Markus Kroger
Biographic Data
| ID | 88075 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Markus Kroger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Markus |
| FAMILY NAME | Kroger |
| SIGNATURE | KROGER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Helsinki |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7324-4549 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 517 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 39 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Transformative resistances to extractivisms
Global responsibility for Amazon conservation
Climate change, extractivist infrastructure and environmental conflicts at the Northern Sea-Polar Silk Road intersection
This study employs a political ecology lens to analyze the interconnections between extractive and infrastructural developments, reported climate change impacts and the experiences of affected communities in socio-environmental conflicts along the Northern Sea-Polar Silk Road. Python programming was employed to process Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) datasets, generating density information on ship movements and applying logarithmic scaling to …
Land-grabbing mafias and dispossession in the Brazilian Amazon
Green and climate colonialities
This article examines 16 environmental conflicts across the Arctic that demonstrate resistance to both climate and green extractive colonialisms. Resistance movements counter green-labelled developments, such as a 350 km road project in Ambler (Alaska) needed for copper extraction; large-scale wind power industries on Sámi territories; palladium and platinum mega-projects on Dolgan, Evenks, and Sámi lands in the Russian North; as well as the bigg…
Predators in the web of life
To better understand current conflicts related to human–wolf interactions in Finland, this article undertakes a longue‐durée examination of societal structural transformations and how they have influenced ways of relating to nature in the country. Through a world‐ecological perspective, we weave together a historical review and results of ethnographic fieldwork to explain how and why human–wolf relations in Finland transformed from indifferent co…
Separating the two faces of “bioeconomy”
This article analyzes the metadiscourse of bioeconomy and the ways in which bioeconomy is gaining new meanings in Brazil. We argue that the currently unfolding framing of Amazonian diverse economies in natural forests as part of a bioeconomy—on a par with, for example, soybean plantations—is a dangerous and misleading path. Recent reports framing the Amazon as a potential hotspot of bioeconomy are critically scrutinized. We find it important to d…
Toxic turn in Brazilian agriculture? The political economy of pesticide legalisation in post-2016 Brazil
Pesticides are becoming a key topic in critical academic research; they entail substantial negative global impacts on human health and other-than-humans’ existences. Even though decades of agroecological research and practice have demonstrated that no pesticides are needed to produce enough food, pesticides are still most typically taken for granted as an indispensable part of food production. In this article, we analyse events and policies throu…
Extractivismo Forestal - Uruguay
The adoption of earth-observation technologies for deforestation monitoring by Indigenous people
Deforestation monitoring is changing the nature of conservation practices in increasingly profound ways. This study illustrates how forest co-management by means of earth-observation technologies among Indigenous communities opens up new debates and perspectives on transformational actions for inclusion and equity in globalization. We analyze cases of drone adoption by the Shipibo Conibo and other Indigenous people on both sides (Peru and Brazil)…
Socio-ecological crises and global climate tipping points as difficulties for expanding extractivisms
The Arctic is often cast as a site where natural resources can be extracted with processes eased by retreating sea ice. This article argues that Arctic resource euphoria is misplaced – at least partly – due to the worsening climatic, ecological, and social crises that increase the costs and risks of extraction. Permafrost melt is making mineral and fossil fuel extraction riskier and more difficult, as extractive infrastructures – built with great…
From pro-growth and planetary limits to degrowth and decoloniality
In 2012, the European Commission (EC) introduced the new bio-based economy or bioeconomy policy project, since adopted by about 50 countries. Alongside politicians, various research and other interest groups have promoted the bioeconomy as inevitable, apolitical, and a triple-win strategy for nature, people, and the economy. Recently, bioeconomy is also actively promoted and framed as transformative. Yet what is transformative or even new in the …
Global extractivisms and transformative alternatives
This article examines global extractivisms and transformative alternatives; addressing: (1) access to and control over resources, (2) governance and recognition, (3) environmental-social harms, and (4) justice. The examination of these themes provides an understanding of the sociospatial links between extractivism and differentiated distribution of benefits and burdens. The study sheds light on the politics of recognition, including the discourse…
From extractivism to global extractivism
All the named authors were members of the Helsinki Research Working Group on Global Extractivisms and Alternatives, who jointly constructed this article. Equal authorship by all authors is recognised
