biology

Joan Martinez Alier

Joan Martinez Alier is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Joan Martinez Alier rather than just read about it. In short: Joan Martinez Alier (born 1939, Barcelona, Spain) is a Spanish economist, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Economic History and researcher at ICTA at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He has made important contributions in ecological economics and political ecology, which he synthesised in his work on environmentalism of the poor.

Key takeaways

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Reference excerpt

Joan Martinez Alier (born 1939, Barcelona, Spain) is a Spanish economist, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Economic History and researcher at ICTA at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He has made important contributions in ecological economics and political ecology, which he synthesised in his work on environmentalism of the poor.

Biography Martinez Alier has a Lic. Economics, Universitat de Barcelona (1961), after which he went abroad to escape Francoist Spain, and studied agricultural economics at Oxford University and Stanford. He then received a scholarship to return to Oxford (B.Litt. St Antony's College, 1967). His PhD was in Economics from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (1976). He cooperated with the exile publishing house Ruedo Iberico in Paris between 1966 and 1979. He remained as a researcher at St Antony's College, Oxford into the early 1970s (1966–73 and 1984–85), working on agrarian conflicts, land reform, rural unemployment and the capitalist logic of sharecropping in Southern Spain and also conducting research in Cuba (on smallholders in the early years of Castro's administration); and in Peru (on the hacienda peasantry). He was visiting professor at the State University of Campinas (Brasil) in 1974, before returning to his home town to join the Department of Economics and Economic History at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain, in 1975. He has also been a visitor at the Free University of Berlin (1980–81), Stanford University, the University of California, Davis (1988–89), Yale University (1999-2001), and FLACSO Sede-Ecuador (1994–95 and 2007–15). He directed the CEECEC and EJOLT research projects on ecological economics and political ecology between 2008 and 2015. He is officially retired from AUB, but still professionally active and in 2016, aged in his mid-70s, he received a €2 million Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for a further five-year project: A Global Environmental Justice Movement - The EJAtlas. He is a founding member and past president of the International Society for Ecological Economics. He was a member (2000–08) of the European Environment Agency Scientific Committee.

Contributions Martinez Alier's interests are agrarian studies, ecological economics and political ecology. In the late seventies Martinez Alier became interested in agricultural energetics and the work of Sergei Podolinsky (1850-1891), publishing a text on this with J.M. Naredo in 1982. He has also described and mapped the anti-extractivist Blockadia movement. He has defined many of the key concepts and approaches in ecological economics. He argues, against neoclassical economists, that the economy is not circular, but entropic. Calculations of social metabolic flows of energy and materials need to figure in neoclassical and marxist economics. Energy is not recycled and materials are only partially recycled - and resource extraction and waste disposal manifest themselves in ecological systems. They are visible through the drawing down of physical resources, pollution, and through socio-ecological distribution conflicts. The latter are hastened by an increase in social metabolism and human appropriation of nature. "In environmental struggles, reproduction of human society and of nature’s functions are more important or just as important as fights over the (purported) economic surplus."

Recognition ISEE Kenneth Boulding Award for Ecological Economics, 2010 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought, GDAE, 2017 Balzan Prize for Environmental Challenges: Responses from the Social Sciences and the Humanities. 2020. For his exceptional contributions to the foundation of ecological economics, his pathbreaking analysis of the relationships between economies and the environment, his interdisciplinary as well as comparative approach, and his active role in the promotion of environmental justice. Holberg Prize 2023. The 2023 Holberg prize is awarded to Spanish scholar Joan Martinez-Alier for his ground-breaking research in ecological economics, political ecology and environmental justice. Festshrift volume. Villamayor-Tomas, S. & Muradian, R. (eds.). 2023. The Barcelona School of Ecological Economics and Political Ecology: A Companion in Honour of Joan Martinez-Alier. Springer Open Access. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22566-6

Selected books (in English) 1971: Labourers and Landowners in Southern Spain 1977: Haciendas, Plantations and Collective Farms (Cuba and Peru) 1987: Ecological economics: Energy, environment and society 1994: The environment as a luxury good or "too poor to be green"? 1996: Getting down to earth: practical applications of ecological economics (with Robert Costanza and Olman Segura) 1997: Varieties of Environmentalism. Essays North and South (with Ramachandra Guha) 2002: The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation 2007: Rethinking Environmental History: World-Systems History and Global Environmental Change (with Alf Hornborg and John Mc Neill) 2008: Recent Developments in Ecological Economics 2 vols. (with Inge Ropke) 2012: Ecological Economics from the Ground Up (with Hali Healy et al.) 2015: Handbook of Ecological Economics (with Roldan Muradian) 2023: Land, Water, Air and Freedom. The Making of World Movements for Environmental Justice, open access, https://www.elgaronline.com/monobook-oa/book/9781035312771/9781035312771.xml

Interviews (in English) Interview with Lorenzo Pellegrini in Development & Change, 2012 Ecological Economics, Video Interview at The Montreal Degrowth Conference 2012 [1] ESEE Interview 2023. [2]Leontief-prize/recipients

Notes

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Joan Martinez Alier

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Joan Martinez Alier claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Joan Martinez Alier before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Joan Martinez Alier ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Joan Martinez Alier

In research: Joan Martinez Alier appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Joan Martinez Alier in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Joan Martinez Alier is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1939 births, 20th-century Spanish economists, Academic staff of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Joan Martinez Alier outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Joan Martinez Alier in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Joan Martinez Alier in simple terms?

Why does Joan Martinez Alier matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Joan Martinez Alier?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

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It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Joan Martinez Alier.