Kort præsentation

I'm an 'undisciplined' social scientist working in the broad field of political ecology (inspired by Armiero, Barca and Velicu's 2019 Minifesto) with research experience in multiple sites. These range from, for example, the broad landscape of animal production across Denmark and Europe (with special attention to the context of worsening infectious diseases like avian influenza, as well as evolving ethical / 'welfare' concerns), to the urban sustainability agendas of European cities like Copenhagen, to the European Union policy realm and practices aimed at preventing trade of illegal forest products, and even further back, to struggles over community forests in Nepal.

While I frequently undertake independent research initiatives, I am currently conducting funded research on: i) multiple sustainability praxes across agricultural education paradigms, through the project FEAST (Farming Education and the Agricultural Sustainable Transition) together with UCPH bio- / environmental ethicists, and ii) impediments to biodiversity conservation as a result of changing human/mosquito relations, through the project 'Beyond the Bite: Reconciling Human Mosquito Relations in Denmark’s Changing Landscapes', with UCPH vector-borne disease specialists and colleagues at our Natural History Museum. 

I'm motivated and inspired by transdisciplinary research and education in relation to social, environmental, and ecological justice, feminist political ecology, multispecies studies, and the pluriversal degrowth global movement. Other activities include serving as a handling editor within the Degrowth journal editorial collective since 2023, steering the UCPH Green Solutions Center (GSC) Degrowth thematic network & participating in the GSC thematic network on animal production, as an elected Faculty representative at my institute, and as a member of my institute's Diversity, equity, and inclusion committee.  

I am a Course Responsible for Motivation and Pro-Environmental Behaviour: Managing Change (MSc), Gender, Environment, and Sustainable Development (MSc), Natur og Landskabspolitik (Nature and Landscape Policy and Politics; BA) and I co-teach Environmental Justice (MSc). I recently co-organized PhD courses Degrowth and socioecological justice across disciplines (2024 & 2025);  Degrowth: Foundations in Theory (2021), and Degrowth Praxis (2021), and a university-wide discussion group on Social movement theory and praxis (2026). I frequently guest lecture on topics such as rethinking and rebuilding the economy (as 'care-full' economies), food sovereignty, utopianism and change-making, and I am moving into conversations on queer ecologies, and masculinities.

Selected publications

Illuminating the care/repair nexus in the ‘pandemic era’, and the potential for care beyond repair in Danish poultry production / Rutt, R.L. & Skriver Møller, A., 2024. Agriculture and Human Values. 

Killing with care? The potentials at the sustainability/masculinity nexus in an ‘alternative’ Danish slaughterhouse / Rutt, R.L. & Tjørring, L. 2024. Agriculture and Human Values. 

Animal geographies of industrial animal agriculture in the Pandemic Era: the tragedy and insecurity of multispecies ethnography / Mc Loughlin, E., Rutt, R.L., Nielsen, N.D. & Skriver Møller, A. 2024. Scottish Geographical Journal.

Growing up sustainable? Politics of race and youth in Urbanplan, Copenhagen / Ritts, M. & Rutt, R.L. 2023. Urban Geography.

The "brother layer" problem: Routine killing, biotechnology and the pursuit of ‘ethical sustainability’ in industrial poultry / Rutt, R.L. & Jakobsen, J. 2023. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 6(3): 1785-1803.

Cultivating urban conviviality: urban farming in the shadows of Copenhagen's neoliberalism. / Rutt RL. 2020. Journal of Political Ecology 27(1): 612-634.

Whose Park? The forty-year fight for Folkets Park under Copenhagen’s evolving urban managerialism. / Rutt, R.L. & Loveless, S. 2018. People, Place and Policy 12(2): 99-117.

FLEGT : another "forestry fad"? / Rutt, R.L., Myers, R., Ramcilovic-Suominen, S; McDermott, C. 2018. Environmental Science & Policy (89): 266-272.

Quests for justice and mechanisms of suppression in Flint, Michigan. / Rutt, R.L. & Bluwstein, J. 2017. Environmental Justice 10(2): 27-35.

Recent contributions to public debate

Vi må gøre op med vækstmanien / Lund, Jens Friis, Røpke, I., Gaarsmand Jacobsen, S., Buch-Hansen, H. & Rutt, Rebecca Leigh, 6 Jun 2020, In: Dagbladet Politiken. p.5 

Collaborative Feminist Degrowth: Pandemic as an Opening for a Care-Full Radical Transformation / Feminist and Degrowth Alliance (FaDa), 20 Apr 2020, Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie.

CV

Education

Ph.D., Development Studies, (2014), Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark 

MS.c., International Development, (2007), International School for Humanities and Social Sciences, Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Netherlands

B.A., International Relations, (2004), Rollins College, Florida, U.S.A.

Employment

University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics, Denmark (2018-present)

University of East Anglia, School of International Development, U.K. (2017-2018)

University of Michigan, School for Environment and Sustainability, USA (2016)

University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics, Denmark (2010-2016)

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Forestry Department, Italy (2007-2010)