Abstract: In response to growing policy challenges, such as postconflict transitions and climate change, exceeding the scope of existing institutions, governments often enact extraordinary reforms—that is, nonincremental institutional innovations regulating state action through fast-tracking procedures, expanded mandates, and normative recalibration in previously unregulated domains. How do governments resolve policy conflicts when extraordinary reform collides with entrenched rules and interests embedded in previous institutional frameworks? We develop a theory of discretionary implementation, showing how governments use layering and conversion to diminish extraordinary reform. We examine Colombia’s ethnic land restitution program (2012–18), which clashed with extractivism, by employing process tracing of novel datasets on administrative cases and judicial rulings, and 14 in-depth interviews. We find that the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos delayed case processing via layering and restricted judicial discretion through conversion, effectively undermining restitution. Our findings extend theories of institutional change by revealing how governments mediate, and sometimes undermine, extraordinary reforms.

Read their full article here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592725104301

Abstract: Maps are an essential tool to inform fire governance and management. For instance, they can highlight which areas are most vulnerable to adverse fire impacts or be used to plan interventions for risk reduction and prevention. In recent years, several studies have mapped the fire management activities and the networks between the multitude of involved actors. They build upon previous advances to combine quantitative and qualitative social network analysis with geographical analysis and cartography, aiming to highlight areas of opportunity to enhance fire governance. This paper continues this line of research, examining cooperation in fire management within the south-eastern part of the state of Chiapas. This area is the main fire risk area in Southern Mexico, characterised by the involvement of many different fire management actors. The paper proposes two advances to better visualise the networks between these actors—integration with modularity clustering and a thematic map integrating different spatial scales—and discusses the implications of these fire network maps for governance. The paper’s main results are, first, the confirmation of the considerable influence of spatial distance and aspects of human and physical geography on network formation. Second, it shows the capacity of mapping to inform regional fire management arrangements.

Read their full article here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70040-y

Abstract: With intellectual rigor and ethnographic richness, Amy Zhang offers her much -anticipated monograph, Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China. In this book, she provides a comprehensive ethnography of Guangzhou’s ambitious attempt to engineer a ‘circular economy.’ Zhang’s central argument is that this grand techno-scientific project – designed to eliminate waste by transforming it into a resource – is far from a seamless, top-down success. Instead, she vividly illustrates how its implementation generates a cascade of social frictions, spatial displacements, and political contestations. Following the journey of waste itself, Zhang reveals how it acts as a ‘systemic irritant’ that forges new ‘circulations’ of value and harm, and gives rise to unexpected political ‘collectives’ that challenge, negotiate, and reimagine the state’s vision of a green future. Circular Ecologies is a timely and essential intervention into critical debates on political ecology, discard studies, and environmental governance.

Read the full review here: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2026.2644490

Abstract: With the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the countryside faces the so-called Agriculture 4.0. A broad set of innovations such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, drones, sensors, and so on have been seen as drivers for changes in the way of farming. In dialogue with the literature on digital geographies, which addresses how digitalization is part of socio-spatial processes of exclusion, negative inclusion, enrichment, and impoverishment, this paper raises the question: hasthis been experienced homogeneously by agribusiness and peasant family farming production models? Based on 32 semi-structured interviews with farmers, digital technology providers, agricultural technicians, and participation in events promoting digital technologies for the countryside, we seek to answer this question by focusing on the Intermediate Geographic Region of Varginha. We address three elements of this process: the types of technologies accessed by farmers, the impact on labor relations, and control over technology. The results indicate that Agriculture 4.0 has been accessed and experienced with much greater intensity by agribusiness, widening the digital divide in agriculture. This has implications for the limits and contradictions of the innovations brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the Global South

Read their full article here: 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/403048167_GEOGRAFIAS_DIGITAIS_E_AGRICULTURA_40_NA_REGIAO_GEOGRAFICA_INTERMEDIARIA_DE_VARGINHA-MG_O_FOSSO_DIGITAL_NO_CAMPO

CASAS’ member Tania Eulalia Martinez-Cruz has published this article with Mariam Wallet Aboubrakrine, Amaranta Gómez Regalado, Vincent Ekka, Prateep Kumar Nayak & Zaira Zambelli Taveira in The Canadian Journal of Indigenous Studies.

Abstract: Indigenous Peoples, despite being crucial stewards of biodiversity, continue to face deep social injustices and marginalization. They endure ongoing criminalization in the name of conservation and sustainable development, while their knowledge systems and rights are consistently undermined and neglected by dominant policies and narratives. In this paper, we argue that understanding social injustice requires acknowledging the enduring legacy of colonization, we introduce the Ărramăt Project and propose the Maslow’s hierarchy as a methodological framework aimed at decolonizing narratives and research, to achieve social justice, healing, and reconciliation among all our relations and with Mother Earth.

