Environmental Martyrs and the Fate of the Forests

Featuring Rob Nixon, Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Family Professor in the Humanities and the Environment at Princeton University and author of his most recent book, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor.

This talk will address the current surge in environmental martyrdom against the backdrop of the resource wars across the global South. Rob Nixon asks: what is the relationship between the sacrificial figure of the environmental martyr and the proliferation of sacrifice zones under neoliberal globalization? And, in the battles over the fate of the planet’s forests, what is the relationship between the fallen martyr and the felled tree?