Welcome to the post-graduate networking hub!
If you are studying in the sociology, political ecology, emotions nexus, you are in the right place! This is our space to take over for the duration of the Political Ecology of Emotions Symposium.
Your hosts here are Leola Meynell and Matt Peryman, two post-grad students affiliated with Massey University. It is our hope that conversations sparked as part of the symposium lead to ongoing connection and collaborations.
SCROLL ON FOR NEW LIVE SESSION TIMES
There are several ways you can engage as part of the symposium including two live events:
- Let us know who you are and what you’re studying. You can share your research or responses to other presentations as part of the symposium by:
a) Leaving a comment on this page
b) Sending us a 30 second video intro, a presentation of your research, poem, artwork, storyboard, waiata (song) and we will post it on this page for others to engage with. Send to: masseyperc@gmail.com and mjperyman@gmail.com
- Come to the masterclass! On Thursday 8 September Professor Sango Mahanty and Dr. Lisa Trogisch will be hosting a workshop about empathy and other emotions in relation to research methodology. Come ready to share your reflections and challenges. Timings are 8-9AM UTC, 8-9PM Auckland, 10-11am Amsterdam, 6-7PM Canberra, 3-4PM Jakarta
Link: https://massey.zoom.us/j/3350407554
- Join us for the post-grad discussion seminar on Thursday 8 September. This event is hosted by us (Matt and Leola) and will bring together researchers from different disciplines and countries to showcase and discuss the multidimensional role of emotions in political ecology and socio-ecological research. Timings are: 9:30pm-10:30pm Auckland, 11:30am-12:30pm Amsterdam/Berlin, 4:30pm-5:30pm Jakarta, 7:30pm-8:30pm Canberra and 9:30am-10:30am UTC.
Link: https://massey.zoom.us/j/3350407554
- Let’s keep the conversation going! We would love to continue engagement beyond this initial symposium to bring our collective passion and expertise together and nurture an ongoing political ecology postgrad network. We look forward to hearing from you.
Leola Meynell - lmeynell@massey.ac.nz
Matt Peryman - mjperyman@gmail.com
Comments 10
Kia ora koutou and hello everyone, the postgrad networking hub is now open and live!
Please introduce yourselves below and tell us a bit about how your research connects with emotions and ‘the emotional’.
For example, I personally just finished my master’s research on Indigenous-led citizen science in response to plastic pollution here in Aotearoa New Zealand. It would be an understatement to say that there is a constant whirlwind of emotions in the pollution and climate science space. This can range from frustration, anxiety, and that feeling of helplessness (doom) that can come with discussions around pollution and climate change, but there is also so much empathy, inspiration, and hope in my peers that never fails to keep me moving forward. As a social researcher, I pay close attention to how these different emotions and emotional states play into and affect our research settings, collaborators, methodologies, and findings, as they always inevitably do.
How does the emotional play into your own research? Let us know in a comment! 🙂
Looking forward to meeting you all,
Matt
Hello! I’m Jack, a New Zealander currently doing a PhD in political ecology in France, at the Université Paris VIII.
My research doesn’t really relate emotions to political ecology in a broad sense, but I do (will!) spend a bit of time thinking about the difference between attempting to be the “masters of nature” as, among others, Descartes has written; and on the other hand, being masters of ourselves, our own minds, actions, affects/states, etc. I think these different postures towards the world have emotional consequences, and emotion could be a perspective from which we analyse the difference between ‘master of nature’ and ‘master of self.’
I’m a philosopher, so we don’t spend so much time on methodological questions in the practical sense, rather more in the theoretical and conceptual sense. Will try to join one of the panel sessions to meet some others!
à très bientôt! Jack
Kia ora Jack,
Thanks so much for sharing with us — your research sounds fascinating, and your links to “master of nature” conceptualisations makes me think of feminist critiques of human exceptionalism, or hero stories, in Western stories about the relationships between humans and environments… And the inevitable hierarchies of dominant/subordinate which human exceptionalism reifies. Thank you for your invitation to think a bit more about how attending to emotions in this space might enable movement and creative responses to the relationship between master of nature and master of self.
Looking forward to continuing the conversation at the post-grad sessions!
Best,
Leola
Hello, I am Maureen, A PhD student from Kenya studying at the University of Edinburgh. I am exploring emotions and how it connects to the exercise of power in human-elephant conservation spaces and how emotions give expressions to different types of conflicts. The goal is to challenge how we as conservationists design interventions that impact human lives. I think if we feel differently and allow ourselves to be affected by the lived experiences and daily struggles of people who are impacted by environmental shocks such as drought and scary interactions with elephants, we will develop just interventions. I am drawing on the works of feminist political ecologists and political ecologists to explore this topic more.
Looking forward to the post-graduate session and discussions
Lovely to meet you, Maureen!
Wow, what a fabulous area of research — thanks for bringing our attention to relationships between humans, more-than-humans, and companion species. I’m really interested to hear more about the relationship between power, emotions, and just interventions in your research with human-elephant conservation spaces. I think the post-grad masterclass on recognising emotions in the field will also open up space for us to hear more about your work. Exciting!
Best wishes,
Leola
Hello, I am Edwige. I am a French national pursuing my PhD with the International Livestock Research Institute based in Nairobi, Kenya and a PhD student at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. My PhD research is on the social and political dimensions of climate change adaptation processes among Maasai pastoralists in southern Kenya. For one of my planned articles, I am exploring lived experiences of adaptation processes, specifically of livelihood diversification practices among pastoralists, drawing from feminist political ecology works on subjectivities and emotions. I am looking forward to learning from the participants’ presentations and discussions.
Hi there Edwige,
Thank you for being here! Your research sounds fascinating, important, and very timely. I’m excited to learn more from you about how political ecology and the emotional play into your research with Maasai pastoralists. Climate change adaptation is a major interest of mine and I’m sure many others here, so it will be awesome to hear about their processes and experiences and how you plan to write about them in our postgrad discussion workshop. Looking forward to talking more!
All the best,
Matt
Hello!
I am from Ōamaru, New Zealand, and am currently enrolled in the postgrad honours course in sociology at Massey University.
I am relatively new to this area of sociology (and to postgrad studies in general) so I am here to hopefully learn a bit more about the subject matter. I am interested in pursuing a career in planning so I feel that this is an important area of sociology for me to be more familiar with. I am looking forward to meeting those of you who can make it to the masterclass and seminar next week.
Kind regards,
Ally 🙂
Kia ora Ally!
It is lovely to hear from you and thanks for your interest in tonight’s sessions! Your area of study sounds like a fascinating and very important space. Can’t wait to hear more about your thoughts on how it connects with this conversation around emotions in our postgrad discussion workshop later on.
All the best,
Matt
Hi folks,
I figure it’s time I introduced myself, as one of the post-grad session co-coveners! Like Matt, I’m also from Aotearoa New Zealand and based at Massey University. My PhD research is analysing how climate change is affecting women’s feelings and decisions about having children in post-industrialised societies. I’m based in Psychology, and admittedly my discipline doesn’t tend to focus much on the relationship between emotions and environmental issues. This is continually surprising to me, as it seems obvious to me that grappling with our unfolding environmental crises is going to require a whole lot of emotional and psychological adjustment.
It’s wonderful so far to see the many different disciplines represented here — and I wonder if you’re also in an academic discipline which you think could attend more to political ecology, or at least build interdisciplinary networks with political ecology researchers?
Best,
Leola