My research interests are situated at the interface of human-environment geography, political ecology, and agri-environmental governance. As a result, I am a strong advocate for interdisciplinary research on land use change, environmental change, and related implications for human livelihoods. Where appropriate, this entails an inherent openness to collaboration both within the discipline of geography and with scholars working in related fields of study.

My research and publications to date have focused on three core areas. First, the political ecology of conservation, agricultural sustainability, and environmental management interventions, as well as their intersection with new schemes for the economic valuation of carbon sequestration or other ecosystem services. Second, the co-evolution of property regimes for the ownership of land and natural resources with the development of prevailing landscape taxonomies from the late nineteenth century onward. Thirdly, risk analyses of persistent conflicts, inequalities, and trade-offs in the governance of contemporary socio-ecological systems, with a focus on identifying alternative pathways towards more just and equitable solutions to pressing environment and development challenges.

In addition to the above, I also prioritize my responsibilities for academic service. I am a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 'Nexus assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health' and a Contributing Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group II – ‘Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability’). Further, I contribute regularly as a peer reviewer or referee for a significant number of international journals (60+ reports in the Publons database). These include: Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Journal of Environmental Management, Political Geography, Geoforum, Biological Conservation, Human Geography, Review of African Political Economy, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, Land Use Policy, Environmental Conservation, Ecological Economics, Journal of Political Ecology, Area, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Journal of Rural Studies, Human Ecology, World Development, Antipode, Conservation and Society, International Journal of the Commons, and many others.

As a co-founder and Advisory Collective member of the international Political Ecology Network (POLLEN), I am passionate about our ongoing collaborations to expand the network, which has grown rapidly from just 8 member 'nodes' or institutional clusters in 2014, to more than 250 nodes across six continents today. For more information and guidance on how to get involved, please see the POLLEN website.

Teaching

I regularly contribute lectures in the following courses:

• GEO 131: Mat, miljø og berekraftig utvikling ("Food, environment and sustainable development")
• GEO 222: Sustainability in an Urbanising World
• GEO 306: Methods in Human Geography
• GEO 320: Theory of Science and Research Design for Human Geographers
• GEO 330: Theories of Sustainable Land Use
• GEO 337: Political Ecology: Critical Perspectives on Environmental Governance

Supervision 

I welcome supervision requests from Master students or prospective PhD candidates on topics that intersect with one or more of the below or related themes:

• Human-environment geography, human ecology, or political ecology
• Agricultural development, rural transformation, and agrarian change
• Property rights, tenure, and ownership regimes for land and natural resources
• Land use change, land and food system governance, agriculture-forestry or agriculture-conservation interfaces
• Global environmental change impacts: adaptation, mitigation, vulnerability, and inequality
• Conservation and development, protected area-community relations, and the politics of alternative conservation models
• Formalisation, informalisation, bureaucratisation, and “corruption” in environmental governance
• Green growth, degrowth, post-growth, and various other "alternative sustainabilities"
• African and East African studies; politics of citizenship and belonging; authority, identity, and territory relations
• Interdisciplinarity and mixed-methods research in geography

If you are interested in making a supervision request, please send me an email (Connor.Cavanagh@uib.no) with a brief introduction to your research interests and background. If appropriate, we can then schedule an appointment or Zoom meeting to discuss further possibilities for working together.

List of publications: Edited Books and Journal Collections (4), Journal Articles and Book Chapters (41), Consultancy Assignments and Reports (10), Book Reviews and Journal Correspondence (4).

Edited Books and Journal Collections

• C.J. Cavanagh and A. Nel (eds). (2024). Frontiers of property: promises, pitfalls, and ambivalences of resurgent collectivisation in global land and resource governance. Virtual Special Issue (VSI),  Political Geography. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/political-geography/special-issue/101DLSVZLWL .
• Sandbrook, C. and C.J.  Cavanagh  and D. Tumusiime (eds), (2018),  Conservation and Development in Uganda . London and New York: Routledge / Earthscan. [Review: Colin A. Chapman in  Oryx  53 (3): 590-591 ].
• Cavanagh, C.J. and H. Lein (eds). (2017),  Special Section: Political Ecologies of REDD + in Tanzania . Journal of Eastern African Studies  11 (3): 482-570.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and T.A. Benjaminsen (eds). (2017). Special Section: Political Ecologies of the Green Economy . Journal of Political Ecology  34: 200-341.

