Dr Julie Dayot

I am an ethnographer working at the intersection of political ecology and ecological economics, with an interest in oil conflicts (and non-conflicts), indigenous people's values, knowledge, and relationship with nature. I joined the Sustainable Futures department and the ESI in January 2023 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. I hold a DPhil in International Development from the University of Oxford. 

My PhD is an ethnographic investigation of the acceptance of an oil extraction project by the Quichua communities of the Lower Napo River. It explores the (valuation) struggles faced by the inhabitants and describes how already struggling subsistence economies are ultimately weakened by joint economic, ecological and social crises. It was funded by the Wolfson-Marriott scholarship (Oxford Department of International Development and Wolfson College), le Fonds Sarah Andrieux (National School of Statistics and Economic Administration – ENSAE-Paris), and the Funds for Women Graduates (FfWG).

In my postdoc I seek to question, deconstruct and reframe the concept of cultural difference used in political ecology to describe indigenous people's relationship with nature, as a way to reassess the challenges of ecological economics in the search for solutions to the 21st century ecological crisis. More generally I am interested in understanding the historical and potential role(s) of academia in grasping, analysing, engaging with and ultimately making space for indigenous knowledge, particularly in the context of such crisis.