Enrique Leff

Background

After a degree in chemical engineering from UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) in 1968. Leff graduated with a Doctorat de Troisième Cycle in development economics from the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, in 1975.

Leff lectured at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) full-time from 1973-1986 before becoming coordinator of the Environmental Training Network for Latin America and the Caribbean (1986-2008) and coordinator of the Mexico City office of the Regional Office of Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Environment Programme (2007-2008).

In 2008 he returned full-time as professor of political ecology and environmental politics at UNAM. He is also senior researcher at the Institute of Social Research (Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales) at the same university.

Leff works in Spanish, Portuguese, English and French. In addition to academic work he is an accomplished opera, Lieder and bolero singer. He has a Masters in Voice from the Manhattan School of Music (1983).

Scholarly contributions

Leff works in the academic fields of epistemology, environmental economics, environmental sociology, political ecology, and environmental education.

He is best known for arguing that environmental problems result from a crisis of Western civilization's ways of knowing, understanding and transforming the world (Eschenhagen 2012). This masks other legitimate ways of thinking and acting in the world, namely forms of 'eco-development' and environmental rationality. His work is largely theoretical but his major books cite positive examples of the ethnobotanic practices of Prehispanic cultures in Latin America, sustainable agricultural practices in tropical ecosystems, etc.

Recognition

Key publications