Abbreviated title (ISO 4) J. Pol. Ecol. | Discipline Political ecology | |
Language English, French, Spanish Edited by Simon P.J. Batterbury, Casey Walsh, James Greenberg, Thomas K. Park Publisher University of Arizona Library (Archived in the USA) Frequency Annual, one continuous issue | ||
The Journal of Political Ecology is an annual open access peer-reviewed academic journal covering political ecology. It was established in 1994 as one of the first open access journals in the social sciences, by James B. Greenberg and Thomas K. Park (University of Arizona), to experiment with online formats and to showcase new work in the emerging field of political ecology. The current editors-in-chief, besides Greenberg and Park, are Simon P.J. Batterbury (Lancaster University and University of Melbourne) and Casey Walsh (University of California, Santa Barbara). There is an international editorial board.
The journal publishes Eric Wolf Prize papers submitted by early career scholars to the Society for Applied Anthropology annual meetings in the United States. Unlike the majority of academic journals it is produced free of charge for readers and authors using voluntary academic labour, and its website is hosted at the University of Arizona library. It is abstracted and indexed in Scopus, and the number of articles published, and citation inex, has risen substantially since 2014.
Scope
The scope of the journal is research into the linkages between political economy and human impact on the environment, particularly where there are inequalities in access to resources, or an increase in vulnerability, as a result of resource use or assertion of political power. Articles must address some aspect of this relationship, frames in political ecology, and topics have ranged from mining and indigenous peoples of Oceania, to drug production in Lesotho, marine protected area management in Vietnam, the sandalwood trade in East Timor, environmental pollution in post-communist countries, water consumption and management in the United States West and Mexico, and the plight of Adivasi peoples living in national parks in India. Special issues are occasionally published, for example Ecologies of Hope, edited by S. Ravi Rajan and Colin Duncan in 2013 and Non-capitalist political ecologies edited by Brian Burke and Boone Shear.
The four most important research areas covered by the 145 articles published as of late 2014 were 1) Food and agricultural issues 2) social aspects of conservation 3) fishing issues and 4) mining and social struggles.