The fact that an economist receives one of the major prizes for the humanities, the international Holberg Prize, is already the justification for the award as a statement. In fact, Joan Martínez Alier is honored precisely for his interdisciplinary approach, with which he has conducted and continues to conduct research in the fields of ecological economics, political ecology and environmental justice for decades. His criteria for a just solution of environmental conflicts are taken not least from the philosophical approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.

Christian Geyer-Hindemith

Editor in the arts section.

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The latter is the inspiration for an unrelenting criticism that Martínez Alier also makes of established economic theories and traditional approaches to economic growth. Accordingly, gross domestic product as an indicator of prosperity is to be replaced by measures of social and environmental well-being.

This approach becomes politically capable, for example, in the Atlas of Environmental Justice, co-directed by Martínez Alier, an ongoing digital documentation of 4000,<> social conflicts to date, which deal with unequal distribution of environmental resources or manifest environmental destruction. Recent entries in the sacrilegious register read: "Activists launched a social media campaign titled 'Thirst alks al-Hasakah' to urge Turkey and its allied armed factions to restart the Alouk station and supply the city of al-Hasakah with water." Or like this: "The Metsäliike Forest Movement has blocked logging activities in Aalistunturi in the Finnish Arctic and demanded a protected area status of the area." Or something like this: "This interactive online map brings together case studies documenting a variety of injustices related to airport projects around the world." In such problem indications, disciplines of the humanities can also be found as a revealing force, without which the conflicts could hardly be described coherently as justice deficits.

This is also the guiding idea for two of Martínez Alier's most influential books: "Ecological Economics" (1987) and "The Environmentalism of the Poor" (2002). "Ecological Economics" traces the history of ecological economic criticism from the 1860s to the 1940s. This book by the professor emeritus at the Autonomous University of Barcelona gave voice to another tradition of economic thought and was a significant contribution to the development of political ecology. In this respect, it is part of a disparate series of publications that have become very popular, following the "limits to growth" marked by the Club of Rome in 1972. These are books like the recently reissued catchy title "Small is beautiful. The Return to the Human Measure" (1973) by the British economist of German origin Ernst F. Schumacher or political bestsellers such as "Ein Planet wird geplündert" (1975) by Herbert Gruhl.

The award, named after the poet Ludvig Baron Holberg, for "contributions in the humanities and social sciences, law or theology", according to the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Foundation, which finances the prize, is endowed with around 550,000 euros. The list of previous winners begins in 2004 with Julia Kristeva and continues with Jürgen Habermas, Ronald Dworkin, Bruno Latour to Cass Sunstein, Martha Nussbaum. Martínez Alier will receive the award on 8 June at the University of Bergen.