Ana Isla – författare

Building on the classical works that have propelled and shaped ecosocialist thinking and action and more recent political developments on the ground, the volume will provide a reference point for international work in the field, both directly political and academic.The Handbook acquaints readers with the varied roots of and sometimes conflicting approaches to ecosocialism. It does not attempt any unification of ecosocialist currents. Rather, it aims to provide a resource that is as comprehensive as possible with respect not only to theorization and ideological framing, but also and especially to existing projects, practices, and movements and giving a sense of the geographical reach that ecosocialism so far represents. This includes scholarship that extends Marxist foundations and reflects on more recent political developments. The theoretical and practice-oriented moorings are buttressed by discussions on movements, frameworks, and prefigurative processes as well as on social struggles occurring within institutional settings. Together, the collection offers a reference point for international work in the field, in social movements, and in institutional transformations.Providing detailed but accessible overviews of the complex, varied dimensions of ecosocialism, the Handbook is an essential up-to-date guide and reference not only for researchers, but also for undergraduate and graduate students in geography, environmental studies, development studies, sociology, and political science, as well as for policymakers and activists.

Building on the classical works that have propelled and shaped ecosocialist thinking and action and more recent political developments on the ground, the volume will provide a reference point for international work in the field, both directly political and academic.The Handbook acquaints readers with the varied roots of and sometimes conflicting approaches to ecosocialism. It does not attempt any unification of ecosocialist currents. Rather, it aims to provide a resource that is as comprehensive as possible with respect not only to theorization and ideological framing, but also and especially to existing projects, practices, and movements and giving a sense of the geographical reach that ecosocialism so far represents. This includes scholarship that extends Marxist foundations and reflects on more recent political developments. The theoretical and practice-oriented moorings are buttressed by discussions on movements, frameworks, and prefigurative processes as well as on social struggles occurring within institutional settings. Together, the collection offers a reference point for international work in the field, in social movements, and in institutional transformations.Providing detailed but accessible overviews of the complex, varied dimensions of ecosocialism, the Handbook is an essential up-to-date guide and reference not only for researchers, but also for undergraduate and graduate students in geography, environmental studies, development studies, sociology, and political science, as well as for policymakers and activists.

Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the concept of sustainable development has become the basis for a vast number of “green industries” from eco-tourism to carbon sequestration. In The “Greening” of Costa Rica, Ana Isla exposes the results of the economist’s rejection of physical limits to growth, the biologist’s fetish with such limits, and the indebtedness of peripheral countries.Isla’s case study is the 250,000 hectare Arenal-Tilaran Conservation Area, created in the late 1990s as the result of Canada-Costa Rica debt-for-nature swaps. Rather than reducing poverty and creating equality, development in and around the conservation area has dispossessed and disenfranchised subsistence farmers, expropriating their land, water, knowledge, and labour.Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in these communities, Isla exposes the duplicity of a neoliberal model in which the environment is converted into commercial assets such as carbon credits, intellectual property, cash crops, open-pit mining, and eco-tourism, few of whose benefits flow to the local population.