Critical Ruralities Lab
Youjin Chung convenes the Critical Ruralities Lab, housed within the Departments of Energy and Resources Group (ERG) and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) at UC Berkeley.
Members of the lab work on theoretically and empirically grounded, justice-oriented research on development and socio-environmental change in diverse rural settings across the globe (currently East Africa, North America, Latin America, and South Asia).
They work on a wide range of interconnected issues concerning rural life and livelihood, including food and agriculture, land-water access and control, conservation, pastoralism, energy and mining, indigenous knowledge and technoscience, and agrarian mobilization—issues that are becoming more complex and urgent in times of exacerbating climate change and deepening inequality.
The lab draws inspiration from and encourages feminist, postcolonial, decolonial, poststructural, Marxist, and more-than-human perspectives to better understand how capitalist processes shape, and are shaped by, nature-society relations, rural-urban interactions, and interlocking power structures.
Please click here to visit the lab’s website.