Gustavo Garcia-Lopez | Universidade de Coimbra (original) (raw)
I am an environmental policy and politics scholar who studies human-environment interactions through the lens of institutional theory and political ecology. I am especially interested in commons and commoning initiatives and socio-environmental struggles in relation to the creation of more just and sustainable 'worlds in common'.
Since August 2015 I am an Assistant Professor in Environmental Planning at the Graduate School of Planning, University of Puerto Rico- Rio Piedras. Previous to this appointment, I was a Marie Curie Experienced Researcher (post-doctoral fellow) in the European Network for Political Ecology (ENTITLE) project at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB).
I obtained my PhD. in Public Policy and Political Science at Indiana University-Bloomington, with concentrations in Environmental Policy and Political Theory & Methods (Institutional Analysis), in 2012. I also have a Masters in Environmental Policy (Cambridge University, 2005) and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Geography (University of Puerto Rico- Rio Piedras, 2004).
My previous research focused on the politics and governance of commons in community forestry in Mexico, where I sought to understand the role that federated organizations of communities and histories social mobilization had in supporting the environmental, political and economic aspects of community forestry, and how these organizations shaped public policies and relations between communities and the state. I have also carried out similar research in Puerto Rico, where I recently edited a volume where community organizations told their own stories of community-based resource management (Ambiente y Democracia, University of Puerto Rico Press, 2018). My current research expands on this work, analyzing the links between social movements and community pro-commons initiatives and deepening the study of the relational dimensions of processes of commoning through which people 'become commoners' and participate 'in-common'. Finally, in the context of the 'disaster' in post-Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico, I am engaging more in the topic of the links between enviroenvironmental colonialism --always in the background of my work as a colonial subject from Puerto Rico-- disaster capitalism and environmental injustice of 'unnatural' disasters.
I am a firm believer in action-research and in actively engaging with civil society in my academic work and apart from it. I am one of the founding co-editors of the political ecology blog ENTITLE (entitleblog.org) and a co-founding member of JunteGente (juntegente.org), a space of encounters of organizations struggling for alternatives to neoliberal disaster capitalism in post-Maria Puerto Rico.
Supervisors: Jose Molinelli Freytes, Andreas Kontoleon, Unai Pascual, Camille Antinori, Leticia Merino, Michael McGinnis, Catherine Tucker, Elinor Ostrom, and Giorgos Kallis
less
Uploads
Papers by Gustavo Garcia-Lopez
Routledge eBooks, Apr 21, 2023
Ecology and Society, 2020
There are limited approaches available that enable researchers and practitioners to conduct multi... more There are limited approaches available that enable researchers and practitioners to conduct multiple case study comparisons of complex cases of collaboration in natural resource management and conservation. The absence of such tools is felt despite the fact that over the past several years a great deal of literature has reviewed the state of the science regarding collaboration. Much of this work is based on case studies of collaboration and highlights the importance of contextual variables, further complicating efforts to compare outcomes across case-study areas and the likely failure of approaches based on one size fits all generalizations. We expand on the standard overview of the field by identifying some of the challenges associated with managing complex systems with multiple resources, multiple stakeholder groups with diverse knowledges/understandings, and multiple objectives across multiple scales, i.e., multifaceted collaborative initiatives. We then elucidate how a realist methodology, within a critical realist framing, can support efforts to compare multiple case studies of such multifaceted initiatives. The methodology we propose considers the importance and impact of context for the origins, purpose, and success of multifaceted collaborative natural resource management and conservation initiatives in social-ecological systems.
The International Journal of the Commons, 2023
This paper aims to expand current understandings on the relationship between forest commoning, ci... more This paper aims to expand current understandings on the relationship between forest commoning, citizenship and democracy. For doing so, it presents a case study of a community forest in the periphery of Vigo city (Galicia, Spain). Using interviews and historical records of the city and the neighborhood, the paper tells the story of the emergence of a forest commons in relation to citizenship claims and struggles. Through time, communal practices of care for forest forge care-tizens, a self-organized form of citizenship performed through mutual care and care for the commons. This care-tizenship was enabled by commoners' affective relations to forests and more-than-human subjectivities. The conclusion underlines the mutually reinforcing relationship between commoning forests and citizenship, suggesting the importance of community forests as arenas to nurture alternative, expanded more direct, and ecological forms of democracy.
