Federico Demaria
I am a Serra Hunter Associate Professor in Ecological Economics and Political Ecology at the University of Barcelona (UB). My main research interest is understanding the interactions between society, environment, and economy. In particular, my research aims to inform theory on how these interactions are shaped, politicized, and contested. I am also a senior researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, a prestigious interdisciplinary centre of environmental research (ranked 8th in environmental studies by the Center for World University Rankings). I have been a visiting scholar at research centers in India, China, USA, UK, Netherlands, Croatia, Germany, Italy and Argentina. I have a consolidated experience in international and national competitive research projects. For instance, I have been the deputy coordinator of the ERC project EnvJustice (led by Prof. Joan Martinez-Alier) which mapped and analysed the social conflicts between the environment and the economy (2016-2021; 2 million €). Currently, I am the Principal Investigator at UB of the project 'Towards a sustainable wellbeing economy: integrated policies and transformative indicators' (ToBe) funded by Horizon Europe (2023-2026; 3 Million € in total, 536.000 € for UB). I am also PI of the project 'WASTECARE' funded by the Municipality of Barcelona (2022-2024; 60.000 €), and two Caixa Inphinit Fellowships (120.000 € each; 2019-2023 & 2020-2024). Last, I am the Co-PI with Dan O’Neill of the project, coordinated by UB, ‘Models, Assessment, and Policies for Sustainability’ (MAPS) funded by Horizon Europe (2024-2028; €5M).
Overall, I have published more than 25 articles in highly ranked journals in socio-environmental sciences like Ecological Economics, Global Environmental Change, and World Development, 40 book chapters, as well as edited 7 special issues, and 2 successful books: Degrowth (Routledge, 2014) and Pluriverse (2019). Moreover, I am co-author of the book “The case for degrowth” (Polity Press, 2020), and author of “The political ecology of informal waste recyclers in India” (Oxford University Press, 2023). My publications regularly get translated into other languages, most notably Degrowth (2014) into more than 10.
I am an editor for the journal of Sustainability Science (Impact factor 2021: 7.196; Q1 in 7 disciplines) that offers insights into interactions within and between nature and the rest of human society, and the complex mechanisms that sustain both. I am a member the Editorial Board of Ecological Economics (Impact factor 2022: 6.78; Q1 in Economics and Econometrics, as well as in Environmental Science), a journal concerned with extending and integrating the understanding of the interfaces and interplay between "nature's household" (ecosystems) and "humanity's household" (the economy). I am also an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change). I have proven experience in teaching and mentoring, that I consider an essential part of my professional and intellectual activity.
I have given over 200 talks and presentations in more than 30 countries mainly at scientific conferences, but also for the general public and policy makers, including at the House of Commons, Oxford University, and the European Commission. I am also active on academic social networks with personal profiles at Academia.edu and ResearchGate (with more than 150.000 views in each). Lastly, aiming to ensure a wide outreach of my research, I regularly publish press articles in English, Spanish, French and Italian, in newspapers like The Guardian, The Ecologist, The Conversation, Open Democracy, eldiario.es (Spain) and Mediapart (France).
In 2023 the International Society for Ecological Economics awarded me the Bina Agarwal Prize for Young Scholars in Ecological Economics in recognition of the substantial and original contributions I have made in mapping environmental justice and conflicts; studying the ecological economics of waste management in the Global South; engaging with post-development that implies both an ecological and cultural critique of development; and building an ecological macroeconomics for degrowth.
The primary questions motivating my research in the coming years are these: 1) Why are natural resources and environmental impacts unequally distributed? And how does this occur? 2) Which public policies could promote more socially just and ecologically sustainable worlds? And how could this be achieved? In pursuit of answers to these questions I have developed an ambitious two-pronged research agenda. First, I engage with a critique of growth-based development that depoliticizes genuine political antagonisms between alternative visions, as well as investigate the resistance it faces; and second, I will inquire into the alternative imaginaries.
