Colonizing landscapes/landscaping colonies: from a global history of landscapism to the contemporary landscape approach in nature conservation

I suggest that to decolonize conservation we must also decolonize our way of seeing land and nature-society relations inscribed in it as landscapes. I proceed in three parts. First, drawing on insights from post- and decolonial studies, critical geography, environmental history and political ecology, I highlight three problems that underpin a landscape way of seeing nature-society relations: depoliticization, simplification/decomplexification, and representation. Second,to illustrate the colonial legacy of the contemporary landscape approach to nature conservation, I revisit the global history of landscapism – the double movement of colonizing landscapes/landscapingcolonies. This double movement began with the internal colonization of European landscapes (autonomous political communities), and continued through the landscaping of (settler-)colonies by Europeans outside of their homelands. Third, through the contemporary case of a landscape conservation initiative in Tanzania (the so-called "Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem"), I illustrate the implications of the double movement in the colonial present of African conservation. I conclude with a few remarks on what decolonization of conservation would have to entail in scientific research and practice.

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Historical tools and current societal challenges: reflections on a collection of environmental migration cases

Fennia - International Journal of Geography ◽

10.11143/fennia.86020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 198 (1-2) ◽

pp. 151-162

Author(s):

Roberta Biasillo

Keyword(s):

Political Ecology ◽

Environmental History ◽

Sources Of Information ◽

Horizon 2020 ◽

Historical Perspectives ◽

Environmental Migration ◽

Societal Challenges ◽

History Of ◽

Migration Flows ◽

And Migration

Through considering a "Geo Archive" as a tool of history, this paper explores several conundrums concerning environmental migration in social sciences. It demonstrates how historical perspectives can problematize and unsettle various automatisms that are widely present in journalistic, public, and policy discourses. Through examples from the Geo Archive, the article illustrates how unavoidable historical dimensions can enrich our understandings on the interaction between environmental issues and migration flows. This paper engages with an open access "archive in-the-making". This Geo Archive includes case studies of migration flows and puts those flows in conversation with environmental transformations and climatic changes. The analysed collection presents high-profile stories which are representative samples of different approaches, temporalities, geographies, sources of information, narratives, and scales. This endeavour encompasses different disciplines and fields of expertise: environmental humanities, IT and communication experts, and political ecology. The archive places itself within the realms of public history, environmental history, and history of the present and aims to reach out to wider audiences. This digital humanities project stemmed from a support action funded by the EU initiative Horizon 2020 titled CLISEL whose overarching goal was to analyse and better inform institutional responses and policies addressing climate refugees and migrants.

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‘Born in the corridors of the OECD’: the forgotten origins of the Club of Rome, transnational networks, and the 1970s in global history

Journal of Global History ◽

10.1017/s1740022816000322 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 26-48 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Matthias Schmelzer

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

Social History ◽

Early Period ◽

Transnational Networks ◽

Global History ◽

Limits To Growth ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Post War ◽

Club Of Rome

AbstractThis article re-examines a contested chapter in the international and environmental history of the 1970s. Even though largely neglected by historical research and in the public memory, the Club of Rome – widely remembered for its 1972 report The limits to growth – was not only born within the OECD, but was also in its early period strongly influenced by debates within this think tank of the industrialized countries. Using previously overlooked sources, this article analyses this highly unlikely OECD–Club of Rome nexus. It not only offers a privileged view into the social history of international policy-making and the related personal entanglements and ideological transfers at a key moment of post-war history. It also demonstrates that the social, intellectual, and economic turmoil of the late 1960s prompted a rethinking of the economic growth paradigm, even within those technocratic institutions that had aspired to guide the post-war industrial growth regime. The article argues that these links are not only vital for our understanding of the relationship between acquisitive growth capitalism and environmentalism, but also enable a more profound understanding of the role of transnational networks in global history and the appreciation of the place of the 1970s in world history.

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Geopolitics and the Green Revolution

10.1093/oso/9780195110135.001.0001 ◽

1998 ◽

Author(s):

John H. Perkins

Keyword(s):

Political Ecology ◽

Environmental History ◽

Human Ecology ◽

Green Revolution ◽

The United States ◽

Social Consequences ◽

Modern Agriculture ◽

History Of ◽

Security Planning ◽

United States Mexico

During the last 100 years, the worldwide yields of cereal grains, such as wheat and rice, have increased dramatically. Since the 1950s, developments in plant breeding science have been heralded as a "Green Revolution" in modern agriculture. But what factors have enabled and promoted these technical changes? And what are the implications for the future of agriculture? This new book uses a framework of political ecology and environmental history to explore the "Green Revolution's" emergence during the 20th century in the United States, Mexico, India, and Britain. It argues that the national security planning efforts of each nation were the most important forces promoting the development and spread of the "Green Revolution"; when viewed in the larger scheme, this period can be seen as the latest chapter in the long history of wheat use among humans, which dates back to the neolithic revolution. Efforts to reform agriculture and mitigate some of the harsh environmental and social consequences of the "Green Revolution" have generally been insensitive to the deeply embedded nature of high yielding agriculture in human ecology and political affairs. This important insight challenges those involved in agriculture reform to make productivity both sustainable and adequate for a growing human population.

