Omar Dahbour, "Ecosovereignty: A Political Principle for the Environmental Crisis" (Routledge, 2024)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps. So I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the best education podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author, Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share. A map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast at occulehyphenmundi.com while you listen.
Jerry's guests include Zakya Suewell, who's an English broadcaster, and writer on Finding Albion, Josh Schmidt, who's the Head of maps at the Zurich Central Library, Pat Seed, a US historian on Ptolemy's World Map, John Romero, who's a legendary video game producer on the Doom Game Creator, Elif Sharak, a well known Turkish British novelist, and Chet Van Duzer, a historian who will tell you about Martin Valdsey Mueller's Carter Marina of sixteen forty five. I highly encourage you to subscribe to What's Your Map. It's available on Apple, Spotify, and all major Podcast platforms. Welcome to the new books network.
Hello and thank you for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy, which is part of the New Books Network. I'm Robert Talise, I'm professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co host the program with Carrie Figger, Malcolm Keating, and Sarah Tyson. My guest today is Omar Dabor. Omar is professor of philosophy at Hunter College and at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, a fine institution, I should add. He specializes in political philosophy, social theory, and global ethics. His new book has just been published with Routledge. It's titled Eco Sovereignty, a political principle for the environmental crisis. Now, part of what makes the challenges that collectively are called the environmental crisis so difficult is that the vocabulary we deploy in thinking about and discussing the issues is a vocabulary that emerged under social conditions that, by some metrics, are far removed from our present.
The familiar idiom of nation states, borders, jurisdiction as it's usually understood, and so on. They all seem inadequate for addressing a crisis that concerns global conditions for problems that don't respect territory and borders. It's plausible to think that a cogent response to the environmental crisis is going to require a reconstruction of the conceptual tools of social and political theory. And that's just what Omer De Bor is trying to offer. In his new book, Eco Sovereignty, he develops new understandings of the concepts of sovereignty, territory, peoplehood, self-determination, and the like, all with the view towards building a case for the principle according to which peoples have a right to protect and maintain their natural environments.
Now as usual, there's a lot to talk about. Uh but let's begin as we usually do with our guest. Hello Omar, how are you? Very good. Nice to nice to hear from you, Bob. It's great to talk to you. Um, you know, we start these interviews with the author uh him or herself, and uh in this case we won't deviate from that. Uh tell us a bit about yourself.
Uh thanks. Well one thing one uh fact that you omitted in your introduction was that you and I were in graduate school together at CUNY in the same program. It's nice to talk to you again and reminds me a little bit of the old days and it's true. There's an there's an entree to to our to our shared past, I suppose. I guess I would say uh a couple of uh short things and I'll I'll talk about the background of this book. Um, I'm uh If you see the book, you'll you'll probably uh wonder about this. I'm I'm trained equally in philosophy and history. Uh and I've always had a very historical orientation.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–9:26
2
What is the environmental crisis and why does traditional vocabulary fall short?
9:26–16:37
3
How does Omar Dahbour define extractivism and its impact on the planet?
16:37–23:51
4
Why does Dahbour argue that conventional sovereignty concepts need to be rebuilt?
23:51–30:06
5
What is the concept of eco‑sovereignty and how does it link territory to peoplehood?
30:06–35:52
6
How do food‑sovereignty and place‑based rights illustrate eco‑sovereignty in practice?
35:52–43:42
7
What role do sub‑state groups and functional sovereignty play in protecting ecosystems?
43:42–51:19
8
How does eco‑sovereignty reshape ideas of environmental justice and ecological equity?
51:19–1:00:29
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
Robert A. Wilson, "Kin Matters: Relational Beings in the Fragile Sciences" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Jonathan Quong, "Political Philosophy: The Puzzle of Legitimate Injustice" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja, "Foundations for Metasemantics" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Philippe Huneman, "When Metaphysics Meets Biology: Kantian Approaches to the Concept of An Organism" (Routledge, 2026)
Rivka Weinberg, "The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time" (Oxford UP, 2026)
PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)