Political Ecology

Sustainable Ecologies, Unsustainable Politics: Chinampa Farming in Ancient Central Mexico

by Christopher Morehart

Of Otters and Humans: An Approach to the Politics of Nature in Terms of Rhetoric

by Werner Krauss

In: Conservation and Society, 2006, Vol 3, No.2, pp 354-370

Interdisziplinarität als Praxis: Eine Fallgeschichte.

by Werner Krauss

In: Sociologus. Zeitschrift für empirische Ethnosoziologie und Ethnopsychologie / Journal for Empirical Social Anthropology, Vol 1/2006, pp 69-83 - Draft only -

Prosperity, power, and change: Modeling maize at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico

by Christopher Morehart

The Natural and Cultural Landscape Heritage in Northern Friesland

by Werner Krauss

International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2005, Vol. 11, Nr. 1, pp. 39-52
republished in: Olwig, Kenneth R. and David Lowenthal (eds.), The Nature of Cultural Heritage and the Culture of Natural Heritage. Northern Perspectives on a Contested Patrimony. Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2006, pp 37-50
-Draft Only -

Intersections of Nature, Science, and Religion: An Introduction

by Adrian Ivakhiv

Co-authored with Catherine Tucker

Международные аспекты экологической политики Индии и Китая [International aspects of India’s and China’s environmental policies]

by Ivan Sablin

published in Век глобализации, no. 2 (8), 2011, pp. 126–139.

Статья посвящена международным аспектам экополитической проблематики в Китае и Индии. Рассматриваются вопросы влияния... more Статья посвящена международным аспектам экополитической проблематики в Китае и Индии. Рассматриваются вопросы влияния процессов глобализации на состояние окружающей среды и экологическую политику в указанных странах. Упоминается гипотеза «убежища для загрязнителей». Также уделяется внимание участию двух стран в международном сотрудничестве по вопросам решения глобальных проблем современности. В статье исследуются китайские и индийские философские концепции и дается оценка возможности принятия этими странами на себя глобальной экологической ответственности.

Отражение экологической политики Индии и Китая в научном и общественно-политическом дискурсе [Reflexions of Indian and Chinese environmental policies in scientific and socio-political discourse]

by Ivan Sablin

published in Terra Humana: Общество, Среда, Развитие, no. 3, 2011, pp. 204–208.

Перед Китаем и Индией сегодня стоит сложная задача решения экологических проблем. Усилия правительств в данном... more Перед Китаем и Индией сегодня стоит сложная задача решения экологических проблем. Усилия правительств в данном направлении рассматриваются представителями научных и общественно-политических кругов двух стран как неэффективные, хотя в целом КНР добилась некоторых успехов. В научной литературе и в прессе предлагается целый ряд рекомендаций по совершенствованию экологической политики двух стран. Именно им и посвящена настоящая статья.

Китай-Индия: Экологический срез [China and India: Their role in solving world ecological problems]

by Ivan Sablin

published in Азия и Африка сегодня, no. 11, 2011, pp. 14–19.

Еще два десятилетия назад основным источником глобального экологического кризиса виделся способ производства и... more Еще два десятилетия назад основным источником глобального экологического кризиса виделся способ производства и потребления в развитых странах. Сегодня в ключевых экологических акторов превращаются быстрорастущие (формирующиеся рыночные) страны. Именно от их усилий по решению глобальных и региональных экологических проблем (разумеется, при содействии развитых государств) будет зависеть жизнь всего человечества. Китай и Индия среди стран бывшего "третьего мира" пользуются большим политическим влиянием, что вкупе со значительными масштабами воздействия экономик этих стран на окружающую среду позволяет говорить о них как об экологических сверхдержавах. Если уровень потребления в Индии и Китае приблизится к уровню потребления в развитых странах, то мир ожидает экологическая катастрофа. В то же время возможность сразу перейти к устойчивой модели развития, минуя негативные экологические последствия промышленного развития, представляется малореальной. Вопрос о том, будет ли найден компромисс между стремлением к экономическому росту и ограниченными природными ресурсами, остается открытым. От того, какой путь развития изберут эти страны в ближайшие годы, во многом будет зависеть развитие всего мира.

Теоретические аспекты экологической политики [Environmental policy: Theoretical aspects]

by Ivan Sablin

published in Молодой ученый, no. 6-2, 2011, pp. 58–65.

Экологическая проблематика стала предметом интереса целого ряда общественных наук в конце 1960-х – начале 1970-х... more Экологическая проблематика стала предметом интереса целого ряда общественных наук в конце 1960-х – начале 1970-х годов. Экологические направления появились в рамках многих дисциплин, включая экономику, социологию и политологию. Обращение экономистов, политологов и социологов к взаимоотношениям общества и природы обусловлено, прежде всего, теми социальными и политическими процессами, которые начались в западном мире в 1960-х годах. Всплеск общественного интереса к экологическим проблемам и все более широкое осознание глобального характера происходящих в окружающей среде изменений не только привели к появлению новой области исследований, но и стали вызовом для тех, кто принимает политические и экономические решения. В рамках различных научных дисциплин, а также на междисциплинарном уровне был разработан целый ряд концепций экологической политики.

