scholarly journals Political ecologies of biopower: diversity, debates, and new frontiers of inquiry

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connor J Cavanagh
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Multiple Modes ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Change Mitigation

This article reviews recent literature on the political ecologies of conservation and environmental change mitigation, highlighting the biopolitical stakes of many writings in this field. Although a large and apparently growing number of political ecologists engage the concept of biopower directly – in its Foucauldian, Agambenian, and various other formulations – recent writings across the humanities and social sciences by scholars utilizing an explicitly biopolitical lens provide us with an array of concepts and research questions that may further enrich writings within political ecology. Seeking to extend dialogue between scholars of biopolitics, of political ecology, and of both, then, this article surveys both new and shifting contours of the various ways in which contemporary political ecologies increasingly compel us to bring the very lives of various human and nonhuman populations, as Foucault once put it, "into the realm of explicit calculations." In doing so, 'new frontiers' of biopolitical inquiry are examined related to: i) species, varieties, or 'multiple modes' of governmentality and biopower; ii) critical (ecosystem) infrastructure, risk, and 'reflexive' biopolitics; iii) environmental history, colonialism, and the genealogies of biopower, and iv) the proliferation of related neologisms, such as ontopower and geontopower.

scholarly journals Political ecologies of wood and wax: sandalwood and beeswax as symbols and shapers of customary authority in the Oecusse enclave, Timor

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura S. Meitzner Yoder
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Forest Products ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Symbolism ◽  
Local Protection ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
History Of ◽  
Labor Requirements ◽  
Political Ecologies

The enclave of Oecusse-Ambeno, Timor Leste, was formed in part through struggles over controlling trade in sandalwood and beeswax, two forest products that continue to influence political and ritual allegiances, and the political history of Oecusse. These products are interwoven with the region's contacts with outsiders, influencing local political hierarchies and roles of kings, village heads, and ritual authorities. While wood and wax are recognized to be of Timorese origin, local myths posit that their use and value was unrecognized before the arrival of Chinese traders and Portuguese missionaries. Several narratives of the origins of trade in sandalwood, and the kings' annual beeswax candle tributes, illustrate the enduring connections among local authorities, forest resource control, religious symbolism, and ritual obligations surrounding harvests of sandalwood and beeswax. Customary practices contribute to forest conservation through local protection of beeswax-producing forests, and by circumscribing the harvest. While both beehives and sandalwood impede intensive agricultural land uses, farmers welcome beeswax as a profitable product that supports ritual. But they resent sandalwood's growth in their fields since it involves more regulation and increased labor requirements. The two products' different ecologies of disturbance and incidence contributed over time to distinct ownership norms and forms of control by customary authorities. This is the "political ecology of wood and wax" in Oecusse.Key words: Oecusse, Timor Leste/East Timor, sandalwood, beeswax, customary authority, colonialism.

scholarly journals The political ecology of local environmental narratives: power, knowledge, and mountain caribou conservation

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 273 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Patrick Bixler
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Local Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Conservation Science

Political ecology seeks to address notable weaknesses in the social sciences that consider how human society and the environment shape each other over time.   Considering questions of ideology and scientific discourse, power and knowledge, and issues of conservation and environmental history, political ecology offers an alternative to technocratic approaches to policy prescriptions and environmental assessment.  Integrating these insights into the science-policy interface is crucial for discerning and articulating the role of local resource users in environmental conservation. This paper applies political ecology to addresses a gap in the literature that exists at the interface of narratives of local environmental change and local ecological knowledge and doing so builds a nuanced critique of the rationality of local ecological knowledge.  The ways that we view nature and generate, interpret, communicate, and understand the "science" of environmental problems is deeply embedded in particular economic, political, and ecological contexts.  In interior British Columbia, Canada, these dynamics unfold in one of the most rigorously documented examples of the negative effect of anthropogenic disturbance on an endangered species – declining mountain caribou population.  Science notwithstanding, resource users tell narratives of population decline that clearly reflect historical regularities deeply embedded in particular economic, political, and ideological constructions situated in local practices. This research assesses these narratives, discusses the implications, and explores pathways for integrating local knowledge and narratives into conservation science and policy. A more informed understanding of the subjectivities and rationalities of local knowledges can and should inform conservation science and policy.Keywords: Political ecology, local ecological knowledge, narrative, environmental change, environmental management, British Columbia, Rangifer tarandus caribou. 

scholarly journals Tracing narratives and perceptions in the political ecologies of health and disease

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Creighton Connolly ◽  
Panagiota Kotsila ◽  
Giacomo D'Alisa
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Health Perceptions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Political Ecology Of Health

Abstract Political ecology has, in the past decade, emerged as an increasingly accepted framework for studying issues of health and disease and has thus given rise to a distinct sub-field: the political ecologies of health and disease (PEHD). More recently, scholars have suggested more specific avenues through which the sub-field can be further developed and focused. Building on recent work, we suggest that the role of health perceptions and health discourses is one area that could benefit from examination through the lens of political ecology. The papers in this special section thus intend to further contribute to the empirical richness of this area of study, through an emphasis on anthropological and cultural aspects of health injustices. We emphasize the role of health perceptions, in particular, as a way of exploring how people's experiences of the local environment often differ from dominant discourses related to un/healthy environments, and the effects stemming from this disjuncture. Keywords: Political ecology of health, disease, perceptions, discourse, ethnography, environmental justice