Studying Complex Interactions and Outcomes Through Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Studying Complex Interactions and Outcomes Through Qualitative Comparative Analysis: A Practical Guide to Comparative Case Studies and Ethnographic Data Analysis offers practical, methodological, and theoretically robust guidelines to systematically study the causalities, dynamics, and outcomes of complex social interactions in multiple source data sets. It demonstrates how to convert data from multisited ethnography of investment politics, mobil…
On thin ice – The Arctic commodity extraction frontier and environmental conflicts
Agroforestry transitions
This article canvasses the current definitions and framings of “agroforestry” in different academic literature and policies. Three key framings of “agroforestry” are identified in the scholarship and explored for their differences. The findings suggest that the distinct schools of research on “agroforestry” focus on distinct points of departure, and these baseline situations from which transitions to what is called “agroforestry” occur vary in di…
Extractivisms, Existences and Extinctions
Frontiers of Existence
This article introduces a new concept, 'frontiers of existence', to highlight and demand more attention be placed on the lives of human and other-than-human beings whose possibilities to exist are extinguished or radically and negatively transformed at resource and commodity frontiers and demand more attention be placed on this. What happens to existences at these places has not been a central focus in prior studies utilizing political economy, p…
Field research notes on Amazon deforestation during the Bolsonaro era
An excerpt from field research diaries, after finishing a trip by car from Cuiaba to Santarem by Highway BR163, to study the situation of Amazon deforestation, fires, soybean, ranching and mining b
The potential of Amazon indigenous agroforestry practices and ontologies for rethinking global forest governance
This article explores the potential of Amazon indigenous agroforestry practices and forest understandings for making global forest governance more nuanced and thus rethinking the value of forests in the context of multiple global crises. Indigenous forest practices and their inherent knowledge are included in current global governance in very limited ways. Onto-epistemological openings in forest policies are needed in the face of converging clima…
Shifting frontier dynamics in Latin America
The concepts of resource frontier and commodity frontier are often treated interchangeably. This article suggests the benefits of clarifying these concepts because frontiers remain important analytics for understanding drastic land-use changes and other socio-environmental transformations. Based on long-term field research in different parts of South and Central America, we use frontier concepts as heuristic devices to analyze heterogeneous front…
Deforestation, cattle capitalism and neodevelopmentalism in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, Brazil
The recent upsurge of deforestation inside conservation areas requires empirical investigation of the causes and consequences of this alarming process. Local relations between the agents of cattle capitalism, neodevelopmentalism and contemporary deforestation, from politicians and ranchers to the traditional extractive populations of multiple-use conservation areas, are assessed. Whether, when, and how state, market, and cultural institutions sup…
The role of debt, death and dispossession in world-ecological transformations
This article theorises about the ways in which commodity frontiers replace forest commons. New insights are offered into the role of debt, enclosures, the death of human and extra-human natures, and the role of the state in historical processes through an analysis of historical material and recent scholarship on eastern Finland's role in global capitalist expansion in the nineteenth century. The article contributes to the general study of commons…
The new ‘sustainable communitarian’ logging schemes and their critique inside multiple-use conservation areas in the Brazilian Amazon
Deforestation has risen sharply in Brazil since 2012, and conservation areas are facing increased pressure. This article studies the rise of so-called ‘sustainable’, ‘communitarian’, and/or ‘cooperative’ logging schemes inside multiple-use conservation areas in the Amazon. The findings, based on fresh field research in Acre and Pará, reveal conflicts, problems, and risks associated with logging schemes, although they are portrayed in the internat…
From extractivism to global extractivism
All the named authors were members of the Helsinki Research Working Group on Global Extractivisms and Alternatives, who jointly constructed this article. Equal authorship by all authors is recognised
Finnish forest policy in the era of bioeconomy
Global extractivisms and transformative alternatives
This article examines global extractivisms and transformative alternatives; addressing: (1) access to and control over resources, (2) governance and recognition, (3) environmental-social harms, and (4) justice. The examination of these themes provides an understanding of the sociospatial links between extractivism and differentiated distribution of benefits and burdens. The study sheds light on the politics of recognition, including the discourse…
From pro-growth and planetary limits to degrowth and decoloniality
In 2012, the European Commission (EC) introduced the new bio-based economy or bioeconomy policy project, since adopted by about 50 countries. Alongside politicians, various research and other interest groups have promoted the bioeconomy as inevitable, apolitical, and a triple-win strategy for nature, people, and the economy. Recently, bioeconomy is also actively promoted and framed as transformative. Yet what is transformative or even new in the …
On thin ice – The Arctic commodity extraction frontier and environmental conflicts
Promotion of contentious agency as a rewarding movement strategy