Supervisors: Joan Martinez Alier, Giorgos Kallis, Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Ashish Kothari, Alberto Acosta, and Enric Tello
Overall, I have published more than 25 articles in highly ranked journals in socio-environmental sciences like Ecological Economics, Global Environmental Change, and World Development, 40 book chapters, as well as edited 7 special issues, and 2 successful books: Degrowth (Routledge, 2014) and Pluriverse (2019). Moreover, I am co-author of the book “The case for degrowth” (Polity Press, 2020), and author of “The political ecology of informal waste recyclers in India” (Oxford University Press, 2023). My publications regularly get translated into other languages, most notably Degrowth (2014) into more than 10.
I am an editor for the journal of Sustainability Science (Impact factor 2021: 7.196; Q1 in 7 disciplines) that offers insights into interactions within and between nature and the rest of human society, and the complex mechanisms that sustain both. I am a member the Editorial Board of Ecological Economics (Impact factor 2022: 6.78; Q1 in Economics and Econometrics, as well as in Environmental Science), a journal concerned with extending and integrating the understanding of the interfaces and interplay between "nature's household" (ecosystems) and "humanity's household" (the economy). I am also an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change). I have proven experience in teaching and mentoring, that I consider an essential part of my professional and intellectual activity.
I have given over 200 talks and presentations in more than 30 countries mainly at scientific conferences, but also for the general public and policy makers, including at the House of Commons, Oxford University, and the European Commission. I am also active on academic social networks with personal profiles at Academia.edu and ResearchGate (with more than 150.000 views in each). Lastly, aiming to ensure a wide outreach of my research, I regularly publish press articles in English, Spanish, French and Italian, in newspapers like The Guardian, The Ecologist, The Conversation, Open Democracy, eldiario.es (Spain) and Mediapart (France).
In 2023 the International Society for Ecological Economics awarded me the Bina Agarwal Prize for Young Scholars in Ecological Economics in recognition of the substantial and original contributions I have made in mapping environmental justice and conflicts; studying the ecological economics of waste management in the Global South; engaging with post-development that implies both an ecological and cultural critique of development; and building an ecological macroeconomics for degrowth.
The primary questions motivating my research in the coming years are these: 1) Why are natural resources and environmental impacts unequally distributed? And how does this occur? 2) Which public policies could promote more socially just and ecologically sustainable worlds? And how could this be achieved? In pursuit of answers to these questions I have developed an ambitious two-pronged research agenda. First, I engage with a critique of growth-based development that depoliticizes genuine political antagonisms between alternative visions, as well as investigate the resistance it faces; and second, I will inquire into the alternative imaginaries.
Supervisors: Joan Martinez Alier, Giorgos Kallis, Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Ashish Kothari, Alberto Acosta, and Enric Tello
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Political ecologies of waste by Federico Demaria
This book analyses how modern waste policies marginalise waste pickers, triggering conflicts in cities across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Drawing on over 70 conflicts documented in the Global Environmental Justice Atlas, the book explores how privatisation, incineration, and waste enclosures displace informal recyclers and worsen the sustainability crisis. These processes exemplify “Capital Accumulation by Dispossession,” as waste streams are enclosed and privatised, excluding waste pickers, and “Capital Accumulation by Contamination,” as environmental burdens are shifted onto marginalised communities. The book also showcases waste pickers’ resilience as they organise to fight for justice and equitable waste systems.
Essential for scholars, policymakers, and activists in environmental justice, development, and urban studies, this book reveals the structural drivers of waste conflicts and the transformative power of grassroots resistance in shaping sustainable and inclusive urban futures.
