Elizabeth Hoover is an anthropologist and associate professor of environmental science, policy and management at Berkley, who long claimed to be native (receiving grants and research access under this assumption) but has recently admitted otherwise. She has a PhD in anthropology from Brown University with a focus on Environmental and critical Medical Anthropology.
I think what is very striking in this text, is the author puts her perspective of the disability studies and uses it to draw lines from the disability studies, more particular the queer black disability studies, to the environmental justice movement. From reading the text, I think one can see, that Julia Belser is very involved in disability studies and the field of critical medicine/ psychology. The way she describes that we should turn away from always seeking to get (back) the pure nature, the healthy environment, the "healthy" body, she reminded me of the general idea of overcoming pure categories (for example Latour etc.) - and dualisms. Additionally, I think one could locate her in the area of inequality studies and the field analyzing structural violence.
In Spivak's own words: " Situated within the current academic theater of cultural imperialism, with a certain carte d'entree into the elite theoretical ateliers in France, I bring news of power lines within the palace"
For understanding Spivak's role in a Spivakian way, I like the article Everybody’s Afraid of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Reading Interviews with the Public Intellectual and Postcolonial Critic. As someone who circulates a lot in western continental philosophy-associated academia, Spivak has been the subject of numerous interviews and analyses: "This article reads Spivak through her interviews, a formidable body of work in itself, where she not only articulates strategic essentialism but performs it".
The authors are both critical geographers of capitalism that focus on the intersection of sovereignty and economic and ecological crisis.
Geoff Mann is a Professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He received his PhD in Geography from UC Berkley. Joel Wainwright is a Professor of Geography at Ohio State University. He received his PhD in Geography from University of Minnesota.