issue in the light of colonialism and agricultural adaptation on those islands over the last eight centuries. He practices, and teaches, community-based participatory research methods. Prof. Andrée’s latest book is Civil Society and Social Movements in Food System Governance (Routledge, 2019).

Prof. Andrée is a first generation immigrant to Canada from the Netherlands, and lives with his wife, Chris, and son, Nicolas, on unceded Algonquin territory alongside the Gatineau river in Québec. When not teaching or in research meetings, you can find him in a garden, on a bike, or in a canoe.

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Ryan Katz-Rosene is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Political Studies (with affiliation to the Institute of Environment). His research examines a range of domestic and international climate policy debates through the lenses of ‘environmental political economy’. Whether it's oil pipelines, high-speed trains, nuclear power, livestock rearing, recycling, biofuels, renewables, public transit, economic growth, plant-based proteins, or various proposed low-carbon technologies - Ryan is interested in delving into the environmental arguments and counter-arguments made about them, inasmuch as their social, political economic and ecological consequences. Off campus, Ryan serves as the President of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada, and as an editor for the journal Studies in Political Economy. His most recent book is a co-edited collection called Green Meat? Sustaining Eaters, Animals, and the Planet (with Dr. Sarah Martin; published by McGill-Queen’s University Press). He lives on a family farm near Wakefield, Quebec.

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Nicole Bedford
Technical Producer, The EcoPolitics Podcast

Nicole Bedford is a documentarian and media artist who uses media to explore textures of humanity in ways that inspire hope, justice, and introspection. Her work often follows ordinary people, and touches on themes of identity, power, and interconnectedness. Nicole’s ultimate goal with any project is to foster compassion and community building by reconnecting viewers with their inner selves and with each other. When not creating, Nicole spends her time exploring nature, discussing complex topics over beers with friends, and performing bizarre and grotesque creatures with a Dungeons and Dragons improv troupe.

Website: nicolebedford.ca
Instagram: @NicoleBedfordFilms
Facebook: facebook.com/NicoleBedfordFilms

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Adam Ashby Gibbard
Web Designer, Artist & Art Director, The EcoPolitics Podcast

Adam is an interdisciplinary designer and digital illustrator who focuses on adding a creative eye to complex issues.

adamashbygibbard.com

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Allison Brown
Transcription Assistant

Allison Brown is pursuing a Master of Arts at Carleton University. Her interest areas are in political science, women and gender studies, and Indigenous studies. Allison has lived in Italy, Slovenia, and Spain, and hopes that her future pursuits will continue to lead her abroad.

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Ashley Fearnall
Pedagogical Tools Assistant

Ashley Fearnall is a masters' student at Carleton University and alumna of Trent University. Her experience in political offices and not-for-profit organizations have developed skills to support policy dialogues, a range of communications products, along with expertise in various event logistics. Outside of work and study, Ashley is a house plant enthusiast, curating the best new reads for her bookcase, and tackling various recipes in the kitchen.

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Kaleigh McIntosh
Transcription  Assistant

Kaleigh McIntosh is a graduate student in the second year of her Ph.D. with the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University. Her research interests are around the role of community as a component of generating socioecological resilience to climate change and disaster. Kaleigh has taken this research interest to her hometown of Fredericton, New Brunswick, to explore the role of community in river flooding and collaborative watershed governance. Outside of her studies, Kaleigh enjoys podcasting, going for walks with her dog Frankie, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with her friends.

Artist Statement

Ecopolitics - By Adam Ashby Gibbard - Click to view full image

Global Ecopolitics - By Adam Ashby Gibbard - Click to view full image

The EcoPolitics Podcast has been a serious challenge. Each piece is created in response to each episode, a kind of visualization of each topic and discussion. 

Season 1 focussed on Canada, where the images used are pre-1970 and sourced from the National Archives. They represent both how we as a nation choose to see ourselves, but also represented a time when the environment was seen and understood from a very different perspective.

The imagery for Season 1 is highly critical of a nation still stuck in a white capitalist settler colonial mindset that is at odds with reality. The 1960s was a turning point in our collective ecological understanding, but we have yet to escape the economic traditions planted in a vast and bountiful Canada.

Most of the success that is Canada has been at the expense of the BIPOC community, but primarily indigenous people who continue to struggle against Canada’s resource-centric existence and who have, even through repression, represented and upheld the symbiotic relationship we all need.

Season 2 brings a new challenge of helping people see a better future and the strength visualizing that promise can have on our collective imagination and determination.

The collection of art I've created through this series is meant to challenge. You may not agree with my perspective, or the images used, but ecopolitics should be a moment of self-reflection and of understanding your own position in the balance of nature and humanity.

- Adam Ashby Gibbard

Contact

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Funding

Funding for this podcast series was provided by Carleton University and the University of Ottawa through the Shared Online Projects Initiative.

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At Carleton University the ecopolitics podcast is administered through the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation by Genevieve Harrison.