Professor Joan Martinez-Alier has obtained the Holberg Prize, one of the most important international awards given to researchers in the humanities, social sciences, theology or law. Joan Martinez-Alier is professor emeritus at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). The prize, endowed with 6 million Norwegian crowns (about 550,000 euros), will be awarded at a ceremony that will take place on June 8, at the University of Bergen, Norway.
Martinez-Alier is recognized for her pioneering research in ecological economics, political ecology, and environmental justice, where she has focused her critique of classical economic theory based on traditional perspectives of economic growth. He is also an important figure and a prominent intellectual promoter of the movement in favor of degrowth, which calls for reducing global consumption and production, advocates replacing GDP as an indicator of prosperity with measures of social and environmental well-being.
“The goal of my research is to show that economic growth and changes in energy and material flows in the economy, on the one hand, and the growing number of environmental injustices, on the other, are two sides of the same coin.” says the winner. “My main purpose is to make visible the many environmental conflicts around the world.”
Martínez-Alier is co-director of the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAltas), which has so far documented close to 4,000 social conflicts caused by environmental degradation or the unequal distribution of environmental resources. The EJAtlas aims to make environmental conflicts visible, point out the repression of governments against environmentalists and facilitate research on the “corporate social irresponsibility” of transnational companies.
Two of Martinez-Alier’s most influential books are Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment and Society (with Klaus Schlüpmann, 1987, Spanish translation 1991) and The Environmentalism of the Poor: Study of Ecological Conflicts and Eluation (2002) (Spanish translation Ecologismo of the Poor: Environmental Conflicts and Valuation Languages, 2005). Ecological Economics traces the history of ecological critiques of economics from the 1860s to the 1940s.
The book articulated a distinct tradition of economic thought and was an important contribution to the development of political ecology. In 2023, Martinez-Alier will publish Land, Water, Air, and Freedom: The Making of World Movements for Environmental Justice.
“Martinez-Alier has the unusual distinction of actively anticipating and engaging with the interrelated planetary challenges of poverty, climate change and food security,” says Holberg Committee Chair Heike Krieger. “His groundbreaking theories of hers and her mentorship continue to build the capacity of new scholars and policymakers to address these interrelated crises of global economic life.”
Established by the Norwegian parliament, the Holberg Prize is one of the largest international research prizes awarded for outstanding contributions to research in the humanities, social sciences, law or theology.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2023, the Prize is funded by the Government of Norway through a direct allocation from the Ministry of Education and Research at the University of Bergen. Past awardees include Julia Kristeva, Jürgen Habermas, Manuel Castells, Onora O’Neill, Cass Sunstein, Paul Gilroy, Martha Nussbaum, and Griselda Pollock.
