What we are passionate about reading this month

by E. Widdel, V. Naidu, and C. Slatter (eds.)

Epeli Hau’ofa (1939-2009) played a crucial role in reimagining the place and status of the people of the Pacific Islands in the global community. A trenchant critic of predatory development, he dedicated his life to the promotion of Oceanian ways of creating and transmitting knowledge.
Remembering Epeli Hau’ofa tells his story and it offers moving insights into the enduring legacy of the thoughts and actions of a man who, in the view of many of his contemporaries, was perhaps “the finest Pacific Islander of our times”.

Link: https://doi.org/10.26021/15214

by Elsa Stamatopoulou

At the intersection of politics, law, and culture, this book documents the visionary emergence of the international Indigenous movement, detailing its challenges and achievements. The book shows how Indigenous participation became an increasingly assertive self-expression and even an exercise of self-determination by which Indigenous Peoples could both benefit from and contribute to the international community overall – now, crucially, by sharing their knowledge about climate change, their approaches to development and well-being, and their struggles against the impact of extractive industries on their lands and resources.

Link: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003464099

by Helen Scales

This book was gifted to the new team members as a welcome gift because it’s such a beautiful rendition of how extraordinary our deep ocean ecosystems actually are. The book is written by a marine biologist but it in a language that is highly accessible – it reads like a novel!

by Kate Beaton

Cartoonist Kate Beaton vividly presents the untold story of the oil sands in Canada, the country where Pascale, one of the researcher on the DSM project, is from. The graphic novel is an autobiography of Katie, who after graduating from Uni, gets a job in the Oil Sands in Alberta to pay for her student loans. The book is a sober yet highly emotional critical account of the reality of working in an extractive environment.

Link: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-kate-beaton-paid-off-her-student-loans

by A. Neef, C. Ngin, T. Moreda, and S. Mollett (eds)

This open access handbook provides a cutting-edge, comprehensive overview of global land and resource grabbing, including a section on deep sea resources. It presents and discusses resource grabbing research in a holistic manner by addressing how the rush for land and other natural resources, including water, forests and minerals, is intertwined with agriculture, mining, tourism, energy, biodiversity conservation, climate change, carbon markets, and conflict. The handbook is truly global and interdisciplinary, with case studies from the Global South and Global North, and chapter contributions from practitioners, activists and academics, with emerging and Indigenous authors featuring strongly across the chapters.

Link: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003080916