About

David Pellow is a faculty member at the UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, where he holds the position of Dehlsen Chair in the Department of Environmental Studies. His research focuses on environmental issues, and he is affiliated with the UCSB Environmental Studies program. Pellow is involved in teaching and research related to environmental science and management, contributing to the academic community through his leadership and scholarly work. His contact information includes an office at Bren Hall, and he is active on various social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Environmental ethics
• Law
• Geography
• Philosophy
• Ecology
• Social Science
• Quantum mechanics
• Engineering
• Environmental planning
• Public relations
• Environmental resource management
• Physics
• Criminology
• Environmental science
• Biology
• Engineering ethics
• Forestry

Selected publications

• Global Environmental and Climate Justice Movements (From Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of the Environment)

  2025-10-14

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Critical EJ studies (CEJ) is a perspective put forth by a number of scholars intended to address some limitations and tensions within EJ studies (Adamson 2011; Pellow 2018; Pellow and Brulle 2005). These include four major concerns. The first concern is the need to examine multiple forms of inequality and their intersections (Malin and Ryder 2018). EJ scholars have a tendency to limit our analyses to race or class, while a small but growing group of scholars has explored the role of gender, sexuality, and disability in EJ studies (Alaimo 2010; Buckingham and Kulcur 2010; Gaard 2017; Ray 2013). Moreover, the category species remains, at best, at the margins of the field. So CEJ insists on a focus across a broad range of categories of difference and is inclusive of more-than-human beings and things. This framework also seeks to challenge the forms of inequality and institutional violence that correspond with these social categories, which would include heteropatriarchy, all forms of racism (not just white supremacy), ableism, speciesism/dominionism, transphobia, and colonialism, so this project is firmly aimed at confronting dominance in all forms.

  PublisherDOI

• States of Confinement and Ecological Violence:

  2025-02-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Pathways between people, wildlife and environmental justice in cities

  People and Nature · 2025-02-10 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Wildlife are increasingly recognized as critical to urban ecosystems, but the impacts and benefits of wildlife on people in cities are poorly understood. Environmental justice scholarship has concluded that elements of the urban environment can create or exacerbate social inequity, but human–wildlife interactions have not been considered through this lens. We conducted a literature review on urban wildlife, human–wildlife interactions and environmental justice. We triangulated between these three bodies of literature to identify trends, gaps and research needs. We identified six pathways through which wildlife presence or absence, wildlife management and human–wildlife interactions in cities may lead to social injustice for people. Our review shows that wildlife affect nearly all aspects of urban life for people, including economics, participation in decision‐making, patterns of urban space, human health, psychological well‐being and cultural discourses. Through these six pathways, urban wildlife management disproportionately impacts marginalized and vulnerable communities and benefits affluent urban residents. Contemporary intersections of urban planning, wildlife management and histories of systemic bias exacerbate existing injustices in cities. Synthesis and applications . Though wildlife are often characterized as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on their effects on people, we conclude that this dichotomy perpetuates injustice for people and wildlife. Instead, we argue that a ‘just city’ fosters healthy wildlife populations through equitable decision‐making. The pathways we lay out here offer a road map for incorporating environmental justice into urban wildlife management. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Prison environmental injustice in the Global South(s)

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025-03-07

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The socio‐ecological niche

  People and Nature · 2025-04-10

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Ecologists recognise that we live on an increasingly human‐dominated planet, yet most of the field's foundational concepts remain essentially biophysical, with little reference to human society. There are few better examples of this divide between ecological and social theory than the niche concept. During its century‐long history, the niche concept has been defined in many ways, including to describe the ecological roles of humans. To date, however, it has not incorporated human influences into its various descriptions of other species' ecological roles. In this essay, we present the socio‐ecological niche (SEN) concept, which builds on the literature in niche theory by contributing insights from the social sciences and humanities to better understand the roles of non‐human species in modern socio‐ecological systems. We argue that the SEN enriches the niche concept and offers a point of connection between ecology and justice. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 10 Entanglements of Species and Injustice through Carceral Violence

  New York University Press eBooks · 2024-05-16 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• A community-university collaboration for climate justice

  2024-05-08

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter explores an inspiring collaboration between university students, faculty, and community-based social movement organizations to produce knowledge for the purpose of mobilizing the public and policymakers to confront climate change through a climate justice lens. Specifically considered is a project launched by the Central Coast Climate Justice Network and the University of California, Santa Barbara, to keep oil in the ground by defeating three fossil fuel corporations that sought to drill 760 oil wells in northern Santa Barbara County’s Cat Canyon. In this case, the participants followed a deliberative process of building relationships, sharing skills, deep listening, and respectful collaboration in alignment with the principles of environmental justice and climate justice.

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• The Inequity of Climate Change Effects on Mental and Emotional Health

  2024-01-09

  report1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Epilogue

  Journal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture · 2024-07-03

  article1st authorCorresponding

  .

  PublisherDOI

• Power & temporality in pursuing transformative planetary justice

  Environmental Politics · 2024-03-27 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Planetary justice discourse has emerged as a new approach for earth system governance which centers justice concerns within a particular temporal epoch, the so-called 'Anthropocene.' Here, we examine the distinctive features of the planetary justice framework, focusing specifically on the importance of the temporal dimensions relevant for understanding injustices beyond humans and at the planetary scale. We use two examples – PFAS and insurance – to demonstrate how the multiscalar, beyond-human approach adopted by planetary justice scholars, coupled with the discourse's embeddedness in existing earth system governance processes, could have meaningful influence in planetary decision-making processes. We argue that there is a need for (1) expanding the 'pro-poor' agenda of planetary justice research, and (2) cultivating space for inclusion of existing and alternative approaches to justice in pursuing a pluralized planetary justice. In closing, we suggest future areas of research and action for redressing power imbalances across space-time in the pursuit of planetary justice.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Marco Armiero

  Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

  20 shared

• Jevgeniy Kurtiç

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  18 shared

• Ekin Iengo

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  18 shared

• Jan Willem Duyvendak

  Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences

  18 shared

• Sinan Grau

  University of Amsterdam

  18 shared

• Gustavo Andreucci

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  18 shared

• James M. Jasper

  18 shared

• Eda García López

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  18 shared