Keywords: Waste pickers, Environmental justice, Informal recycling, Political ecology, Global South, Urban waste management, Ecological economics, Privatization of waste, Waste conflicts, Inclusive waste systems
More info here (30% discount code at Routledge website: CDC25):
https://www.routledge.com/Contested-Waste-Environmental-conflicts-and-waste-picker-resistance-in-the-Global-South/Demaria-Vico-Gabard/p/book/9781032742816?srsltid=AfmBOorT57DC6dgv6Jni3_x2Zj6Qdu73CLtYDuxdx5haMZ1qyvj-VpMl
ENDORSEMENTS
"Deliege’s paradox – the more essential the work, the more undervalued the workers - is nowhere more evident than in urban waste. Not only does this book illustrate the global relevance of this paradox, it also illuminates the sharply conflictual experience of exploited informal labour. An antidote to labour-displacing ‘engineering solutions’ in waste management, this authoritative volume, resulting from the great Environmental Justice Atlas, maps the social frictions around waste and finds waste-workers’ resistance key to social development. Essential reading for waste-istas!"
Barbara Harriss-White, Oxford University, Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College
"In this comprehensive volume, waste pickers are the authors and agents of transformative change. They confront the forces of privatization, enclosure, and corruption to provide critical services for our communities. These are the garbage wars of the 21st century and we will know no peace until the waste pickers have prevailed!"
David N. Pellow, University of California Santa Barbara; author of ‘Garbage Wars’ (MIT Press, 2004) and ‘What is Critical Environmental Justice?’ (Polity Press, 2017)
"Contested Waste casts a bright light on the changing political economy of informal waste picking in the Global South in the face of urban transformation, privatization and waste commodification. Focusing attention on conflict, competition and resistance on one of the largest global resource frontiers, it is a must-read for anyone interested in environmental justice, urban politics and activism, or the politics of waste."
Kate O’Neill, Berkeley University; author of ‘Waste’ (Polity Press, 2019)
Highlights
• Accumulation by Contamination (AbC) is the process by which capital socialises the costs of contamination.
• Comparative analysis of waste management conflicts in Delhi and Naples shows how the cost of contamination is socialised.
• Subsidies and the financialisation of the waste sector favour capital accumulation practices involving dispossession and contamination.
• The concept of AbC sheds new light on the driving forces of environmental conflicts and why social metabolism changes the way it does.
• It explains why diverse actors in environmental justice movements unite and mobilise and how their alliances emerge.
Keywords: Ecological distribution conflicts, Social metabolism, Environmental justice, Accumulation by dispossession, Accumulation by contamination, Waste management, Waste-pickers
- Presents an in-depth overview on the informal recycling in the Global South that, according to the World Bank, employs 1% of the urban population in developing countries
- The struggles by informal recyclers are discussed as a case of urban 'environmentalism of the poor', because by defending their livelihood they defend the environment.
ABSTRACT
Waste is increasingly a site of social conflict. The questions related to waste management are not merely technical; what, how, where, and by whom become intrinsically political questions. This book is about the power relations in recycling, from the viewpoint of political ecology and ecological economics. Informal waste recyclers are invisible for citizens and public policy. This book focuses on environmental conflicts involving them, with two emblematic case studies from India. Firstly, ship breaking, where the metabolism of a global infrastructure, namely shipping, shifts social and environmental costs to very localized communities in order to obtain large profits. Secondly, the conflict around municipal solid waste management in Delhi shows how environmental costs are shifted to urban residents, and recyclers are dispossessed of their livelihood source: recyclable waste. The first is an example of capital accumulation by contamination, while the second involves both dispossession and contamination. The struggles of informal recyclers constitute an attempt to re-politicize waste metabolism beyond techno-managerial solutions by fostering counter-hegemonic discourses and praxis. The book presents a range of experiences, mostly in India but with examples from all over the world, to inform theory on how environments are shaped, politicized, and contested.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction: Waste Is Increasingly a Site of Social Conflict
