Enhancing Grassroots - Journal of Political Ecology with an OLH Grant

Posted by Dr Paula Clemente Vega on 27 January 2025

The OLH Open Access Award 2023 awardee’s report: Grassroots - Journal of Political Ecology. 

An Open Insights report by Meenakshi N Ambujam, Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of International Development, University of Oxford, and Editor at Grassroots.

In the 2023 OLH Open Access Award cycle, Grassroots applied for a grant seeking support for the development and maintenance of our website. We aspired to transform our website into an inviting space, which would not only expand our audience base but also encourage more people to consider us for their contributions. 

Grassroots is a fully open-access publication platform designed for activists and scholars working on sustainable politics, environmental justice, political ecology, political ontology, and related themes, with a focus on grassroots movements, local voices, as well as experiences from the Global South. Launched in 2021 as a section of the Journal of Political Ecology, our objective is to showcase and amplify local stories and reflections on the politics of environmental change and world-making that can spark political and academic debate. Since our launch, this mission has remained steadfast, even as we have adapted to the changing needs of our contributors and readers. 

As a membership-free platform, Grassroots prioritises the works of early-career scholars, as well as social movements, activists, and other non-academic contributors. These works come from diverse spaces and regions, and we realised our platform needed to host articles in languages beyond English. Thus, we publish in French and Spanish too. Remaining open-access has been critical to ensuring that we continue to platform diverse voices. 

While our academic peer-reviewed pieces are included in the volumes of the Journal of Political Ecology, our activist contributions, commentaries, visual essays, and other creative pieces are featured solely on our website. This division highlights the unique and dynamic role our website plays. It serves as a space for creative and activist contributions as well. The OLH grant, therefore, was not just a financial resource but a means to reimagine this vital platform into something our audiences and contributors could truly feel excited about. 

Before receiving financial support from the Open Library of Humanities (OLH), most of the expenses related to the maintenance of our website depended on individual contributions from members of the editorial team. This approach was not only unsustainable but also significantly limited what we were capable of doing. For instance, as a digital platform, we were acutely aware that our website needed solid restructuring. Initially designed through specific codes rather than using a flexible framework like WordPress, our old website posed numerous challenges. Tasks as simple as uploading new content became tedious. The user interface was not optimal either, and the lack of in-house technological expertise compounded these issues. The grant from OLH gave us the much-needed seed money to recruit a web design company for the production and design of our new website

Working with the design company allowed us to be more ambitious with what we aspired for Grassroots. This process included transforming the banner images, restructuring how content was showcased, coming to a consensus on images and colours to be used, and identifying the long-term maintenance requirements of our website. These discussions often extended beyond aesthetics to more substantive considerations. For example, the editorial collective of Grassroots has long discussed the possibility of creating avenues to add audio and video content. The opportunity to revamp our website gave us a chance to explore some of these ideas that we were otherwise unable to because of financial constraints. 

The OLH grant was hugely instrumental in permitting us to develop adequate capacities within our website to add multimodal content. As a result, today, we can embed video links and host content in various formats. For instance, our new video page showcases interviews that were part of POLLEN’s (Political Ecology Network) 2024 Conference. These interviews and talks bring dynamic visual storytelling to themes of environmental justice and grassroots activism. We anticipate expanding this further, aiming to host podcasts and more video content in the near future. These additions align closely with our mission of amplifying diverse voices, offering contributors new ways to share their stories. 

The support from OLH also catalysed further change by enabling us to raise additional funds for the continued development of our website—it has helped us kickstart a major process of change. The collaboration with the web design company was itself a tremendous learning process. After several discussions and iterations of prototypes and designs the web design company provided us, we finally zeroed in on a format that resonated with the collective vision of Grassroots

The new website, launched in late 2024, marked a significant milestone for us. We marked this launch by publishing the first round of articles from our latest Special Issue, “Post-growth food systems for a just social-ecological transition within planetary boundaries” (with the rest to follow soon). The updated platform also integrates content from our old website, which is now organised and categorised in a much more accessible and searchable manner. This ensures that our rich archive of contributions continues to be a resource for readers and researchers. 

The new version of Grassroots, thus, is user-friendly, significantly easier to navigate, accessible, and much more exciting. 

As we look to the future, the new Grassroots platform positions us to deepen our impact. We envision further expanding our multimodal content offerings as well as our activist and visual content. The grant’s impact extends beyond technical upgrades; it has not only revitalised our digital presence but also strengthened our capacity to serve as a nexus for activism, scholarship, and creative expression.