The recent scholarship on social movement outcomes has called for explanations about how movements influence economic outcomes. This article demonstrates in practice how a dynamic and relational approach, coupled with a Bourdieuian analysis of social, symbolic, and territorial space, can be utilized in explaining the influence of movements in contentious politics around investment projects. Based on participant observation and comparison across t…
The political economy of 'flex trees
With the rise of 'bioeconomy', trees are receiving increasing attention. This contribution conducts a preliminary analysis of the trajectories and the main drivers of change in the rise of new, flexible and multiple uses of trees. It assesses the political dimensions involved in this transformation, which is simultaneously ongoing, anticipated and imagined. Notes are offered on the issues to be considered when the flex-crop framework is operation…
Birthing extractivism
Inter-sectoral determinants of forest policy
Neo-mercantilist Capitalism and Post-2008 Cleavages in Economic Decision-making Power in Brazil
The 2008 subprime crisis led to a global wave of bailouts and other political-economic measures by governments. These moves were seen as the rise of a new statism. Emerging giants, such as Brazil, introduced new growth policies and reinforced state-crediting of corporations. This article briefly discusses key institutional, structural and ideological lineages and dilemmas in post-2008 statism and capitalism in Brazil. Neo-mercantilist capitalism …
Shifting frontier dynamics in Latin America
The concepts of resource frontier and commodity frontier are often treated interchangeably. This article suggests the benefits of clarifying these concepts because frontiers remain important analytics for understanding drastic land-use changes and other socio-environmental transformations. Based on long-term field research in different parts of South and Central America, we use frontier concepts as heuristic devices to analyze heterogeneous front…
Deforestation, cattle capitalism and neodevelopmentalism in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, Brazil
The recent upsurge of deforestation inside conservation areas requires empirical investigation of the causes and consequences of this alarming process. Local relations between the agents of cattle capitalism, neodevelopmentalism and contemporary deforestation, from politicians and ranchers to the traditional extractive populations of multiple-use conservation areas, are assessed. Whether, when, and how state, market, and cultural institutions sup…
Agroforestry transitions
This article canvasses the current definitions and framings of “agroforestry” in different academic literature and policies. Three key framings of “agroforestry” are identified in the scholarship and explored for their differences. The findings suggest that the distinct schools of research on “agroforestry” focus on distinct points of departure, and these baseline situations from which transitions to what is called “agroforestry” occur vary in di…
The potential of Amazon indigenous agroforestry practices and ontologies for rethinking global forest governance
This article explores the potential of Amazon indigenous agroforestry practices and forest understandings for making global forest governance more nuanced and thus rethinking the value of forests in the context of multiple global crises. Indigenous forest practices and their inherent knowledge are included in current global governance in very limited ways. Onto-epistemological openings in forest policies are needed in the face of converging clima…
Ethno-territorial rights and the resource extraction boom in Latin America
In recent times a growing number of Latin American rural groups have achieved extended ethno-territorial rights, and large territories have been protected by progressive constitutions. These were the outcomes of extended cycles of national and transnational contentious politics and of social movement struggle, including collective South–South cooperation. However, the continent has simultaneously experienced a resource extraction boom. Frequently…
The role of debt, death and dispossession in world-ecological transformations
This article theorises about the ways in which commodity frontiers replace forest commons. New insights are offered into the role of debt, enclosures, the death of human and extra-human natures, and the role of the state in historical processes through an analysis of historical material and recent scholarship on eastern Finland's role in global capitalist expansion in the nineteenth century. The article contributes to the general study of commons…
Grievances, agency and the absence of conflict
The conflict over Veracel pulpwood plantations in Brazil — Application of Ethical Analysis
Separating the two faces of “bioeconomy”
This article analyzes the metadiscourse of bioeconomy and the ways in which bioeconomy is gaining new meanings in Brazil. We argue that the currently unfolding framing of Amazonian diverse economies in natural forests as part of a bioeconomy—on a par with, for example, soybean plantations—is a dangerous and misleading path. Recent reports framing the Amazon as a potential hotspot of bioeconomy are critically scrutinized. We find it important to d…
The Expansion of Industrial Tree Plantations and Dispossession in Brazil
The recent expansion of tree plantations is the most important agrarian change in many parts of Brazil. This article uses the results of extensive field research to analyse the different ways paper and pulp companies assure their land base for eucalyptus plantations. The mechanisms of land access have changed little over the decades, amounting to a process of primitive accumulation which seems to be controlled by the ways the pulp industry influe…
Spatial Causalities in Resource Rushes
