Tristan Partridge is a social anthropologist and the founding Executive Director of PGR – supporting diverse practices of degrowth, solidarity, care, and connectedness.

Tristan brings to PGR extensive experience in climate justice organizing and environmental justice activism, drawing on over 15 years working through engaged ethnography with the Kichwa-Panzaleo community of San Isidro in Ecuador as well as social movements in India, Chile, Scotland, and California. This research and collaborative documentary work has been published in numerous articles and books, including Mingas+Solidarity; Energy and Environmental Justice; and the co-edited volume Demanding A Radical Constitution.

Tristan previously taught in Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he co-founded a research center — the CREW Center for Restorative Environmental Work — and supported student community engagement in the UCSB Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy. Tristan received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh and subsequently taught at universities in Chile, Spain, the UK, and the US, including courses on ethnographic methods, political ecology, critical energy research, and visual anthropology. 

Tristan’s research addresses collective responses to social and environmental inequalities, drawing on the ever-growing global movement of environmental justice activism and scholarship. This work includes collaborative projects with Indigenous communities defending land and water rights in Ecuador, with farmers’ movements for non-toxic agriculture in northern India, and with groups resisting new oil extraction across California.

Books

Mingas+Solidarity(T&G Publishing / Pazmaen Press, 2025) [collaborative documentary photobook].

Demanding a Radical Constitution: Environmentalism, Resilience, and Participation in Chile’s 2022 Reform Efforts (Palgrave, co-edited with Javiera Barandiaran, 2025).

Burning Diagrams in Anthropology: An Inverse Museum(punctum books, 2024).

Energy and Environmental Justice: Movements, Solidarities, and Critical Connections (Palgrave, 2022).

Other publications (selected)

“Transitions beyond crisis: Emergence and temporality in collective worldmaking” in Anna Willow & Bürge Abiral (eds.) Postcarbon Futures: Imagining (and Enacting) New Worlds through Transition Studies. 2025. London: Routledge, pp. 27-47.

“Futures born of the past and present: building transitions as collaborative projects of justice." In: K. Haltinner & D. Sarathchandra, eds. Solving the Climate Crisis: US Social Scientists Speak Out. 2024. London: Routledge, pp. 193-206, w/ J. Barandiaran.

We Are Welcome Aliens. UC Santa Barbara: Center for Restorative Environmental Work [CREW-based visual research]. 2024.

“Decommissioning: Another critical challenge for energy transitions.” Global Social Challenges Journal 2(2): 188-202. 2023, w/ J. Barandiaran.

“The right to energy: learning from struggles for food, water, and rights to nature." In: S. Bouzarovski, S. Fuller, and T. Reames, eds. Handbook on Energy Justice. 2023. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 226–239.

Loncón, E., Barandiarán, J., Partridge, T., Bricca, L., Lessmeier, K., Maia, L., Millet, I., Salazar, M., Schnitzler, A., Torralbo, C., Wercinski, M. 2023. “To care for each other and for the Earth: An interview with Elisa Loncón.” Trans. T. Partridge. UC Santa Barbara: Center for Restorative Environmental Work.

Graham, S., Wary, M., Calcagni, F., Cisneros, M., de Luca, C., Gorostiza, S., Stedje Hanserud, O., Kallis, G., Kotsila, P., Leipold, S., Malumbres-Olarte, J., Partridge, T., Petit-Boix, A., Schaffartzik, A., Shokry, G., Tirado-Herrero, S., van den Bergh, J., & Ziveri, P. 2023. "An interdisciplinary framework for navigating social–climatic tipping points." People and Nature 5 (5): 1445-1456.

“Los incendios de Tierra del Fuego son una amenaza global.” democraciaAbierta, 3 febrero. 2022.

Apostolopoulou, E., Bormpoudakis, D., Chatzipavlidis, A., Cortés Vázquez, J., Florea, I., Gearey, M., Levy, J., Loginova, J., Ordner, J., Partridge, T., Pizarro, A., Rhoades, H., Symons, K., Veríssimo, C., Wahby, N. 2022. “Radical social innovations and the spatialities of grassroots activism: navigating pathways for tackling inequality and reinventing the commons.” Journal of Political Ecology 29(1): 144–188

“Por qué el Día Nacional de los Páramos en Ecuador es importante.” democraciaAbierta, 25 June. 2022.

“El Aromo Solar Project Sets Precedent for Renewable Energy in Ecuador.” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA): 19 January. 2021.

“Importante victoria ambiental para la comunidad indígena en Ecuador.” democraciaAbierta, 14 diciembre. 2020.

Partridge, T., Barandiaran, J., Walsh, C., Bakardzhieva, K., Bronstein, L., Hernandez, M. 2020. “California oil: Bridging the gaps between local decision-making and state-level climate action.” The Extractive Industries and Society 7(4): 1354-1359.

“‘Power farmers’ in north India and new energy producers around the world: Three critical fields for multiscalar research.” 2020. Energy Research & Social Science 69: 101575.

“Selk’nam victory for indigenous recognition in Chile.” ZNet, 26 June. 2020.

Partridge, T., Thomas, M., Pidgeon, N., Harthorn, B. 2018. “Urgency in energy justice: Contestation and time in prospective shale extraction in the United States and United Kingdom.” Energy Research & Social Science 42: 138-146.

“The commons as organizing infrastructure: Indigenous collaborations and post-neoliberal visions in Ecuador” in E. Apostolopoulou & J. Cortes-Vazquez (eds.) The Right to Nature: Social movements, environmental justice and neoliberal natures. 2018. London: Routledge-Earthscan, pp. 251-262.

More info: https://tristanpartridge.com/