First ENTITLE PhD graduate Dr. Felipe Milanez!

Researcher and journalist Felipe Milanez (University of Coimbra), defended his thesis on the Political Ecology of Extractivism in the Amazon.

Felipe defended his doctoral dissertation "The dare of living with the forest: a political ecology of extractivism in the Amazon" (in Portuguese: “A ousadia de conviver com a floresta - uma ecologia política do extrativismo na Amazônia”), on December 17, 2015. Located at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (Portugal), Felipe is the first Entitle fellow who has defended his PhD thesis. In his thesis, he elaborates on a core case-study: the murder of Maria do Espírito Santo and José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva; a couple of ‘popular environmentalists’ in the South-East part of the state of Para, in the Amazon. He investigates broader contradictions of development and the role of violence and resistance in socio-environmental conflicts, focusing on subalternized classes in the struggle for the commons and alternatives to existence.

Prof. Stefania Barca (Centro de Estudos Sociais - CES) and Prof. Alf Hornborg (Lund University) were the supervisors of his work, while Prof. Joan Martinez-Alier (Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona), Philippe Marie Lená (IRD), Susana de Matos Viegas (Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa) and Teresa de Almeida Cravo (CES) composed the jury of his defence. The thesis was awarded with distinction and praise, regarded as rigorous, with high scientific quality, original, timely and relevant.

Felipe Milanez has recently become university lecturer at the UFRB Universidade Federal do Reconcavo of Bahia, on issues of decolonization, environment and society.