Routledge eBooks, Apr 21, 2023
The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology
Ecological Economics, 2022
Making Commons Dynamic, 2021
Ecological Economics, Jul 1, 2020
Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2021
Over the past few years, studies in political ecology and environmental justice have been increas... more Over the past few years, studies in political ecology and environmental justice have been increasingly connecting the commons and social movements empirically, giving shape to a new, distinctive body of research on commons movements. In our review, we first organize and synthesize empirical lessons from this body of literature. We then highlight recent theoretical efforts made by scholars to both bridge and transcend the gap between the theory of the commons and social movement theory. As we illustrate, movements can help create and strengthen commons institutions and discourses, as well as rescale them horizontally and vertically. This is particularly evident in the context of rural community-rights movements in the global South, as well as in new water and food commons movements and community energy movements in both the global South and North. Commons institutions, in turn, can serve as the basis of social mobilization and become a key frame for social movements, as shown in the ...
Political Geography, 2020
After Maria, "el desastre es la colonia" became a popular hashtag in social media and was observe... more After Maria, "el desastre es la colonia" became a popular hashtag in social media and was observed in graffiti and art in different parts of the country, and abroad. Yarimar Bonilla's paper continues emerging conversations amongst scholars and activists on how the colonial matrix of power is linked to the social production of disasters, and indeed, is itself a disaster. Engaging with these conversations, in this commentary I want to highlight six aspects that I consider central to a coloniality of disasters research project: necropolis and permanent war and exception; development as biocidal disaster; differential colonial vulnerabilities; climate colonialism and debt; disaster capitalism; and decolonial disaster subjectivities.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the c... more Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the commons. This interest corresponds to a growing quest for alternatives to capitalism in view of ongoing socio- ecological crises. As neoliberal capitalism intensifies enclosure of the commons, local actions to reclaim old commons and invent new ones to counter these processes are also on the rise. However, there are diverse conceptions of the commons, and pitfalls in their reproduction and in mobilizing this vocabulary in the dominant neoliberal individualistic culture. Our understanding remains limited about how spaces for commons and commoning practices can be expanded, as well as about specific practices, relations and imaginaries that support commons and subjectivities of being-in-common. This Special Issue on the “Commons, Commoning and Co-becomings” seeks to deepen our understanding of ‘actually-existing’ and ‘more-than- human’ commons in the world, and how ways of relating to them ...
lo Squaderno, 2013
Explaining the long-term success of collective or community-based natural resource governance is ... more Explaining the long-term success of collective or community-based natural resource governance is a complex endeavor. There are multiple theories and perspectives from which to draw on, and multiple external and internal forces at work. This paper addresses this question through the lens of common-pool resource (CPR) studies often referred to as the "theory of the commons" combined with insights from political ecology.
According to some authors, the sustainability of community-based natural resource management syst... more According to some authors, the sustainability of community-based natural resource management systems depends on the to mobilize against external threats and participate in social movements. In this paper we explore the validity of the conjecture via a meta-analysis of case studies where local resource use communities have mobilized against decommonization threats. In that aim, we first characterize the drivers of said threats and the way they impact essential characteristics of the commons management. Then we assess the extent to which the social movements contribute to "commonization" processes. As we found, although the impacts of "decommonization" drivers on CBNRM regimes and communities justify the participation of communities in social movements, the (positive) impact of these movements on said regimes and communities goes beyond those grievances.
Data to measure the social vulnerability and political dynamics of power restoration post-Hurrica... more Data to measure the social vulnerability and political dynamics of power restoration post-Hurricane Maria
A manual product of the ENTITLE project designed for the use of civil society organisations and a... more A manual product of the ENTITLE project designed for the use of civil society organisations and active citizens. The book offers an accessible insight into political ecology issues and provides intellectual and practical tools based from the experiences of the new generation of political ecologists trained within the project. Organized around the 5 main themes of the ENTITLE project: environmental conflicts, disaster capitalism, social movements, commons, and democracy, the book explains what is the contribution of a political ecology approach, defines key concepts and illustrates theories, methods and tools through a case studies' approach so to provide readers with accessible and transferable knowledge. The manual also seeks to reflect on how different scholars have defined this scholar-activist relation and to enhance collaborations between civil society and academia for the purpose of transforming current unjust and unsustainable social ecological arrangements
International attention has recently focused on finding ways to increase carbon storage in tropic... more International attention has recently focused on finding ways to increase carbon storage in tropical forests under the aegis of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & Forest Degradation (i.e. REDD+). Implicit in many of these discussions has been an assumption that national level payments for ecosystem services will be the most effective policy. Although there have been extensive studies of the causes of deforestation and reforestation in the tropics, none of these studies have focused on the effect of national-level policies on forest cover change. In order to evaluate the impact of these policies, members of the Social Ecological Systems Meta-analysis Database team are developing a systematic study of national level forest policies. In this paper we present initial findings, including the development of a systematic sampling frame which will allow us to produce generalizable results, as well as reports from an initial sample of 4 country case studies selected from Central America....
Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) were implemented in the United States through the Nationa... more Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) were implemented in the United States through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1970 as a method to integrate an “environmental rationality” into public policy and bureaucratic processes by conducting a holistic and multidisciplinary assessment that examines the consequences of development actions prior to it. In other words, the EIA is a component of good governance aimed at ensuring environmental protection, which in turn afects the welfare and development of our society. By means of a descriptive analysis, the present work analyzed twentythree (23) Environmental Impact Assessments carried out in Puerto Rico between the years 2005-2013. The documents were reviewed based on existing laws and regulations at a local level, as well as in the international literature about environmental assessments. The analysis showed some inconsistencies between the literature and the public policy for good environmental governance: inadequate pre...
Routledge eBooks, Apr 21, 2023
Ecology and Society, 2020
There are limited approaches available that enable researchers and practitioners to conduct multi... more There are limited approaches available that enable researchers and practitioners to conduct multiple case study comparisons of complex cases of collaboration in natural resource management and conservation. The absence of such tools is felt despite the fact that over the past several years a great deal of literature has reviewed the state of the science regarding collaboration. Much of this work is based on case studies of collaboration and highlights the importance of contextual variables, further complicating efforts to compare outcomes across case-study areas and the likely failure of approaches based on one size fits all generalizations. We expand on the standard overview of the field by identifying some of the challenges associated with managing complex systems with multiple resources, multiple stakeholder groups with diverse knowledges/understandings, and multiple objectives across multiple scales, i.e., multifaceted collaborative initiatives. We then elucidate how a realist methodology, within a critical realist framing, can support efforts to compare multiple case studies of such multifaceted initiatives. The methodology we propose considers the importance and impact of context for the origins, purpose, and success of multifaceted collaborative natural resource management and conservation initiatives in social-ecological systems.
The International Journal of the Commons, 2023
This paper aims to expand current understandings on the relationship between forest commoning, ci... more This paper aims to expand current understandings on the relationship between forest commoning, citizenship and democracy. For doing so, it presents a case study of a community forest in the periphery of Vigo city (Galicia, Spain). Using interviews and historical records of the city and the neighborhood, the paper tells the story of the emergence of a forest commons in relation to citizenship claims and struggles. Through time, communal practices of care for forest forge care-tizens, a self-organized form of citizenship performed through mutual care and care for the commons. This care-tizenship was enabled by commoners' affective relations to forests and more-than-human subjectivities. The conclusion underlines the mutually reinforcing relationship between commoning forests and citizenship, suggesting the importance of community forests as arenas to nurture alternative, expanded more direct, and ecological forms of democracy.
Routledge eBooks, Apr 21, 2023
The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology
Ecological Economics, 2022
Making Commons Dynamic, 2021
Ecological Economics, Jul 1, 2020
Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2021
Over the past few years, studies in political ecology and environmental justice have been increas... more Over the past few years, studies in political ecology and environmental justice have been increasingly connecting the commons and social movements empirically, giving shape to a new, distinctive body of research on commons movements. In our review, we first organize and synthesize empirical lessons from this body of literature. We then highlight recent theoretical efforts made by scholars to both bridge and transcend the gap between the theory of the commons and social movement theory. As we illustrate, movements can help create and strengthen commons institutions and discourses, as well as rescale them horizontally and vertically. This is particularly evident in the context of rural community-rights movements in the global South, as well as in new water and food commons movements and community energy movements in both the global South and North. Commons institutions, in turn, can serve as the basis of social mobilization and become a key frame for social movements, as shown in the ...