Selected Publications

• Cavanagh, C.J. and J. Ayala. (2026). Political ecology and natural resource management. In F. Nunan (ed.), Sustainable Natural Resource Management: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Dutta, A. and C.J. Cavanagh. (2025). Illicit Resilience: Revisiting Political Ecologies of Conservation Non-Compliance in the Context of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 115: 58-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2024.2415692
• Cavanagh, C.J. and A. Nel. (2024). Introduction to the special issue – Frontiers of property: promises, pitfalls, and ambivalences of ‘resurgent collectivisation’ in global land and resource governance. Political Geography 115, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629824001677?dgcid=author
• Bluwstein, J. and Cavanagh, C.J. (2024). Rescaling the land rush? Global political ecologies of land use and cover change in key scenario archetypes for achieving the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target. In Ian Scoones, Saturnino M. Borras Jr.,Amita Baviskar, Marc Edelman, Nancy Lee Peluso and Wendy Wolford (eds), Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 394-426. [Reprint of Bluwstein and Cavanagh (2023) in Journal of Peasant Studies 50(1)]. Open access link:  https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/85297
• Cavanagh, C.J, & Brehony, P. (2024). First, do no harm? Dark logic models, social injustice, and the prevention of iatrogenic conservation outcomes. Biological Conservation, 289, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110380
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2023). ¿Infraestructura crítica del ecosistema? El vínculo entre los bosques y el agua en las tierras altas de Kenia. In R. Boelens, T. Perreault, J. Vos (eds), Justicia hídrica, poder y solidaridad. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala, pp. 441-460. [Translation of C.J. Cavanagh. (2018). Critical ecosystem infrastructure? Governing the forest-water nexus in the Kenyan highlands. In R. Boelens, T. Perreault, and J. Vos (eds), Water Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 302-315.]
• Bluwstein, J. and C.J. Cavanagh. (2023). Rescaling the land rush? Global political ecologies of land use and cover change in key scenario archetypes for achieving the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target. Journal of Peasant Studies 50(1): 262-294. [Contribution to the JPS Forum on Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies]. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2125386.
• Pas, A. and C.J. Cavanagh. (2022). Understanding ‘night grazing’: conservation governance, rural inequalities, and shifting responses ‘from above and below’ throughout the nychthemeron in Laikipia, Kenya. Geoforum 134: 143-153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.04.015 .
• Cavanagh, C.J. and T.A. Benjaminsen. (2022). Conservation, Land Dispossession, and Resistance in Africa. In J. Borras and J. Franco (eds), Oxford Handbook of Land Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197618646.013.23
• Branch, A. and F. Agyei, J. Anai, S. Apecu, A. Bartlett, E. Brownell, M. Caravani, C.J. Cavanagh, S. Fennell, S. Langole, M.B. Mabele, T.H. Mwampamba, M. Njenga, A. Owor, J. Phillips, N. Tiitmamer. (2022). From crisis to context: Reviewing the future of sustainable charcoal in Africa. Energy Research & Social Science 87, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102457.
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2021). Limits to (de)growth: Theorizing ‘the dialectics of hatchet and seed’ in emergent socio-ecological transformations. Political Geography, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102479. [Viewpoint piece, Political Geography virtual forum on ‘Environmental limits, scarcity and degrowth’].
• Cavanagh, C.J. and P. Vedeld, JG Petursson, and A. Chemarum. (2021). Agency, inequality, and additionality: contested assemblages of agricultural carbon finance in western Kenya. Journal of Peasant Studies 48(6): 1207-1227.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and T. Weldemichel and TA Benjaminsen. (2020). Gentrifying the African landscape: the performance and powers of for-profit conservation on southern Kenya's conservancy frontier. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 110(5): 1594-1612.
• Neimark, B. and J. Childs, A. Nightingale, C. J. Cavanagh,  S. Sullivan, T.A. Benjaminsen, S. Batterbury, S. Koot, and W. Harcourt. (2020). 'Speaking power to "post-truth": critical political ecology and the new authoritarianism. In J. McCarthy (ed), Environmental governance in a populist/authoritarian era. New York and London: Routledge. [Reprint of Neimark et al. (2019) in Annals of the American Association of Geographers 109: 613-623].
• Cavanagh, C.J.  (2019). Dying races, deforestation and drought: the political ecology of social Darwinism in Kenya Colony's western highlands. Journal of Historical Geography 66: 93-103.
• Weldemichel, T. and TA Benjaminsen, C.J. Cavanagh, and H. Lein. (2019). Conservation: beyond population growth. Science 365 (6449): 133. [Response letter to Veldhuis et al. 2019 in Science 363 (6434), 'Cross-boundary human impacts compromise the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem'.]
• Neimark, B., and J. Childs, AJ Nightingale, C.J. Cavanagh , S. Sullivan, T.A. Benjaminsen, S. Batterbury, S. Koot, and W. Harcourt. (2019). Speaking power to 'post-truth': critical political ecology and the new authoritarianism. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 109: 613-623.
