Bio-bibliography + Videoclip

Spain

Joan Martínez Alier

2020 Balzan Prize for Environmental Challenges: Responses from the Social Sciences and the Humanities

For the exceptional quality of his contributions to the foundation of ecological economics, his pathbreaking analysis of the relationships between economies and the environment, his interdisciplinary as well as comparative approach, and his active role in the promotion of environmental justice.

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Biographical and Bibliographical Data

Joan Martínez Alier was born on 6 June 1939 in Barcelona, Spain.
Professor Emeritus at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Senior Researcher at ICTA (2010-).
After graduating in Economics from the University of Barcelona in 1961, he continued his studies in economics at St Antony’s College, Oxford and at Stanford. Researcher at St Antony’s College, Oxford (1966-1973). PhD in Economics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1976). He went back to St Antony’s College, Oxford as Senior Associate Fellow in (1984-1985). He became full Professor in the Department of Economics and Economic History at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1976-2009), Emeritus (2009).
Visiting Professor at the Free University of Berlin, at Stanford and at UC Davis. Emeritus Professor, FLACSO, Quito, Ecuador (since 2010). Honoris Causa Doctorate, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina, Nov. 2014). Founding member and Past President of the International Society for Ecological Economics. Member (2000-2008) of the scientific committee, European Environment Agency.
He co-founded the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, ICTA-UAB in 2000, which has flourished into an institute with seven ICREA professors and eight ERC grants (2020), with about 25 doctoral theses per year.

His most representative works include

-Handbook of Ecological Economics. Edited with Roldan Muradian. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2015.
-Developments in Ecological Economics. Edited with Inge Ropke. 2 vols, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2008.
-Ecological Economics from the Ground Up. Edited with H. Healy, L. Temper, M. Walter, J.F. Gerber. Routledge, London, 2013.
-Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change. Edited with A. Hornborg and J.R. McNeill. AltaMira Press, Lanham, 2007.
-The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2002; Oxford U.P. Delhi, 2005. (Trans. French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian: Ecologia dei Poveri. La lotta per la giustizia ambientale. Jaca Book, Milano, 2009).
-Economía ecológica y política ambiental. With Jordi Roca. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2002, 3rd ed. 2014.
-Naturaleza Transformada. Estudios de Historia Ambiental en España. With M. Gonzalez de Molina. Icaria, Barcelona, 2001.
-Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South. With Ramachandra Guha. Earthscan, London, 1997 and Oxford U.P. Delhi, 1998. (Trans. Spanish, Portuguese).
-Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of Ecological Economics. Edited with R. Costanza and O. Segura. Island Press, Washington D.C., 1996.
-Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment and Society. With Klaus Schlüpmann. Blackwell, Oxford, 1987, 1990. (Trans. Japanese, Spanish, Italian: Economia Ecologica. Energia, Ambiente e Società. Garzanti, Milano, 1991).
-Haciendas, Plantations and Collective Farms. Cuba and Peru. Library of Peasant Studies, Frank Cass, London, 1977. Trans. Spanish.
-Labourers and Landowners in Southern Spain. St Antony’s College Publications, Allen & Unwin, London, 1971. Trans. Spanish.

Since 2012, he has served as co-director of the Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas). It counts with over one hundred academic and activist collaborators at ICTA-UAB and around the world. The EJAtlas is a very large database of ecological distribution conflicts (with 3270 entries by September 2020) in open access for research and teaching on the global movement for environmental justice, which it supports.

Some recent articles

Scheidel, A., Liu, J., Del Bene, B., Navas, G., Mingorría, S., Demaria, F., Avila, S., Roy, B., Ertor, I., Temper, L., Martínez-Alier, J. 2020. Environmental conflicts and defenders: a global view. Global Environmental Change, 63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102104.
Pérez-Rincón, M., Vargas-Morales, J., Martínez-Alier, J. 2019. Mapping and Analyzing Ecological Distribution Conflicts in Andean Countries. Ecological Economics. 157: 80-91.
Temper, L., Demaria, F., Scheidel, A., Del Bene, D., Martínez-Alier, J. 2018. The Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas): ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability. Sustainability Science. 13(3): 573-584.
Scheidel, A., Temper, L., Demaria, F., Martínez-Alier, J. 2018. Ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability: an overview and conceptual framework. Sustainability Science. 13(3): 585-598.
Samaniego, P., Vallejo, M.C., Martínez-Alier, J. 2017. Commercial and biophysical deficits in South America, 1990-2013. Ecological Economics. 133: 62-73.
Martínez-Alier, J., Temper, L., Del Bene, D., Scheidel, A. 2016. Is there a global environmental justice movement? Journal of Peasant Studies. 43(3): 731-755.
Hornborg, A., and Martínez-Alier, J. 2016. Ecologically unequal exchange and ecological debt. (eds. special issue). Journal of Political Ecology. 23: 328-333.
Martínez-Alier, J., Demaria, F., Temper, L., Walter, W. 2016. Changing social metabolism and environmental conflicts in India and South America. Journal of Political Ecology. 23: 467-491.
Rodríguez-Labajos, B., Martínez-Alier, J. 2015. Political ecology of water conflicts. WIREs Water, 2(5), 537-558.
Temper, L., Del Bene, D., Martínez-Alier, J. 2015. Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas. Journal of Political Ecology. 22: 255-278.
Anguelovski, I., Martínez-Alier, J. 2014. The Environmentalism of the Poor revisited: Territory and place in disconnected glocal struggles. Ecological Economics. 102: 167-176.
Martínez-Alier, J., Anguelovski, I., Bond, P., Del Bene, D., Demaria, F., Gerber, J.-F., Greyl, L. Haas, W. Healy, H., et al. 2014. Between activism and science: grassroots concepts for sustainability coined by Environmental Justice Organizations. Journal of Political Ecology. 21: 19-60.
Muradian, R., Walter, M., Martínez-Alier, J. 2012. Hegemonic transitions and global shifts in social metabolism: Implications for resource-rich countries. Introduction to the special section. Global Environmental Change (eds. special issue). 22(3): 559-567.
Martínez-Alier, J. 2011. The EROI of agriculture and its use by the Via Campesina. Journal of Peasant Studies. 38(1): 145-160.
Martínez-Alier, J., Pascual, U., Vivien, F.D., Zaccai, E. 2010. Sustainable de-growth: Mapping the context, criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm. Ecological Economics. 69(9): 1741-1747.