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Audra Mitchell holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Political Ecology at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the Department of Political Science. From 2015-18, Prof. Mitchell held the CIGI Chair in Global Governance and Ethics at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She has previously worked at the University of York, UK (2010-15) and the University of St. Andrews, UK (2009-10), and has held visiting fellowships at the Universities of Queensland (Australia) and Edinburgh (UK). Mitchell completed a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the Queen’s University of Belfast, UK (2009).
Prof. Mitchell’s research has made seminal contributions in and across the fields of global political ecology, (more-than-) human geography, environmental studies, international theory and the environmental humanities. For more than a decade, Mitchell has led a series of projects that show how interlocking logics of oppression (colonization, racism and ableism) drive global patterns of extinction and shape theories and practices of biodiversity and conservation. This work foregrounds the survival knowledge and resistance work of Indigenous, Black, crip, queer and other marginalized communities highlighting diverse strategies for collective survival. Prof. Mitchell’s other recent work includes influential interventions into discourses surrounding ecological, political and techno-scientific futures, and ground-breaking work on crip ecological knowledge. Prof. Mitchell’s earlier work has made major contributions to the emerging field of extinction studies; helped to bring more-than-human theories and methods from the margins to the center of critical debates in international and global theory; and made seminal contributions to discourses of anti-colonial peace-building. In addition, Mitchell has conducted cutting edge work on issues such as Indigenous outer space law and the ethics of global plastics pollution.
Prof. Mitchell has published more than 50 peer-reviewed works, and led a grant portfolio of over $2.3 million from a range of international funders. She also co-founded and led several international partnerships, networks and community-based research projects. For example, a recent partnership supported community- and land-based research projects in 19 Indigenous communities across Canada, Australia, the United States, Malaysia and the Philippines. Prof. Mitchell has supervised or mentored more than 60 Early Career Researchers and community-based researchers. She has consulted and/or advised government ministries, NGOs, museums, funders in Canada and many other countries.
Prof. Mitchell is a settler of Ukrainian and British descent living and working as an uninvited intergenerational guest on the lands of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples.
- a multi-disciplinary, collaborative project that aims to identify and resist emerging logics of eugenics in the context of ecological, political and technological crises and in areas such as conservation, global public health, climate policy, technoscience and crisis/disaster preparedness.
- a theory-based study of the ethics of unconditionality as a basis for eco-political relations and collective survival, which draws on insights from disability justice, abolitionist theory and environmental justice.
- a large, collaborative team-based project on Autistic and crip ecological knowledges, including the development of new methodologies, theoretical frameworks and original place-based research/research creation (e.g. sound studies, poetry) (funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant, "Autistic Knowledge Ecologies", 2023-2028).
- an interdisciplinary project on abolitionist theory (including carceral, institutional, border, ecological and other streams of abolitionist thought and practice) in a global context.
- ongoing collaborations in areas such as multi-species justice and earth-centred politics.
Select Recent Academic / Professional Awards
- Canada Research Chair in Global Political Ecology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2018-2030 (renewed for second term in 2025)
- SSHRC Insight Grant, “Autistic Knowledge Ecologies and Global Ecological Futuring”, (PI) 2023-28.
- SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, “Decolonizing Against Extinction” (PI), 2018-22.
- SSHRC Connection Grant, “Caring for Kin, Confronting Global Disruptive Change” (PI), 2018-19.
- SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant, “How Can Indigenous Knowledges Respond to the Global Extinction Crisis?” (co-CI).
- Independent Social Research Foundation Residential Research Group Award, 2016.
- CIGI Chair in Global Governance and Ethics, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2015-18.
- Independent Social Research Foundation Early Career Fellowship, 2013-14.
Select Recent Publications
- Mitchell, Audra. 2023. Revenant Ecologies: Defying the Violence of Extinction and conservation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Revenant Ecologies is available as an audiobook from Tantor Audio narrated by Holly Adams.
- Mitchell, Audra, 2024. “Generative Decay: Towards a Politics of and for Earth” International Relations, 38, No.3.
- Mitchell, Audra, 2023. “Non-human, More-than-human and Inhuman International Relations and International Studies” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. Oxford University Press and International Studies Association.
- Mitchell, Audra, 2023. “Holding On, Letting Go: Escaping the Contemporary Museum” in Wayne Modest and Claudia Agustat, Spaces of Care: Confronting Colonial Afterlives in European Ethnographic Museums. Bielefield: Transcript Verlag, pp. 59-69.