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2018). Political ecologies of biopower: diversity, debates, and new frontiers of inquiry. Journal of Political Ecology 25: 402-425. [Special section: 'Perspectives on Power in Political Ecology'.]
• Cavanagh, C.J. and C. Sandbrook and D. Tumusiime. (2018). Dynamics of conservation and development in Uganda. In Sandbrook, C. and C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in Uganda . London and New York: Routledge/Earthscan, pp. 3-15.
• D. Himmelfarb and C.J. Cavanagh . (2018). Managing the contradictions: conservation, communitarian rhetoric, and conflict at Mount Elgon National Park. In C. Sandbrook and C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in Uganda. London and New York: Routledge / Earthscan, pp. 85-103.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and C. Sandbrook and D. Tumusiime. (2018). Conservation, development, and the politics of ecological knowledge. In Sandbrook, C. and C.J. Cavanagh and D. Tumusiime (eds), Conservation and Development in Uganda . London and New York: Routledge/Earthscan, pp. 249-264.
• Cavanagh, CJ. (2018). Enclosure, dispossession, and the 'green economy': new contours of internal displacement in Liberia and Sierra Leone? African Geographical Review 37 (2): 120-133.
• Cavanagh, CJ  (2018). Critical ecosystem infrastructure? Governing the forest-water nexus in the Kenyan highlands. In R. Boelens, T. Perreault, and J. Vos (eds). Water Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 302-315.
• Fisher, J. and C. J. Cavanagh , T. Sikor, and D. Mwayafu. (2018). Linking notions of justice and project outcomes in carbon offset forestry projects: Insights from a comparative study in Uganda. Land Use Policy 73: 259-268.
• Cavanagh, C.J.  (2018). Land, natural resources, and the state in Kenya's Second Republic. In A. Adeniran and L. Ikuteyijo (eds), Africa Now! Emerging Issues and Alternative Perspectives. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 119-147.
• Cavanagh, C. J. and TA Benjaminsen (2018). Guerrilla agriculture? A biopolitical guide to illicit cultivation within an IUCN Category II protected area. In M. Edelman et al. (eds), Global land grabbing and political reactions 'from below'. Critical Agrarian Studies Series . New York and London: Routledge, pp. 259-280. [Reprint of Cavanagh and Benjaminsen (2015) in Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (3-4)].
• Cavanagh, C.J. and A. Chemarum, P. Vedeld, and JG Petursson. (2017). Old wine, new bottles? Investigating the differential adoption of 'climate-smart' agricultural practices in western Kenya . Journal of Rural Studies 56: 114-123.
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Anthropos into humanitas: civilizing violence, scientific forestry, and the 'Dorobo question' in eastern Africa. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 35 (4): 694-713.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and TA Benjaminsen. (2017). Political ecology, variegated green economies, and the foreclosure of alternative sustainabilities. Journal of Political Ecology 24: 200-216.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and O. Freeman. (2017). Paying for carbon at Mount Elgon: two contrasting approaches at a transboundary park in East Africa. In S. Namirembe, B. Leimona, M. van Noordwijk, and P. Minang (eds), Co-investment in ecosystem services: global lessons from payment and incentive schemes. Nairobi: World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF).
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Mapping the state's Janus face: green economy and the 'green resource curse' in Kenya's highland forests. In A. Williams and P. Le Billon (eds), Corruption, Natural Resources, and Development: From Resource Curse to Political Ecology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 106-116.
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2017). Resilience, class, and the antifragility of capital. Resilience: International Policies, Practices, and Discourses 5 (2): 110-128. [Special issue - 'Resilience and the Anthropocene'].
• Holmes, G. and CJ Cavanagh. (2016). A review of the social impacts of neoliberal conservation: formations, inequalities, contestations. Geoforum 75: 109-199.
• Vedeld, P. and C. J. Cavanagh, J. G. Petursson, C. Nakakaawa, R. Moll, and E. Sjaastad. (2016). The political economy of conservation at Mount Elgon, Uganda: between local deprivation, regional sustainability, and global public goods. Conservation and Society 14 (3): 183-194.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and TA Benjaminsen. (2015). Guerrilla agriculture? A biopolitical guide to illicit cultivation within an IUCN Category II protected area. Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (3-4): 725-745.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and P. Vedeld and LT Traedal. (2015) Securitizing REDD+? Problematizing the Emerging Illegal Timber Trade and Forest Carbon Interface in East Africa. Geoforum 60: 72-82.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and D. Himmelfarb. (2015). 'Much in Blood and Money': Necropolitical Ecology on the Margins of the Uganda Protectorate. Antipode 47 (1): 55-73.
• Nakakaawa, C., Moll, R., Vedeld, P., Sjaastad, E., & Cavanagh, C. J. (2015). Collaborative resource management and rural livelihoods around protected areas: A case study of Mount Elgon National Park, Uganda. Forest Policy and Economics 57: 1-11.
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2014). Biopolitics, Environmental Change, and Development Studies. Development Studies Forum 41 (2): 273-294.
• Cavanagh, C.J. and T.A. Benjaminsen. (2014). Virtual Nature, Violent Accumulation: The 'Spectacular Failure' of Carbon Offsetting at a Ugandan National Park. Geoforum 56: 55-65.