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Environmental history of an urban wetland: from degraded colonial resource to nature conservation area

Geo Geography and Environment ◽

10.1002/geo2.30 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. e00030 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Greg Simpson ◽

David Newsome

Keyword(s):

Nature Conservation ◽

Environmental History ◽

Conservation Area ◽

History Of ◽

Urban Wetland

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Petri dishes of an archipelago: the ecological rubble of the Chilean salmon farming industry

Journal of Political Ecology ◽

10.2458/v24i1.20963 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 726 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Andrew Gerhart

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Political Ecology ◽

Key Words ◽

Environmental History ◽

Social Relations ◽

Farm Workers ◽

Salmon Farming ◽

History Of ◽

Petri Dishes ◽

Farming Industry

Abstract This article narrates part of the history of salmon flu in the Chilean salmon industry, and attempts to tie together environmental history and political ecology in order to reveal the complicated non-human and human collectives that constitute its "ecological rubble." It draws from ethnographic and archival research to show the views among salmon farm workers and local Chilotes who both supported and contested the industry in contradictory ways. Amidst a milieu of technocratic narratives of control, and blindness to nonhuman agencies, they themselves became simultaneously part of new forms of ecological rubble: hidden harms the industry brought to their archipelagic home. I argue that only through an awareness of these hidden collectives of both material and human social relations can we hope to weather the storms of production and destruction that industrial aquaculture births at sea. Key words: environmental history, aquaculture, disease, agriculture, salmon farming, Latin America, Chile.

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Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment, by Joachim Radkau

Social Science History ◽

10.1017/s0145553200014292 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 37 (3) ◽

pp. 407-422

Author(s):

Anne E. C. McCants

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

Economic History ◽

Natural World ◽

Political Authority ◽

Global History ◽

Human Welfare ◽

Global Environmental ◽

History Of ◽

Primary Axis ◽

The Impact

As is perhaps suggested by its very title, Nature and Power, Joachim Radkau's important contribution to “a global history of the environment” takes as its primary axis of analysis the impact of the exercise of political authority by states on the natural world as constituted by plants, animals, soil, water, and air. The economy makes very few appearances as such. Indeed, the only index reference to things economic is a lone entry for Max Weber's Economy and Society (1922), and even there the economy is not the point of the citation. Yet economic history and environmental history share a great many common concerns, not least of which is what we might broadly call “human welfare.” My comments will explore the possible connections between Radkau's reading of our global environmental past and the broad narratives developed by economic historians to tell their version of global history.

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Die Veränderung des alpinen Schutzhüttenbaus vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert

historia scribere ◽

10.15203/historia.scribere.12.610 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 189

Author(s):

Verena Hechenblaikner

Keyword(s):

Nature Conservation ◽

Environmental History ◽

21St Century ◽

Environmental Awareness ◽

General Change ◽

History Of ◽

Shelter Construction

Changes in Alpine shelter construction from the 19th to the 21st century. A contribution to the environmental history of Western AustriaThe following paper provides a chronological overview of Alpine shelter construction in Western Austria from the 19th to the 21st century. It examines the ambivalent role the “Alpenverein” has played in this Alpine development and scrutinizes its changing attitude to nature conservation. In doing so, the paper argues that different shelter constructions and the discussions surrounding them might be regarded as indicators of a general change in environmental awareness.

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Nature and Power

Social Science History ◽

10.1017/s0145553200014243 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 37 (3) ◽

pp. 325-345 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Joachim Radkau

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

Global History ◽

Historical Evidence ◽

Karl Polanyi ◽

Global Commons ◽

Modern Times ◽

Human Power ◽

Long Time ◽

History Of ◽

The Commons

Nature and Poweris to be understood not only ashuman power against naturebut also aspower by naturein the sense of Michel Foucault'sbiopouvoir(biopower) or Francis Bacon's “Naturae non imperator nisi parendo” (Only by obeying nature may we dominate nature). The fragile human attempts to get power over nature and by nature have a long history, reaching back over millennia until prehistoric times, and much of world history may be explained in part by the unstable relationship between humans and nature. The environmental approach offers a fresh look at global history. The great change that has happened in modern times seems to have been described best by Karl Polanyi (1944) in hisGreat Transformation, which also refers to a revolution in the human relation to nature. There are primeval symbioses of humans and nature that are the basis of environmental history until modern time. A global history of the environment may be written for a long time along the three great commons of history: woodlands, water, and pasture. The dark tune of Garrett Hardin's (1968) “Tragedy of the Commons,” to be sure, does not dominate the whole melody of environmental history. There is also a lot of historical evidence for Elinor Ostrom's rehabilitation of the commons. But it is better to be cautious with dogmatic theories and sweeping judgments. In modern times Hardin may be right, at least in this or that regard. Ostrom's concept applies only to local, not to global commons. The underlying philosophy ofNature and Poweris neither optimism nor pessimism but possibilism.

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