Dr Judith Krauss
Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Judith Krauss is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations, is a co-theme lead with Prof Rob Marchant for the York Environmental Sustainability Institute's (YESI) socio-ecological systems theme, and is a member of York's Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre (IGDC). She co-convenes the YESI Play for the Planet Network, and co-leads YESI events aimed at early-career researchers.

Her research and teaching addresses issues of justice, inequality and coloniality in sustainable development, especially focusing on trade and conservation. She is associate editor of the Journal of Political Ecology.

Her post-doctoral research at the University of Sheffield’s Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD, 2019-2022) entailed work on convivial conservation, ie promoting justice, (bio)diversity and coexistence in conservation, livelihoods and value chains in Mozambique during Covid, and decolonial and justice-focused analysis particularly of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Judith’s prior PhD research (Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, 2013-2016) focused on the intersection of ecological, socio-economic and commercial priorities in cocoa sustainability initiatives in Latin America, conceptualised through Global Production Networks. She also helped set up the Brooks Doctoral College and worked as a lecturer in Environment, Climate Change and Development/Pedagogies of Development at GDI (2016-18).

Before her PhD, Judith worked in civil-society, public-sector and private-sector organisations in Europe and North Africa, including German development cooperation, World Bank, IIED and the German Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Research

Overview

Judith's research interests focus on the environmental dimension and political ecology of nature-based value chains, decoloniality and justice in conservation, and the Sustainable Development Goals.

 At the University of York (2022-today), Judith has published with diverse colleagues on working beyond disciplinary silos on human-predator interactions (Biological Conservation), and human relations with loved and unloved others using the examples of squirrels in the UK (Journal of Political Ecology). She has also investigated the environmental polycrisis and agricultural global production networks (Journal of Economic Geography), rural livelihoods and power in value chains in Mozambique (Geoforum). In the Higher Education context, she has worked on building a decolonial perspective for pluriversities (Global Social Challenges), the role of problem-based learning for students, and the future of diamond open access journals challenging for-profit publishers. 

At the University of Sheffield (2019-22), Judith worked on the CONVIVA - convivial conservation research project with colleagues from the natural and social sciences at the University of Sao Paulo (BR), University of Helsinki (FI), Wageningen University (NL), University of Dodoma (TZ) and University of California at Santa Barbara (US) focusing on four apex predators: lions in Tanzania, wolves in Finland, jaguars in Brazil and bears in California. This has resulted in a collective special section in Conservation and Society and an interest in justice and decoloniality especially in the Sustainable Development Goals (Sustainable Development Goal 15, life on land in Globalizations, convivial conservation and decolonising in Journal of Political Ecology, a decolonial analysis of SDGs 8, 9, 12, 13 and 15 with Andrea Jimenez and Marina Requena in Sustainability Science). 

She was also part of the 'Livelihood impacts of coping with Covid in rural Mozambique' project with colleagues at the Universities of Edinburgh and Eduardo Mondlane and the Micaia Foundation, which traced how Covid exacerbated existing vulnerabilities and created new exposures (published in World Development). 

For her PhD, Judith investigated the environmental dimension of cocoa sustainability initiatives through a Global Production Networks lens, highlighting divergent stakeholder priorities across socio-economic, environmental and commercial dimensions (with Aarti Krishnan, Global Networks) and abiding power asymmetries in the cocoa sector (with Stephanie Barrientos, Geoforum).

Judith is passionate about public engagement, having worked on convivial conservation, flying-less, value chains and cocoa sustainability, including through research storytelling.

Supervision

PhD Supervision

• Kondwani Chikadza, The Government of Malawi's exercise of agency in a fragmented aid landscape and its implications for agricultural policy and practice
• Susy Williams, Intersecting exploitation, workers' rights and migration dynamics in the UK's garment industry
• George Shepherd, Exploring mining company narratives in the Salar de Atacama in Chile: rendering technically and socially extractible

Dr Judith Krauss welcomes PhD applications in the following areas:

• Sustainable value chains
• Sustainable development
• Decoloniality and justice in conservation
• Political ecology

Publications

Selected publications

• Convivial conservation: Implementing intellectual, collaborative and communicative praxis in a research project. New Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology.
  Coexistence beyond disciplinary silos: five dimensions of analysis for more convivial human-predator interactions. Biological Conservation (Open Access).
  The environmental polycrisis and global production networks: insights from agriculture in South Africa, Kenya, and Nicaragua. Journal of Economic Geography (accepted manuscript here).
• Sowing seeds in decolonial cracks for pluriversity: reflections from arts-research co-production on sustainability and justice themes. Global Social Challenges (Open Access).
  Armchair Sciurologist? Review of Peter Coates, Squirrel Nation: Reds, Greys and the Meaning of Home. Humanimalia (Open Access).
• Convivial conservation: From principles to practice. MayFly Books (Open Access).
• Livelihood changes in baobab and charcoal value chains in rural Mozambique during Covid-19: power, risk and stakeholder conventions. Geoforum (Open Access).
• Going back to the roots: Ubuntu and just conservation in southern Africa. Conservation and Society (Open Access).
• Exploring convivial conservation in theory and practice: possibilities and challenges for a transformative approach to biodiversity conservation. Conservation and Society (Open Access). Introduction to the special section ‘Exploring convivial conservation in theory and practice’.
• Going back to the roots: Ubuntu and just conservation in southern Africa. Conservation and Society (Open Access).
• Mapping the Sustainable Development Goals 8, 9, 12, 13 and 15 through a decolonial lens: falling short of 'transforming our world'. Sustainability Science (Open Access).
• Unpacking SDG 15, its targets and indicators: tracing ideas of conservation. Globalizations (Open Access).
• 'To prevent this disease, we have to stay at home, but if we stay at home, we die of hunger' – livelihoods, vulnerability and coping with Covid-19 in rural Mozambique. World Development (Open Access).
• Decolonizing, conviviality and convivial conservation: towards a convivial SDG 15, life on land? Journal of Political Ecology (Open Access). Special section edited by Dan Brockington, Esteve Corbera Elizalde and Sara Maestre Andrés.
• Plotting the coloniality of conservation. Journal of Political Ecology (Open Access). Global decisions vs. local realities: Sustainability standards, priorities and upgrading dynamics in agricultural global production networks. Global Networks (Open Access).
• Fairtrade and beyond: shifting dynamics in cocoa sustainability production networks. Geoforum.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Foundational Issues in Global Development
• Challenges in Global Development
• Advanced Issues and Skills in Global Development
• Green justice: From problems to solutions
• Sustainability Clinic

Postgraduate