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Marta Conde

Postdoctoral Researcher

Marta holds the I3 certification from Ministerio de Universidades since 2022, the Marie Sklodowska Curie fellowship since 2021, and served as Co-PI of the Recercaixa project Activism Mobilising Science since 2018. She has coordinated and conducted research in 9 national and international projects focused on the intersection of social and environmental issues, all aimed at fostering justice and sustainability. Marta studies the political ecology of extractive industries focusing on the reactions, motivations, narratives, and strategies of social movements or local groups. Her research examines two strategies employed by these groups: i) activist and scientific alliances that co-produce knowledge and co-design strategies. Challenging STS studies (and working with colleagues in this field) she contends these alliances when led by local groups can avoid co-optation by scientists; and ii) environmental litigation, increasingly used by social movements, can cause demobilization, monopolization of narratives around legal demands and invisibilisation of harms and victims. Given the increase in demand of minerals for the energy transition her research has advanced to explore the case of nickel, a key mineral for batteries, and the governance of deep-sea mining (DSM). Durieng her Marie Curie Fellowship (GROUT), she is using political ecology, resource governance, environmental justice and theories of planetary urbanization to analyze the conflicts and governance arrangements in the expansion of mining frontiers to the peri-urban and hinterland areas.  Pioneering research linking post-extractivism and degrowth, she also argues for the need to reduce energy and material consumption if we are to avoid the expansion of green extractivism and crucially catastrophic climate change.

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Keywords

  • Political ecology
  • Social movements
  • Socio-environmental conflicts
  • Extractivism
  • Planetary urbanization
  • Science and activism
  • Resource governance
  • Degrowth

Affiliated Projects

  • GROUT

Selected Publications

C.1. Publications. Open Access (OA), in parenthesis citations in Scopus

  • Conde, M., Walter, M., Wagner, L., & Navas, G. (2023). Slow justice and other unexpected consequences of litigation in environmental conflicts. Global Environmental Change, 83, 102762. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102762, OA (0)
  • Andreucci, D., López, G. G., Radhuber, I. M., Conde, M., Voskoboynik, D. M., Farrugia, J. D., & Zografos, C. (2023). The coloniality of green extractivism: Unearthing decarbonisation by dispossession through the case of nickel. Political Geography, 107, 102997. DOI:10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102997, OA (1)
  • Conde, M., and Walter, M. 2022. Knowledge Co-Production in Scientific and Activist Alliances: Unsettling Coloniality. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, 8(1), 150-170. DOI:10.17351/ests2022.479 OA (8 citations in G.Scholar)
  • Conde, M, Sekulova, F. D’alisa, G. 2022. ‘When greening is not degrowth: cost- shifting insights’. In Savini F., Ferreira, A. and von Schönfeld (Eds.) Post-growth Planning. Cities Beyond the Market Economy’ K.C.. NY/London:Routledge. ISBN 978-100058403-5 (1)
  • Conde, M., Steinberg, P., Mondre, A., Peters, K. Mining questions of ‘what’and ‘who’: deepening discussions of the seabed for future policy and governance. Maritime studies, 21(3), 327-338. DOI:10.1007/s40152-022-00273-2 OA (2)
  • Conde, M. and Le Billon, P., 2017. Why do some communities resist mining projects while others do not?. The Extractive Industries and Society 4(3), 681-697. DOI:10.1016/j.exis.2017.04.009. (204)
  • Conde, M. 2016. Resistance to mining. A Review. Ecological Economics, 132: 80-90 DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.08.025 (171)
  • Conde, M. 2014. Activism mobilising science. Ecological Economics, 105, 67-77. DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.05.012 (42)
  • Conde, M., Walter, M., 2014. Commodity Frontiers. In D’Alisa, G., Demaria, F., & Kallis, G. (Eds.)., 2014. Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era. Routledge. ISBN 9781138000773. Translated to Spanish, Catalan, French, German, Korean, Portuguese, Greek in OA. (1484 citations in G.Scholar)
  • Conde, M., Kallis, G., 2012. The uranium rush and its Africa Frontier. Effects, reactions and social resistance. Global Environmental Change 22(3): 596-610. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.03.007 (51)

Other Interventions

  • Participated in debate ‘Regenerar l’economia davant la Covid i l’emergència climàtica‘ at UPF in January 2021 
  • Ongoing collaboration with the Yes to Life No to Mining (YLNM) network, with whom I co-organized a seminar series titled ‘Mining Boom in Europe’ from December 2020 to April 2021 at Pompeu Fabra University, shedding light on the EU’s regulatory plans and expansionary global extraction campaigns
  • Co-organization of international webinar entitled “Challenges and strategies for socially engaged scientists in Academia,” featuring contributions from scientists in Argentina and the US
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