An EconoTimes perspective

Catherine Windey

PhD Researcher, Development Studies, University of Antwerp

PhD Researcher, Development Studies, University of Antwerp My research focuses on global environmental politics –in particular on market-based mechanisms for forest conservation such as REDD+– and how they reconfigure and are resisted by socio-spatial identities and socio-ecological relationships in so-called 'developing' countries. I approach this topic through two main lenses. First, through the analysis of material-discursive practices that reshape environment, space and society within the global ‘abstract space’ of instrumental rationalisation and capitalist exchange-ability. Second, through the empirical study of diverse everyday socio-spatial, economic, cultural and political practices in relation to the natural environment and of local understandings of environmental change. Over the last five years, I have conducted fieldwork in DR Congo.