Consuming Ourselves to Death

by Richard Wilk

published as
Wilk, Richard 2009 “Consuming Ourselves to Death.” In Anthropology and Climate Change: from Encounters to Actions, edited by Susan Crate.  Duke University Press. Pp. 265-276.

Ultimately climate change is the product of consumption; greenhouse gases are produced by making things and energy,... more Ultimately climate change is the product of consumption; greenhouse gases are produced by making things and energy, moving things, and carrying people around. Simply put, more people are using more energy and creating and using more “stuff” than ever before in the history of the planet. Besides lamenting the passing of low-impact village-level societies, what does anthropology have to say about consumer culture which might actually be useful in thinking our way towards more sustainable levels of consumption? I argue that a drastic re-orientation of the way we teach anthropology is in order; what do we want our students to learn about the world and what kind of skills do they need? The same argument can be made for the public messages we extend in our popular publications.

Dialectics of disassembly: heifer-care protocols and the alienation of value in a village dairy cooperative

by Lauren Martin

Lead author: Tad Mutersbaugh, University of Kentucky.

This paper examines ‘protocols’—instructions that inform project recipients about how technology is to be used. Our... more This paper examines ‘protocols’—instructions that inform project recipients about how technology is to be used. Our case study of ‘heifer-care’ protocols associated with a microdairy scheme raises two questions. First, we ask how these protocols effect a disassembly of social relations within the village—‘poisoning’ them, as coop members put it. Second, we raise the question of persistence: namely, how were village participants in the microdairy cooperative able to continue for over fifteen years despite a failure to produce milk and the deleterious effects upon village social relations? To address this paradox, we examine protocols from the standpoints of both science and technology studies (STS) and labor-process studies(LPS). STS supply a ‘boundary object’ concept that helps to explain protocol persistence; LPS provide a theory of alienation that furthers our understanding of how protocols alienate labor—via a spatiotemporal dislocation of value—and shape coop members’ subjective experience of development. By joining these theories, we hope to provide insights into the operations of protocols and suggest a theoretical liaison between STS and LPS that would provide STS with a better theory of subjective experience and LPS theory with an improved poststructuralist framing. As a matter of praxis, we also show how coop members recognize, in time, the mechanisms through which value is dislocated and respond by reworking their engagements with NGOs to capture a share of the value produced by their labor.

Ecological modernisation theory: towards a critical ecopolitics of change?

by Rosalind Warner

Environmental Politics
Vol. 19, Iss. 4, 2010

The literature on ecological modernisation (EM) is reviewed from a critical political ecology viewpoint. Critical... more The literature on ecological modernisation (EM) is reviewed from a critical political ecology viewpoint. Critical political ecology is centrally concerned with how change in industrial societies occurs. Does the EM literature presently offer a theory of ecopolitical change that is both coherent and relevant to the contexts prevailing today in industrialised countries? Two strands in the EM literature are discussed: the functional and socio-political accounts of change. From the perspective of critical political ecology, EM thinking does not provide an ethically or politically coherent argument for more radical change. The possibilities for elaborating a more nuanced ‘post-EM’ account of ecopolitical change that incorporates a politics of conflict and an expansion of the scope of politics itself are evaluated.

Carse A (2012) Nature as infrastructure: Making and managing the Panama Canal Watershed.” Social Studies of Science 32(4).

by Ashley Carse

In: Special Issue on Water and Science and Technology Studies, Samer Alatout & Jessica Barnes, eds. Comments by Karen Bakker & Wiebe Bijker.

The Panama Canal requires an enormous volume of fresh water to function. A staggering 52 million gallons are released... more The Panama Canal requires an enormous volume of fresh water to function. A staggering 52 million gallons are released into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with each of the 35–45 ships that transit the canal daily. The water that facilitates interoceanic transportation and global connection falls as rain across the watershed surrounding the canal and is managed by an extensive system of locks, dams, and hydrographic stations. These technologies – which correspond with the popular understanding of infrastructure as hardware – were largely constructed during the early 20th century. Since the late 1970s, however, administrators and other concerned actors have responded to actual and potential water scarcity within the canal system by developing a managerial approach that integrates engineered technologies and new techniques of land-use planning and environmental regulation across the watershed. Through this process, techno-politics and environmental politics have become increasingly inextricable in the transit zone. Whereas canal administrators previously emphasized the control of water in its liquid state, watershed management emerged as an attempt to manipulate water flows through the legal protection of forests and restriction of agriculture. As forested landscapes have been assigned new infrastructural functions (water storage and regulation), campesino farmers have been charged with a new responsibility (forest conservation) often at odds with their established agricultural practices. Consequently, I bring together scholarship on infrastructure in science and technology studies and political ecology in anthropology and geography to examine why, how, and to what effect landscapes around the canal have been transformed from agricultural frontier to managed watershed. I suggest that the concept of infrastructure is a useful theoretical tool and empirical topic for analyzing the politics of environmental service provision. By paying attention to the contingent history of engineering decisions and the politics embedded in the changing socio-technical system that delivers water to the canal, we can better understand the distributional politics of environmental service provision in Panama today.