2. Theoretical Framework: Ecological Economics, Political Ecology, and Waste Studies
3. Shipbreaking in Alang: A Conflict Against Capital Accumulation by Contamination
4. Delhi's Waste Conflict: An Unlikely Alliance Against Capital Accumulation by Dispossession and Contamination
5. Informal Waste Recyclers and Their Environmental Services: A Case for Recognition and Capital De- Accumulation
6. Conclusions: How Environments Are Shaped, Politicized, and Contested.
AUTHOR: Federico Demaria, Associate Professor of Ecological Economics and Political Ecology, University of Barcelona
REVIEWS
"Federico Demaria has given us a gem of a book... it is the kind of book to which the reader tends to return to because yet another element suddenly is in play. It is partly the complexity of the conditions he has engaged and the vastness of the elements in play. It is the type of book that helps us learn something we had not considered or thought about. His analysis covers a large variety of elements, from environmental conflicts to giving voice and presence to the poor and forgotten. It is a must-read." -- Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, New York, and author of Expulsions
"Our planet is not only a tap of resources, it is also the sink of our wastes. Their disposal - technocratised and invisibilised - is key to planetary survival. In this book, rich in ideas and evidence drawn from waste ships, consumption waste and socially marginalised recyclers of waste, Federico Demaria remedies this dangerous neglect to reveal the political-ecological conflicts at play in India's far-from-circular economy and to theorise accumulation by cost-shifting and contamination. An innovative, essential and authoritative source for all researchers, activists, policy-makers and enforcers concerned about unsustainable development." -- Barbara Harriss-White, Professor of Development Studies, University of Oxford; an author of "India working: Essays on society and economy"
"This book delves deeply into unseen aspects of poverty in India, discusses the environmentalism of the poor, and clarifies the debates on the so-called circular economy. We know that the industrial economy is entropic. This book is a major contribution to research on the economy of the Entropocene." -- Joan Martinez Alier, Autonomous University of Barcelona, and author of Environmentalism of the Poor
"Demaria makes a timely and important contribution to political ecology, demonstrating that neither the political economy nor materiality can be considered as "context" since they are always already co-constituted. The book's rich analysis exposes how the politics around social metabolism is intrinsically linked to the struggle against exploitation, dispossession, and contamination" -- Maria Kaika, University of Amsterdam, author of City of flows: Modernity, nature, and the city and co-editor of Turning up the Heat: Urban Political Ecology for a Climate Emergency, with Keil, Mandler and Tzaninis
"Based on more than ten years of field experience and two case studies in India, Federico Demaria provides a perceptive and compelling exploration of the power relations at the heart of recycling in the global South. His detailed discussion of the conflicts that exist in the recycling sector, both locally and globally, not only highlights social, political, and institutional dynamics but sensitively tells the story of informal recyclers, or waste pickers, whom he identifies as important environmental workers. Ultimately, Demaria makes an impassioned plea for a fair and just evaluation of the contribution made by waste pickers who stand at the front line of climate change resilience." -- Libby McDonald, Lecturer and Inclusive Economies Lead; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, D-Lab
"Drawing from many cases but particularly from the Delhi waste conflict around privatization of waste and introduction of incineration, the book traces back the struggles of workers and allies and makes a powerful call for the recognition of the crucial role informal waste workers make to the environment and the economy. The book makes a critical contribution to the growing knowledge of waste pickers by studying not only through a poignant narrative of conflicts and struggles but also by introducing key concepts for understanding the threats and the struggles for resistance." -- Sonia Dias, Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing
Highlights:
- We present a holistic analysis of anthropogenic waste production and its impacts.
- Each year humans waste more than 30% of most natural resources.
- Resource consumption is decoupled from population growth and unevenly distributed.
- Consequences of the Society of Waste include major environmental and social impacts.
- Degrowth and circular strategies are proposed to reduce the human footprint.
Find the article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721064378?via%3Dihub#!
Keywords: Natural resources, Social metabolism, Overconsumption, Waste, Environmental justice, Sustainability, Degrowth
KEYWORDS: World ecology, environmental justice, discard studies, political ecology, social metabolism, environmental conflicts
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2019.1694553