Political ecology

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Political ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena.

The academic discipline offers wide-ranging studies conflating ecological social sciences with political economy (Peet and Watts 1996, p. 6) in topics such as degradation and marginalization, environmental conflict, conservation and control, and environmental identities and social movements (Robbins, 2004, p. 14).

Contents

[edit] Origins

The term "political ecology" was first coined by anthropologist Eric R. Wolf in 1972 in an article entitled “Ownership and Political Ecology,” in which he discusses how local rules of ownership and inheritance “mediate between the pressures emanating from the larger society and the exigencies of the local ecosystem” (Wolf 1972, p. 202). Other origins include other early works of Eric R. Wolf as well as John W. Cole and Hans Magnus Enzensberger and others in the 1970s and 1980s.

The origins of the field in the 1970s and 1980s were a result of the development of radical development geography and cultural ecology (Bryant 1998, p. 80). Historically, political ecology has focused on phenomena in and affecting the developing world; since the field’s inception, “research has sought primarily to understand the political dynamics surrounding material and discursive struggles over the environment in the third world” (Bryant 1998, p. 89).

Scholars in political ecology are drawn from a variety of academic disciplines, including geography, anthropology, development studies, political science, sociology, forestry, and environmental history. Some modern prominent scholars include:

    • Piers Blaikie
    • Harold Brookfield
    • Dianne Rocheleau
    • Richard Peet
    • Nancy Lee Peluso
    • Michael Watts

[edit] Overview

Political ecology’s broad scope and interdisciplinary nature lends itself to multiple definitions and understandings. However, common assumptions across the field give it relevance. Raymond L. Bryant and Sinéad Bailey have developed three fundamental assumptions in practicing political ecology:

  • First, costs and benefits associated with environmental change are distributed unequally. Changes in the environment do not affect society in a homogenous way: political, social, and economic differences account for uneven distribution of costs and benefits.
  • Second, this unequal distribution inevitably reinforces or reduces existing social and economic inequalities. In this assumption, political ecology runs into inherent political economies as “any change in environmental conditions must affect the political and economic status quo.” (Bryant and Bailey 1997, p. 28).
  • Third, the unequal distribution of costs and benefits and the reinforcing or reducing of pre-existing inequalities holds political implications in terms of the altered power relationships that now result.

In addition, political ecology attempts to provide critiques as well as alternatives in the interplay of the environment and political, economic and social factors. Robbins asserts that the discipline has a “normative understanding that there are very likely better, less coercive, less exploitative, and more sustainable ways of doing things” (2004, 12).

From these assumptions, political ecology can be used to:

  • inform policymakers and organizations of the complexities surrounding environment and development, thereby contributing to better environmental governance.
  • understand the decisions that communities make about the natural environment in the context of their political environment, economic pressure, and societal regulations
  • look at how unequal relations in and among societies affect the natural environment, especially in context of government policy

[edit] Scope and Influences

Political ecology’s movement as a field since its inception in the 1970s has complicated its scope and goals. Through the discipline’s history, certain influences have grown more and less influential in determining the focus of study. Paul Walker traces the importance of the ecological sciences in political ecology (Walker 2005, p. 74). He points to the transition, for many critics, from a ‘structuralist’ approach through the 1970s and 1980s, in which ecology maintains a key position in the discipline, to a ‘poststructuralist’ approach with an emphasis on the ‘politics’ in political ecology (Walker 2005, p. 74-75). This turn has raised questions as to the differentiation with environmental politics as well as the field’s use of the term of ‘ecology’.

The discipline has drawn much from cultural ecology, a form of analysis that showed how culture depends upon, and is influenced by, the material conditions of society (political ecology has largely eclipsed cultural ecology has a form of analysis according to Walker, 2005). As Walker states, “whereas cultural ecology and systems theory emphasize[s] adaptation and homeostasis, political ecology emphasize[s] the role of political economy as a force of maladaptation and instability” (2005, p. 74).

Political ecology will often utilize the framework of political economy to analyze environmental issues. An early and prominent example of this was The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries by Piers Blaikie in 1985, which traced land degradation in Africa to colonial policies of land appropriation, rather than to over-exploitation by African farmers.

The movement of the field has changed, broadened and complicated its scope and goals.

[edit] References

  • Blaikie, P., and Brookfield, H.. Land Degradation and Society. Methuen: 1987.
  • Bryant Raymond L. Power, knowledge and political ecology in the third world: a review. Progress in Physical Geography. 1998;22(1):79-94.
  • Bryant, Raymond L. and Sinead Bailey. Third World Political Ecology. Routledge: 1997.
  • Peet, R. and Watts, M.J. Introduction: Development Theory and Environment in an Age of Market Triumphalism. Economic Geography, 1993;68(3): 227-253.
  • Peet, R. and Watts, M.J., eds. Liberation ecologies: environment, development, social movements. Routledge: 1996.
  • Robbins, Paul. Political ecology: a critical introduction. Blackwell Publishing: 2004.
  • Rocheleau, D. Gender and a Feminist Political Ecology Perspective. IDS Institute for Development Studies. 1995;26(1): 9-16.
  • Walker PA. Political ecology: where is the ecology. Progress in Human Geography. 2005;29(1):73–82.
  • Wolf E. Ownership and Political Ecology. Anthropological Quarterly. 1972;45(3):201-205.

[edit] See also

Ecology portal
Environment portal

[edit] External links


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Environmental social science
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