Mariko Frame - What is ecological imperialism? (And why is it a dirty word in some of US academia?)

This month on the pod we are delighted to be joined by Mariko Frame, who is Assistant Professor of Economics at Merrimack College in Massachusetts. Dr. Frame is a political economist who focuses on ecological imperialism, which occurs when one country subjugates another country by controlling the resources, politics, labour, military, and the very ideology or ways of worlding. This dynamic is often found between countries in the global North and global South due to the history of colonialism that underpins these relationships. Dr. Frame introduces the idea of ecologically unequal exchange and how that can help to empirically understand the inequalities between the global North and South. She uses this as a jumping off point to understand how, why these relationships are perpetuated and the power relations that drive them. While sometimes the outlook can be bleak, Dr. Frame reminds us to think about where your money is going and support the local environmental and Indigenous groups resisting the world-system in your local community. If you would like to engage with more of Dr. Frame’s work, check out her new book from Routledge, Ecological Imperialism, Development, and the Capitalist World-System: Cases from Africa and Asia. If you would like to hear another great talk by Dr. Frame, check out her contribution to Global South Encounters from the Global South Theme of the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), Development and the Environment.