Political Geography, 2020
After Maria, "el desastre es la colonia" became a popular hashtag in social media and was observe... more After Maria, "el desastre es la colonia" became a popular hashtag in social media and was observed in graffiti and art in different parts of the country, and abroad. Yarimar Bonilla's paper continues emerging conversations amongst scholars and activists on how the colonial matrix of power is linked to the social production of disasters, and indeed, is itself a disaster. Engaging with these conversations, in this commentary I want to highlight six aspects that I consider central to a coloniality of disasters research project: necropolis and permanent war and exception; development as biocidal disaster; differential colonial vulnerabilities; climate colonialism and debt; disaster capitalism; and decolonial disaster subjectivities.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the c... more Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the commons. This interest corresponds to a growing quest for alternatives to capitalism in view of ongoing socio- ecological crises. As neoliberal capitalism intensifies enclosure of the commons, local actions to reclaim old commons and invent new ones to counter these processes are also on the rise. However, there are diverse conceptions of the commons, and pitfalls in their reproduction and in mobilizing this vocabulary in the dominant neoliberal individualistic culture. Our understanding remains limited about how spaces for commons and commoning practices can be expanded, as well as about specific practices, relations and imaginaries that support commons and subjectivities of being-in-common. This Special Issue on the “Commons, Commoning and Co-becomings” seeks to deepen our understanding of ‘actually-existing’ and ‘more-than- human’ commons in the world, and how ways of relating to them ...
lo Squaderno, 2013
Explaining the long-term success of collective or community-based natural resource governance is ... more Explaining the long-term success of collective or community-based natural resource governance is a complex endeavor. There are multiple theories and perspectives from which to draw on, and multiple external and internal forces at work. This paper addresses this question through the lens of common-pool resource (CPR) studies often referred to as the "theory of the commons" combined with insights from political ecology.
According to some authors, the sustainability of community-based natural resource management syst... more According to some authors, the sustainability of community-based natural resource management systems depends on the to mobilize against external threats and participate in social movements. In this paper we explore the validity of the conjecture via a meta-analysis of case studies where local resource use communities have mobilized against decommonization threats. In that aim, we first characterize the drivers of said threats and the way they impact essential characteristics of the commons management. Then we assess the extent to which the social movements contribute to "commonization" processes. As we found, although the impacts of "decommonization" drivers on CBNRM regimes and communities justify the participation of communities in social movements, the (positive) impact of these movements on said regimes and communities goes beyond those grievances.
Data to measure the social vulnerability and political dynamics of power restoration post-Hurrica... more Data to measure the social vulnerability and political dynamics of power restoration post-Hurricane Maria
A manual product of the ENTITLE project designed for the use of civil society organisations and a... more A manual product of the ENTITLE project designed for the use of civil society organisations and active citizens. The book offers an accessible insight into political ecology issues and provides intellectual and practical tools based from the experiences of the new generation of political ecologists trained within the project. Organized around the 5 main themes of the ENTITLE project: environmental conflicts, disaster capitalism, social movements, commons, and democracy, the book explains what is the contribution of a political ecology approach, defines key concepts and illustrates theories, methods and tools through a case studies' approach so to provide readers with accessible and transferable knowledge. The manual also seeks to reflect on how different scholars have defined this scholar-activist relation and to enhance collaborations between civil society and academia for the purpose of transforming current unjust and unsustainable social ecological arrangements
International attention has recently focused on finding ways to increase carbon storage in tropic... more International attention has recently focused on finding ways to increase carbon storage in tropical forests under the aegis of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & Forest Degradation (i.e. REDD+). Implicit in many of these discussions has been an assumption that national level payments for ecosystem services will be the most effective policy. Although there have been extensive studies of the causes of deforestation and reforestation in the tropics, none of these studies have focused on the effect of national-level policies on forest cover change. In order to evaluate the impact of these policies, members of the Social Ecological Systems Meta-analysis Database team are developing a systematic study of national level forest policies. In this paper we present initial findings, including the development of a systematic sampling frame which will allow us to produce generalizable results, as well as reports from an initial sample of 4 country case studies selected from Central America....
Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) were implemented in the United States through the Nationa... more Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) were implemented in the United States through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1970 as a method to integrate an “environmental rationality” into public policy and bureaucratic processes by conducting a holistic and multidisciplinary assessment that examines the consequences of development actions prior to it. In other words, the EIA is a component of good governance aimed at ensuring environmental protection, which in turn afects the welfare and development of our society. By means of a descriptive analysis, the present work analyzed twentythree (23) Environmental Impact Assessments carried out in Puerto Rico between the years 2005-2013. The documents were reviewed based on existing laws and regulations at a local level, as well as in the international literature about environmental assessments. The analysis showed some inconsistencies between the literature and the public policy for good environmental governance: inadequate pre...
We believe that this publication will be a useful tool for civil society organizations. While th... more We believe that this publication will be a useful tool for civil society
organizations. While there are multiple books on political ecology, all of
them are oriented towards an academic audience, either as introductory
textbooks (Robbins, 2012) or as comprehensive or partial compilations
of state-of-the-art theory and research in the field.