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Professor James McCarthy earned a B.A. in English and Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the Graduate School of Geography in 2011, he was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Geography at Penn State University (2000-2011).
Professor McCarthy’s areas of interest include: political ecology; political economy; environmental politics, policy, and governance; property; rural areas and extractive industries; social movements; and social theory.
His research and teaching center on questions of environmental governance: how people lay claim to and struggle over their environments; how human societies regulate their relationships with their environments and with what consequences; and, especially, how the political-economic structures and dynamics of capitalist societies produce particular sorts of environmental transformations, dynamics, and outcomes. In each case, he is interested in whether the relationships in question are just and sustainable, and in how they transform individuals, societies, and environments over time. Professor McCarthy has investigated these questions with respect to a variety of environments and dynamics in the United States and Canada, and globally, including comparative analyses of public lands politics and community forestry programs, the scalar strategies of environmental NGOs and social movements, the effects of neoliberal ideas in environmental governance, and the relationships between trade policy and environmental regulation. He believes strongly in the practical application of ideas, and has done work for the Ford Foundation, Oxfam, and other organizations involved in shaping policy and programs in these areas.
Degrees
- Ph.D. in Geography, University of California, Berkeley, 1999
- M.A. in Geography, University of California, Berkeley, 1994
- B.A. in English and Environmental Studies, Dartmouth College, 1987
Affiliated Department(s)
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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Agrivoltaics and the Agrarian Question: Renewable Energy in Agrarian Landscapes
The Dawn of Solar Photovoltaics: Emergent Political Economies at the Solar-Agri-Land Nexus
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University of Stavanger, Norway
May
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2024
Sponsored by Research Council of Norway
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The Agrarian Question in the Era of Climate Change: Renewable Energy as Capitalist or Commons
Past & Future Commons
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University of Chicago
May
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2024
Sponsored by Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU), University of Chicago
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“Mittee Se Sona?” The Imaginaries of Solar India in Agropastoral Rajasthan
Antipode
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2024
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The Agrarian Question of Climate Change
Progress in Human Geography
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2024
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Renewable energy deployment: A case study in new neoliberal natures?
Neoliberal Natures: Green Extractivism and Abolition Ecologies in the Anthropocene
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Princeton University
December
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2023
Sponsored by High Meadows Envidronmental Institute, Princeton University
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Presentation on panel at Nature-Society workshop at Temple University, with representatives from geography departments around northeastern US.
Nature-Society workshop
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Temple University
September
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2023
Sponsored by Temple University
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Dialogues in Human Geography
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2023
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A just transition to what, for whom, and by what means? Transition technology, carbon markets, and an Appalachian coal mine.
Energy Research and Social Science
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2023
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Guest editor for special issue of journal
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2022
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Vol. 5
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Issue #3
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New Political Ecologies of Renewable Energy
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
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2022
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Vol. 5
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Issue #3
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Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures
Chapter: Utopias and dystopias of renewable energy imaginariesPublished by Elsevier
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2022
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(Counter)mapping renewables: space, justice, and politics of wind and solar power in Mexico
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
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2021
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Fulbright - China
April-May
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2020
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Revisiting Power and Powerlessness: Speculating on West Virginia’s Energy Future and the Externalities of the Socioecological Fix
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
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2020
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Fulbright Specialist to Hunan University, Changsha, China
April and May
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2020
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Environmental Governance in a Populist/Authoritarian Era
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2020
Taylor and Francis
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Renewing accumulation? Political economies and ecologies of renewable energy
Columbia University Seminar on Political Economy
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New York, NY
November
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2019
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Review essay on Brett Christophers, The New Enclosure: the Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain
AAG Review of Books
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Vol. 8
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Issue #2
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Awards & Grants
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DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Contesting Energy Transitions: Understanding Community Opposition to High-Voltage Transmission Lines in Northern New England
NSF
Apr. 15, 2024 - Oct. 1, 2025
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Doctoral Dissertation Research: Retro-fix? Urban Climate Finance and Digital Decarbonization in Multi-family Housing
National Science Foundation, Geography and Regional Science Program
Sep. 15, 2023 - Aug. 31, 2024
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Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Making of the North Atlantic Offshore Wind Worker
National Science Foundation, Geography and Regional Science Program
Jan. 1, 2023 - Dec. 31, 2023
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Environmental and social concerns of ground-mounted solar project development in Worcester County, Massachusetts
Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation
Jun. 1, 2023 - Aug. 31, 2023
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Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, Climate Change, and law in the United States
Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation
Jul. 5, 2022 - Aug. 29, 2022
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Education and Training for Environmental Transformation: The Case of Offshore Wind Energy
Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation
May. 30, 2022 - Aug. 19, 2022
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Doctoral dissertation fellowship
Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation
Aug. 23, 2021 - Dec. 15, 2021
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Doctoral dissertation fellowship
Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation
Aug. 23, 2021 - Dec. 15, 2021
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Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Impact of Local and National Government Narratives on Renewable Energy Transitions
National Science Foundation, Geography and Regional Science Program
Apr. 1, 2020 - Sep. 30, 2021
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Response and Responsibility: Communicating civic environmental stewardship and climate resiliency knowledge and practice
Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation
Jun. 14, 2021 - Aug. 20, 2021
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Fulbright specialist at Hunan University, China
Fulbright - US government
Apr. 1, 2021 - May. 31, 2021
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Doctoral Dissertation Research: Culturally Influenced Environmental Narratives
National Science Foundation, Geography and Regional Science Program
Apr. 1, 2019 - Sep. 30, 2020
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Examining the policy and funding landscape for climate change mitigation among Washington D.C.-based development organizations
Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation
May. 20, 2020 - Aug. 23, 2020
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Achieving a just low-carbon transition in the United States: examining the impact of policy design.
Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation
May. 18, 2020 - Aug. 21, 2020
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Doctoral Dissertation Research: Afro-Indigeneity and Protected Area Management
National Science Foundation, Geography and Regional Science Program
Sep. 1, 2019 - Feb. 28, 2020
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Fulbright Specialist
U.S. Fulbright program
2020
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