Value in capitalist natures

This article draws heavily upon a discussion among 11 leading scholars in nature–society geography to explore the current and historical relationships between value, nature, and capitalism. Prompted by a provocation from Robertson and Wainwright (2013) that political ecologists can no longer afford to avoid engaging with the tricky topic of Marxian value theory, we address the importance of the concept of value for contemporary work within geography on the political economy of the environment, broadly defined. We argue that scholars in nature–society geography should not only tackle the tricky questions of value head-on but that value could and should come to serve as a unifying analytical framework for the subfield.