Since the mid-2000s, the world has seen an unprecedented expansion in corporate resource extraction. This global phenomenon has not been restricted to the Global South, but has also been, unexpectedly and interestingly, felt in the Global North in contexts that were considered to be ruled by political systems where the impacts of rapid resource extraction would not be felt. Between 2005 and 2010, for example, the volume of metallic ore and waste …
Globalization as the ‘Pulping’ of Landscapes
The article presents the findings of a long-term incorporated comparison of forestry capitalism's globalization process. Primary data was collected by participant observation in pulp investment areas in Brazil between 2004 and 2011 and semi-structured interviews with key industry personnel, particularly in Finland. It is argued that the key cyclic change in industrial forestry from innovation–capitalization to material–territorial accumulation ex…
The adoption of earth-observation technologies for deforestation monitoring by Indigenous people
Deforestation monitoring is changing the nature of conservation practices in increasingly profound ways. This study illustrates how forest co-management by means of earth-observation technologies among Indigenous communities opens up new debates and perspectives on transformational actions for inclusion and equity in globalization. We analyze cases of drone adoption by the Shipibo Conibo and other Indigenous people on both sides (Peru and Brazil)…
Land-grabbing mafias and dispossession in the Brazilian Amazon
The new ‘sustainable communitarian’ logging schemes and their critique inside multiple-use conservation areas in the Brazilian Amazon
Deforestation has risen sharply in Brazil since 2012, and conservation areas are facing increased pressure. This article studies the rise of so-called ‘sustainable’, ‘communitarian’, and/or ‘cooperative’ logging schemes inside multiple-use conservation areas in the Amazon. The findings, based on fresh field research in Acre and Pará, reveal conflicts, problems, and risks associated with logging schemes, although they are portrayed in the internat…
The conflict over Veracel pulpwood plantations in Brazil — Application of Ethical Analysis
Promotion of contentious agency as a rewarding movement strategy
The recent scholarship on social movement outcomes has called for explanations about how movements influence economic outcomes. This article demonstrates in practice how a dynamic and relational approach, coupled with a Bourdieuian analysis of social, symbolic, and territorial space, can be utilized in explaining the influence of movements in contentious politics around investment projects. Based on participant observation and comparison across t…
Neo-mercantilist Capitalism and Post-2008 Cleavages in Economic Decision-making Power in Brazil
The 2008 subprime crisis led to a global wave of bailouts and other political-economic measures by governments. These moves were seen as the rise of a new statism. Emerging giants, such as Brazil, introduced new growth policies and reinforced state-crediting of corporations. This article briefly discusses key institutional, structural and ideological lineages and dilemmas in post-2008 statism and capitalism in Brazil. Neo-mercantilist capitalism …
The Expansion of Industrial Tree Plantations and Dispossession in Brazil
The recent expansion of tree plantations is the most important agrarian change in many parts of Brazil. This article uses the results of extensive field research to analyse the different ways paper and pulp companies assure their land base for eucalyptus plantations. The mechanisms of land access have changed little over the decades, amounting to a process of primitive accumulation which seems to be controlled by the ways the pulp industry influe…
Globalization as the ‘Pulping’ of Landscapes
The article presents the findings of a long-term incorporated comparison of forestry capitalism's globalization process. Primary data was collected by participant observation in pulp investment areas in Brazil between 2004 and 2011 and semi-structured interviews with key industry personnel, particularly in Finland. It is argued that the key cyclic change in industrial forestry from innovation–capitalization to material–territorial accumulation ex…
Grievances, agency and the absence of conflict
The political economy of global tree plantation expansion
This contribution analyses the recent global expansion of different types of tree plantations.A literature review collates accounts from recent academic publications and by NGOs, and is accompanied by field research and interview observations about the causal processes, central features and likely futures of contemporary tree plantation expansion.I will analyse the political and spatial causalities explaining varieties and commonalities in expans…
Inter-sectoral determinants of forest policy
Finnish forest policy in the era of bioeconomy
Ethno-territorial rights and the resource extraction boom in Latin America
In recent times a growing number of Latin American rural groups have achieved extended ethno-territorial rights, and large territories have been protected by progressive constitutions. These were the outcomes of extended cycles of national and transnational contentious politics and of social movement struggle, including collective South–South cooperation. However, the continent has simultaneously experienced a resource extraction boom. Frequently…
Spatial Causalities in Resource Rushes
Since the mid-2000s, the world has seen an unprecedented expansion in corporate resource extraction. This global phenomenon has not been restricted to the Global South, but has also been, unexpectedly and interestingly, felt in the Global North in contexts that were considered to be ruled by political systems where the impacts of rapid resource extraction would not be felt. Between 2005 and 2010, for example, the volume of metallic ore and waste …
The political economy of 'flex trees