Read their full article here: https://doi.org/10.36939/cjis/vol2no1/art27

Abstract: Women’s participation in paid work is widely expected to enhance bargaining power within households and promote redistribution of unpaid domestic and care work. Yet, in agrarian contexts shaped by long-standing neoliberal labour regimes, this expectation often remains unmet. This article examines why paid work fails to translate into redistribution of unpaid work within households, drawing on qualitative interviews with women in rural central Chile. Using Agarwal’s cooperative–conflict framework, the analysis assesses bargaining power through observable household outcomes, focusing on the organization of unpaid domestic and care work. The findings show that paid work does not strengthen bargaining power unless it alters the organization of social reproduction within the household. Bargaining capacity operates through embodied and temporal mechanisms: The physical depletion and time rigidity associated with insecure and physically demanding employment arrangements undermine women’s ability to pursue and sustain redistribution, even when they explicitly ask their partners for greater support with domestic and care work. Redistribution emerges as a fragile outcome that depends on specific configurations of social reproduction, including time control, lower caregiving intensity and the social legitimation of women’s paid work and time priorities. By centring unpaid domestic and care work as the primary observable outcome of intra-household bargaining, the study offers a relational and temporally grounded reconceptualization of empowerment in agrarian labour regimes.

Read their full article here: https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.70078

Abstract: The Kananaskis Wildfire Charter marks an important step toward addressing increasingly extreme wildfires. Attending to complex drivers, supporting Indigenous and local fire stewardship, and shifting toward integrated fire management will help ensure equitable, effective, and ecologically grounded governance and management.

Read their full article here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70040-y

Abstract: Renewable energy investment and development are necessary, if insufficient, parts of any climate policy agenda. Scaling up renewable energy projects to the level needed to impact greenhouse gas emissions, particularly wind and solar projects, takes up large amounts of space. As such, the rural United States may be uniquely positioned to benefit from an energy transition because of its plethora of land well-suited to host large-scale solar and wind operations. But, what if local governments in rural areas enact renewable exclusion zones, functionally banning large-scale renewable energy production within county limits? In this short paper, we focus on the case of Ohio to discuss trends in state and local policy that restrict renewable development, and argue that this represents an emerging tendency in the anti-reflexive movement from politicization (i.e., the strategic denial and obstruction of climate science and policy) of climate change to anti-reflexive policies precluding climate mitigation. We also highlight that many rural areas may represent a context of reception conducive for anti-reflexive messaging, an understated obstacle for green energy transitions.

Check their article here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2026.104648

Abstract: The CGIAR Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) Accelerator enables transformative research on gender in agriculture and food systems, promoting equitable, sustainable, productive and climate-resilient outcomes. The Accelerator prioritizes the generation of high-quality evidence, development of innovative methods and tools, and creation of strategic alliances that drive systemic change toward inclusive food systems within planetary boundaries. Within the Accelerator, the Sub-Area of Work (AoW) on “Evidence to Policy”, led by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), focuses on leveraging evidence, strategic communication and engagement to inform policy and practice. It synthesizes and disseminates robust evidence, identifies gaps and addresses emerging questions related to gender in agriculture and food systems. In this context, two complementary studies and a multi-stakeholder workshop were conducted in 2024 to strengthen the evidence base on the gender responsiveness of climate information services (CIS) in agrifood systems and to distil lessons from relevant experiences across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Reliable and timely access to climate information can significantly enhance adaptation and mitigation efforts in response to climate change (Coulibaly et al. 2015; UNDP 2019; Warner et al. 2022). However, many farmers—especially women and those from socially or economically marginalized groups—face structural barriers that limit their ability to access, interpret, and act on CIS (McOmber et al. 2013). Gender-specific differences in access, needs, preferences, and use of CIS are frequently overlooked in service design and delivery (Ngigi & Muange 2022; Bryan et al. 2024). Women often require distinct communication channels, trusted social networks, and tailored capacity support to fully benefit from CIS (Raj et al. 2020). Failing to consider these gendered dimensions can exacerbate inequalities and increase women’s vulnerability to climate risks within agrifood systems. This report consolidates findings from the three-part study that builds sequentially across complementary evidence streams:
*Landscape mapping: This component maps the CIS provision landscape in agrifood systems across LMICs. It examines the state of climate data infrastructure; the types and content of agrometeorological information and advisories (e.g., meteorological variables, forecast horizons, sectoral focus); the communication channels and formats used; and the institutional actors involved in CIS production and dissemination.
*Scoping review: The second component synthesizes existing evidence on gendered access to and usability of CIS, with a focus on the barriers faced by women farmers and the design and delivery features that make CIS more gender-responsive.
*Stakeholder consultation workshop: The third component engaged researchers, practitioners and service providers in reflecting on the study findings and identifying strategies for closing evidence and implementation gaps. Together, these components aim to inform the design of gender-responsive CIS that can better reach, serv, and benefit women farmers through tailored information, participatory design and complementary support.

Read their report here: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/181376