Rights of Nature: Through the Looking Glass
This project aims to bring researchers from anthropology, social studies of science, and legal scholars to study the Rights of Nature label. This emergent perspective has been materialised in policies mostly in the Global South. Recently, this narrative has been gradually becoming a global movement and is slowly gaining traction in European jurisdictions, including the Netherlands. This project aims at assessing the development of the narratives and practices of Rights of Nature in the Netherlands and how this new perspective interplays with anthropocentric and ecocentric conceptualisations of nature, which are grounded in Western ontologies.
To this goal, this project will carry out three main activities:
- Identify the current Rights of Nature stakeholders and initiatives in the Netherlands;
- To engage scholars and Rights of Nature stakeholders in developing practical applications of the theoretical insights;
- To examine the conceptualisations of the rights of nature in the Netherlands and Europe, especially taking a close look at the case of the Mar Menor, a salty lagoon in the south of Spain, which is the first natural space to be granted personal juridical rights in Europe.
Runtime: January 2024 – January 2026
Project Team:
- Laura Burgers (Project Coordinator, FdR)
- Fabio de Castro (Project Coordinator, CEDLA-FGw)
- Colin Hicks (Project Coordinator, FMWI)
- Matteo Fermeglia (Project Coordinator, FGw)
- Rebeca Ibañez Martín (Collaborating Researcher, FMG)
- Gabriela Russo Lopes (Postdoc, CEDLA-FGw)
- Emilia Guzman (Student assistant, FdR)
- Tessel Boek (Student assistant, FdR)