Reports and Consultancy Assignments

• Lead Author (2022-2026), Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Thematic assessment report on the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food, and health. Bonn: IPBES. https://ipbes.net/nexus
• Contributing author for Begum et al. (2022), ‘Chapter 1: Point of Departure and Key Concepts’, in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter01.pdf
• Contributing author for Birkmann et al. (2022), ‘Chapter 8: Poverty, Livelihoods and Sustainable Development’, in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter08.pdf
• Contributing author for O’Neill et al. (2022), ‘Chapter 16: Key Risks Across Sectors and Regions’, in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter16.pdf
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2015). Upscaling climate-smart agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: On whose terms? Report to NORAD from the FARA-NORAD Climate-Smart Agriculture conference, 10-12 March 2015, Nairobi, Kenya. Noragric Consultancy Reports Series. Ås: Noragric, NMBU.
• Vedeld, P. and C.J. Cavanagh and J. Aune. (2015). Appraisal of the Alliance for Religion and Conservation (ARC) and the Alliance for Faithful Food and Farming - Climate Smart Agriculture programs. Prepared for NORAD. Ås, Norway: Noragric, NMBU.
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2014). Protected area governance, carbon offset forestry, and environmental (in)justice at Mount Elgon, Uganda . Report prepared for the EU Research Council Project 'I-REDD' at the University of East Anglia. Primary Investigator: Prof. Thomas Sikor. Norwich, UK: DEV Reports and Policy Paper Series, University of East Anglia.
• Vedeld, P. and C.J. Cavanagh and LT Traedal. (2014) Program Appraisal, ' Illegal Timber Trade and REDD + Interface in East Africa: A Pilot '. Appraisal on behalf of NORAD for INTERPOL, UNODC, and UN-REDD. Noragric Report No. 72. Ås: Noragric, NMBU
• Cavanagh, C.J. (2012) Unready for REDD +? Lessons from Corruption in Ugandan Conservation Areas. U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Center Policy Brief. Bergen, Norway: Chr. Michelsen Institute.
• Cavanagh, CJ  (2011)  Protected Areas and Poverty in Africa: Four Cases. Report for the Human-Environment Unit, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA). Oslo: NINA.

Book Reviews and Journal Correspondence

• 1. Weldemichel, T. and TA Benjaminsen,  CJ Cavanagh, and H. Lein. (2019). Conservation: beyond population growth - response to Ogutu et al. [eLetter response to Ogutu et al. 2019 and Veldhuis et al. 2019 in Science  365 (6449): 133-134.]
• 2. Cavanagh, CJ  (2014). Review:  Constructions of Neoliberal Reason  by Jaime Peck. Canadian Geographer  58 (3): 53-54.
• 3. Cavanagh, CJ  (2013). Review:  The Political Economy of Environment and Development in a Globalized World: Exploring the Frontiers, Essays in Honor of Nadarajah Shanmugaratnam  by DJ Kjosavik and P. Vedeld (eds). Forum for Development Studies  40 (1): 177-180.
• 4. Cavanagh, CJ  (2010). Review:  Knowledge to Policy: Making the Most of Development Research  by Fred Carden . Canadian Journal of Development Studies  31 (3-4): 517-218.