The University of Kentucky's 10th annual Dimensions of Political Ecology conference kicks off on Thursday, February 27th.
The student organized conference is referred to as DOPE, for short. Graduate student and conference chair Olivia Meyer says that, "Political Ecology is a field of study that looks at how power affects issues of environmental degradation."
Meyer also says the field draws in experts from various backgrounds.
"It's very interdisciplinary, so you'll see anthropologists working on it, or geographers, sociologists."
The topics of the conference will cover a broad range of environmental issues. Meyer says this includes topics such as, "Access and control over resources, or how women experience the environment differently than men, or who is basically included in environmental decision-making."
Meyer says the conference has grown substantially since the first the first took place ten years ago.
"Now it's somewhere between 350 and 400 participants," she says.
Events are scheduled to take place at various locations on and around campus. More about the conference, to include archived information about previous conferences, can be found online at politicalecology.org.