How to Challenge a Green Giant: Ethnographic Critiques of Global Conservation

by Tracey Heatherington

Development Against Freedom and Sustainability

by Debal Deb

Contentious Geographies: Environmental Knowledge, Meaning, Scale

by Michael Goodman

This is the Preface, Table of Contents and First Chapter of the Volume.

The human-environment relationship - intimately intertwined and often contentious - is one of the most pressing... more The human-environment relationship - intimately intertwined and often contentious - is one of the most pressing concerns of the 21st century. Explored through an array of critical approaches, this book brings together case studies from across the globe to present significant cutting-edge research into political ecologies as they relate to multi-form contestations over environments, resources and livelihoods.

Covering a range of issues, such as popular discourses of environmental 'collapse', climate change, water resource struggles, displacement, agro-food landscapes and mapping technologies, this edited volume works to provide a broad and critical understanding of the narratives and policies more subtly shaping and being shaped by underlying environmental conflicts.

By exploring the power-laden processes by which environmental knowledge is generated, framed, communicated and interpreted, Contentious Geographies works to reveal how environmental conflicts can be (re)considered and thus (re)opened to enhance efforts to negotiate more sustainable environments and livelihoods.

Planning Networks: Processing India's National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan

by Nikhil Anand

2006. Conservation and Society 4(3): 471-487.

This paper explores how NGOs, state agencies and activists par- ticipated in the preparation of India’s National... more This paper explores how NGOs, state agencies and activists par- ticipated in the preparation of India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Ac- tion Plan (NBSAP). The study is based on three months of fieldwork in the summer of 2003, during which I conducted semi-structured interviews and re- viewed the documents used and produced in the planning process. While some critics view NGO involvement in state policy making with suspicion, others see it as a successful outcome of a long-standing demand for greater partici- pation in governance. I argue that the form and structure of the NBSAP process provided a limited, yet critical, space for activists. On one hand, activists used this space to make strong critiques of state conservation practices, and to promote inclusive conservation practices. On the other, they were continuously pressured to make compromises, because of their new responsibilities as plan makers and in order to increase the likelihood of ‘buy-in’ from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). Rather than being seen as encompassed or ‘co-opted’ by state strategies of power, however, it is more useful to see activists and NGOs as engaging in tactical manoeuvres and practising an imperfect, yet necessary, form of politics. Conscious that they were participating in an unequal and temporally limited space, activists in NGOs sought to make this project of government as plural and fair as possible. Finally, I note that although the planning document was eventually rejected by the MoEF, the network that was initiated to create the plan may produce results that go beyond the NBSAP process itself.

Reading fair trade: political ecological imaginary and the moral economy of fair trade foods

by Michael Goodman

This paper begins to explore the changing political geographies of alternative development as practiced and envisioned... more This paper begins to explore the changing political geographies of alternative development as practiced and envisioned in the global South. Looking specifically at the growing movement and market for fair trade foods, this form of alternative development has become the moral business of latte drinkers and other reflexive consumers in Europe and the US. Fair trade attempts to reconnect producers and consumers economically, politically, and psychologically through the creation of a transnational moral economy. This re-connection is accomplished through material and semiotic commoditization processes that produce fair trade commodities. The semiotic production of these commodities and their traffic in particular ‘political ecological imaginaries’ is essential to the formation of ethical production-consumption links, acting to also politicize consumption and fair trade eaters. Fair trade’s moral economy rides the tension between the ethical relationships it fosters and the need for the wily characteristics of enterprise in the construction of transnational trade networks. Bringing recent work on moral geography to bear, constructing this moral economy is an attempt to facilitate a sense of ‘solidarity in difference’ in the experiences of global economic inequalities between North and South and growers and eaters. At the same time, fair trade networks look to produce an expansive ‘spatial dynamics of concern’ in the fashioning of ethical places of production and consumption. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the continuing dilemmas critical for fair trade and suggestions for further empirical study of fair trade provisioning and alternative development networks.

Disconnecting Experience: Making World-Class Roads In Mumbai

by Nikhil Anand

2006. Economic and Political Weekly 41: 3422-3429.