- Mitchell, Audra, 2022. “Resonant Relations: Eco-lalia, Political Echology and Autistic Ways of Worlding” Environment and Planning E: Society and Space.
- Mitchell, Audra and Aadita Chaudhury, 2020. “Worlding beyond ‘the’ End of ‘the’ World: White Apocalyptic Visions and BIPOC Imaginaries” International Relations, Vol. 34, No. 3 (open access).
- Bawaka Country including A. Mitchell, K. Lloyd, S.Wright, S.Suchet-Pearson, B. Ganambarr, R. Ganambarr and D. Maymaru. 2020. “Dukarr lakarama: Listening to Guwak, Talking Back to Space Colonization”. Political Geography, online first.
- Mitchell, Audra and N. Theriault. 2020. “Extinction” in “Anthropocene Unseen: A Lexicon for the Anthropocene to Come“. Cultural Anthropology, online first (open access).
- The Creatures’ Collective including KJ Hernández, J. Rubis, Z. Todd, N. Theriault, A. Mitchell, S. Wright, and Bawaka Country including L. Burrarrwanga, R. Ganambarr, M. Ganambarr-Stubbs, B. Ganambarr, D. Maymaru and S. Suchet-Pearson. 2020. “The Creatures Collective: Manifestings Against Extinction”. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, online first.
- Leduc, Tim, A. Mitchell, J. Rubis and N. Theriault. 2019. “Living Protocols: (Re)making Indigenous Worlds in the Face of Extinction”. Special edition of Social and Cultural Geography, online first.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2019. “Can IR Confront the Cosmos?” in Routledge Handbook of Critical International Relations. Edited by Jenny Edkins. London: Routledge, pp. 51-60.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2018. “(Re)vitalizing laws, (re)making treaties: Indigenous-led resurgence against the ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’”. Social and Cultural Geography, online first.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2017. “Beyond Biodiversity and Species: Problematizing Extinction”. Theory, Culture and Society 33: 23-42.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2016. “Is IR Going Extinct?“. European Journal of International Relations.
- Burke, Anthony, S. Dalby, S. Fishel, D. Levine and A. Mitchell. 2016. “Planet Politics: A Manifesto from the End of IR”. Millennium Journal of International Studies 44 (3): 499-523.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2016. “Extinction”. Gender: Nature. Edited by Iris Van Der Tuin. New York: MacMillan.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2015. “Thinking Without the Circle: Marine Plastic and Global Ethics”. Political Geography 47: 77-85.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2014. “Only Human? Towards Worldly Security”. Security Dialogue 45 (1): 5-21.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2014. International Intervention in a Secular Age: Re-enchanting Humanity. London: Routledge.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2011. “Quality/Control: International Intervention and the ‘Everyday’”. Review of International Studies 37 (4): 1623-45.
- Mitchell, Audra and O. Richmond. 2011. Hybrid Forms of Peace: From the Everyday to Post-liberalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
This interdisciplinary course focuses on the unequal distribution of global ecological harms amongst Indigenous, Black, People of Colour and land-based communities. It showcases the ways that these communities have mobilized to challenge threats to their well-being, communities, lands, modes of governance and ways of life. After grounding students in the protocols of the land on which the course takes place, it introduces key theoretical concepts and frameworks such as settler colonialism, environment racism, land-based sexual and gendered violence, crip theory, consent and Indigenous sovereignty. Through rich real-world examples drawn from cutting edge research, students will mobilize these tools to analyze and critique the sources of multiple ecological harms, including: water toxification, oil, gas and ‘extreme energy’ extraction, ‘man camps’, nuclear testing/siting, militarization and the links between ecological harm and genocide.
This course was developed using Universal Design principles.
Global politics is shaped by struggles and contestation over who has the right to live on particular lands, how it is used, how it ought to be cared for and protected, and what kinds of communities it sustains. At the same time, some of the most powerful currents of global violence – colonialism, genocide, racism, extraction and ecological destruction – play out on and in the land. Contemporary struggles to define ecological, economic, and community futures – including those of Indigenous, Black, poor and disabled communities – all hinge on how land is understood, and the relations that different communities for with it. This course introduces students to some of the major debates, struggles and political movements shaping land (also including water, plants, animals and ecosystems), its histories and its futures. It is an interdisciplinary course, integrating elements from political ecology, human and more-than-human geography, anthropology, sociology, law (including Indigenous legal systems) political ecology, Indigenous studies and more.
This course was developed using Universal Design principles.
Contact Info:
Office hours: Online, by appointment (current students: please check the syllabus for online office hours).
Languages spoken: English, French