With the rise of 'bioeconomy', trees are receiving increasing attention. This contribution conducts a preliminary analysis of the trajectories and the main drivers of change in the rise of new, flexible and multiple uses of trees. It assesses the political dimensions involved in this transformation, which is simultaneously ongoing, anticipated and imagined. Notes are offered on the issues to be considered when the flex-crop framework is operation…
Estratégias De Territorialização Das Corporações Agroextrativistas Na América Latina
Este início de século marca a ascensão do Brasil ao posto de grande produtor de árvores de rápido crescimento e celulose para exportação, um fenômeno que não deve ser entendido como algo isolado, tendo em vista possuir importantes ramificações globais cuja analise pode melhorar nosso entendimento acerca das mudanças contemporâneas do extrativismo na América Latina. O presente artigo objetiva realizar uma análise multiescalar da expansão do monocu…
Birthing extractivism
The new ‘sustainable communitarian’ logging schemes and their critique inside multiple-use conservation areas in the Brazilian Amazon
Deforestation has risen sharply in Brazil since 2012, and conservation areas are facing increased pressure. This article studies the rise of so-called ‘sustainable’, ‘communitarian’, and/or ‘cooperative’ logging schemes inside multiple-use conservation areas in the Amazon. The findings, based on fresh field research in Acre and Pará, reveal conflicts, problems, and risks associated with logging schemes, although they are portrayed in the internat…
The role of debt, death and dispossession in world-ecological transformations
This article theorises about the ways in which commodity frontiers replace forest commons. New insights are offered into the role of debt, enclosures, the death of human and extra-human natures, and the role of the state in historical processes through an analysis of historical material and recent scholarship on eastern Finland's role in global capitalist expansion in the nineteenth century. The article contributes to the general study of commons…
Field research notes on Amazon deforestation during the Bolsonaro era
An excerpt from field research diaries, after finishing a trip by car from Cuiaba to Santarem by Highway BR163, to study the situation of Amazon deforestation, fires, soybean, ranching and mining b
The potential of Amazon indigenous agroforestry practices and ontologies for rethinking global forest governance
This article explores the potential of Amazon indigenous agroforestry practices and forest understandings for making global forest governance more nuanced and thus rethinking the value of forests in the context of multiple global crises. Indigenous forest practices and their inherent knowledge are included in current global governance in very limited ways. Onto-epistemological openings in forest policies are needed in the face of converging clima…
Shifting frontier dynamics in Latin America
The concepts of resource frontier and commodity frontier are often treated interchangeably. This article suggests the benefits of clarifying these concepts because frontiers remain important analytics for understanding drastic land-use changes and other socio-environmental transformations. Based on long-term field research in different parts of South and Central America, we use frontier concepts as heuristic devices to analyze heterogeneous front…
Deforestation, cattle capitalism and neodevelopmentalism in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, Brazil
The recent upsurge of deforestation inside conservation areas requires empirical investigation of the causes and consequences of this alarming process. Local relations between the agents of cattle capitalism, neodevelopmentalism and contemporary deforestation, from politicians and ranchers to the traditional extractive populations of multiple-use conservation areas, are assessed. Whether, when, and how state, market, and cultural institutions sup…
Studying Complex Interactions and Outcomes Through Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Studying Complex Interactions and Outcomes Through Qualitative Comparative Analysis: A Practical Guide to Comparative Case Studies and Ethnographic Data Analysis offers practical, methodological, and theoretically robust guidelines to systematically study the causalities, dynamics, and outcomes of complex social interactions in multiple source data sets. It demonstrates how to convert data from multisited ethnography of investment politics, mobil…
On thin ice – The Arctic commodity extraction frontier and environmental conflicts
Agroforestry transitions
This article canvasses the current definitions and framings of “agroforestry” in different academic literature and policies. Three key framings of “agroforestry” are identified in the scholarship and explored for their differences. The findings suggest that the distinct schools of research on “agroforestry” focus on distinct points of departure, and these baseline situations from which transitions to what is called “agroforestry” occur vary in di…
Extractivisms, Existences and Extinctions
Frontiers of Existence
This article introduces a new concept, 'frontiers of existence', to highlight and demand more attention be placed on the lives of human and other-than-human beings whose possibilities to exist are extinguished or radically and negatively transformed at resource and commodity frontiers and demand more attention be placed on this. What happens to existences at these places has not been a central focus in prior studies utilizing political economy, p…
Political science (27 works) · Economics (26 works) · Politics (22 works) · Geography (19 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (16 works) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (15 works) · Ecology (13 works) · Economy (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Political economy (10 works)