Gert Van Hecken hoofddocent

About me Gert Van Hecken

​Short Bio​​​​​​​​

I am associate professor at the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, and associate researcher at Nitlapan-UCA (Universidad Centroamericana), Nicaragua. I hold a PhD in Development Studies (University of Antwerp), and have an academic background in Environmental Sciences and Economics.

My work engages with struggles for environmental, climate, and reparative justice, and develops critical perspectives on (green) colonialism, global systems of exploitation, and uneven ecological exchange. A central focus is on the diverse ways in which communities and social movements resist these dynamics and (re)imagine more just and sustainable futures. Over the past fifteen years, I have collaborated closely with grassroots organizations, academic institutions, and farmer and feminist movements in Central and South America, with particular emphasis on Nicaragua. These collaborations continue today through long-term institutional partnerships with universities in Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Colombia.

Alongside this, I am also engaged in broader collective initiatives. I am a Board Member of Oxfam Belgium, and active in the inter-university network for Palestine, where I work with students and staff to challenge the complicity of universities and to build forms of solidarity across movements.

 

Research interests

My research is guided by questions of solidarity, social-environmental justice, and the many forms of resistance that emerge in the face of exploitation and ecological destruction. I study how communities and movements challenge global systems of inequality and how they (re)imagine and defend alternative social-ecological futures.

My work focuses on struggles for justice in the context of climate change and biodiversity policies, especially around carbon markets, biodiversity offsets, payments for ecosystem services (PES), and green finance. I critically engage with green colonialism, neoliberal environmentalism, and uneven ecological exchange between North and South. A newer strand of my research explores green colonialism in Palestine, examining how environmental narratives are mobilized in the service of domination, while also tracing practices of resistance and solidarity that counter them.

More broadly, I am interested in the politics of knowledge in environmental discourses and how dominant framings of “sustainability” often marginalize alternative perspectives. My research connects with debates on post-development, degrowth, and other paradigms that open space for more just and democratic transformations.

Much of this work has been grounded in long-term collaborations with grassroots and academic partners in Central and South America, especially Nicaragua, and increasingly aims to bring these situated struggles into dialogue with European policy debates and global conjunctures. My approach is interdisciplinary, drawing from political ecology, critical geography, social ecology, environmental humanities, and ecological economics, and oriented toward participatory and transformative methodologies (see for example a video on our experiences in Nicaragua). Ultimately, my research seeks to bridge academic knowledge with collective practices of resistance and change.

​Here you can find an overview of the research projects I am currently involved in.


Teaching

At the IOB I teach the following courses:

At the University of Antwerp level I coordinate the yearly Debating Development series, which creates space for critical dialogue on urgent global challenges.

I am also involved as a lecturer in some of the teaching programs organized at our partner institutes in Latin America.


Key publications

I have published several book chapters, opinion pieces, policy briefs, and research articles in a diversity of outlets (for a full overview see my publication profile on University of Antwerp or GoogleScholar).​

Some contributions to opinion pieces / public debate include:

In international media outlets:

                              Fourate Chahal El Rekaby     © TNI

In Beglian/Dutch media outlets:


Some academic publications include:​

  • Muradian, R., M. Arsel, L. Pellegrini, F. Adaman, B. Aguilar, B. Agarwal, E. Corbera, D. Ezzine de Blas, J. Farley, G. Froger, E. Garcia-Frapolli, E. Gómez-Baggethun; J. Gowdy, N. Kosoy, J.F. Le Coq, P. Leroy, P. May, P. Méral, P. Mibielli, R. Norgaard, B. Ozkaynak, U. Pascual, W. Pengue, M. Perez, D. Pesche, R. Pirard, J. Ramos-Martin, L. Rival, F. Saenz, G. Van Hecken, A. Vatn, B. Vira and K. Urama (2013) Payments for Ecosystem Services and the fatal attraction of win-win solutions, Conservation Letters 6(4): 274-279.


A copy of my doctoral dissertation on critical institutional approaches to analyze the on-the-ground social and political effects of market-based conservation mechanisms can be downloaded here.