Territory, sustainability, and beyond: Latin American urbanization through a political ecology

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 786-809
Author(s):  
Germán A Quimbayo Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Latin America Region

In this article, I identify how territory is a useful concept to explore the political ecologies of urbanization. In the Latin America region, territory is a key concept to explore urban and rural connections between (neo)extractivism, violence, and dispossession, with socio-ecological transformations in the configuration of urban spatialities. Following recent calls to re-locate both urban theory and political ecology beyond the Anglophone debate, the article proposes a dialogue between the Latin American theorization on territory and the political ecology of urbanization. Based on an empirical analysis of urbanization in Bogotá, Colombia, the article also discusses implications for urban justice with respect to territory and sustainability. Finally, the article offers some remarks to further the research agenda on the political ecology of urbanization with a focus on territory.

A Political Ecology Perspective on Environmental Change in Malawi with the Blantyre Fuelwood Project Area as a Case Study

1999 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezekiel Kalipeni ◽  
Deborah Feder
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Government Programs ◽  
Passive Resistance ◽  
Local Opposition ◽  
Forestry Policies

This article examines deforestation-induced environmental change in the Southern Region of Malawi. The political ecology approach is used to critique this change, assessing how colonial and postcolonial forestry policies affected the landscape. It is argued that non-participatory, “top-down” government programs disempowered Malawi's peoples and allowed the environment to degrade. The Blantyre Fuelwood Project shows how the politics of land use predicate environmental change. It is argued that government implemented, “top-down” approaches failed because they did not integrate local communities. The result has been local opposition to government programs, passive resistance, and deteriorating environmental conditions. The article critiques Malawi's forestry policies since colonial times, analyzes the political ecology of the Blantyre Fuelwood Project, and concludes with the hope that newly implemented “bottom-up” programs that incorporate local communities will make Malawi's environment more sustainable.

scholarly journals Immer Ärger mit der Materialität? – Politische Ökologie und das Dispositiv der Dürre im Nordosten Brasiliens

2016 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 229-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Northeastern Brazil ◽  
The Political ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Political Character

Abstract. While the role of materiality was understudied in most social sciences, there was a sensibility for these issues in political ecology. The different approaches of political ecology focused on the political character of ecology and the ecological (and thus material) character of politics. But a conceptual framework that captures the different dimensions of the societal nature relations was seldom explicitly elaborated. Following the considerations of Michel Foucault, this article explores whether dispositive analysis as a concept and as a method offers a way to integrate both social and material conditions into studies of political ecology. By examining water infrastructure and the dispositive of drought in Northeastern Brazil, this paper displays how dispositive analysis is a means to identify different elements, their autonomies as well as their interconnectedness. Focusing on the entanglements of discourses, institutionalizations, subjectivity, practices and materiality allows capturing the materiality of discourses and the discursivity of material orders.

scholarly journals Possible moral ecologies, the function of everyday curation, and the experience of regions

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Kirsten Valentine Cadieux
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Modes Of Engagement ◽  
Powerful Mechanism

Investigating the political ecologies of everyday engagements with environments—including material as well as policy and ideological interactions—requires consideration of the moral economy at play, as well as the political economy and social ecology. A.V. Chayanov (1966/1925), E.P. Thompson (1971, 1991), and Jim Scott (1976) have provided useful ways to think about moral economy. They framed moral economy as a way of enacting understandings of just commons, subsistence entitlements, and desirable economic relations based on social struggle. This framing can be particularly useful in combination with political ecology approaches to investigate 'moral ecologies.' These are society-environment assemblages that are often more aspirational than enacted, but toward which considerable effort is expended, and whose moral and ecological dynamics are functionally linked, perhaps as best illustrated in recent attention to agroecology as a powerful mechanism for ensuring rights to food (De Schutter 2011a, 2011b, 2012). Given political ecology's focus on power relations, moral ecologies that do not exercise considerable power are often overlooked by political ecologists. However, even if particular understandings may not be highly efficacious in exercising power, they may have considerable influence on relational conceptualizations. This mismatch between habitual inattention to moral ecologies and their potential importance contributes to tensions within contemporary society-environment scholarship between structuralist and poststructuralist modes of engagement. Given the value of both modes, particularly for understanding what Peet and Watts (1993) describe as liberation ecologies (and the regional discourse formations that shape them), I argue that political ecology provides useful frameworks for documenting and analyzing the socio-ecological experience of regions—in terms not only of the functions of society and environment, but also of the performance and curation of knowledge about those functions.Keywords: moral economy, food systems, curation, critical regional studies, land use planning, participatory action research, environmental justice, integrated natural resource management science

scholarly journals Political areas of competition in Southwest Finland: A cluster analysis of parliamentary election data from three levels of aggregation

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 24-43
Author(s):  
Lasse Nurmi ◽  
Tommi Meskanen
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
Level Of Aggregation ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Election Results

This research utilizes the methods of geography, mathematics and political ecology to outline the political areas and to define the profiles of political competition within the region of Southwest Finland using parliamentary election results from the 2010s. Additionally the research investigates the areal concentration and dispersion of support for the parliamentary parties and the effect of the regional level of aggregation to the concentration of the political support. Our research questions are: (1) are there distinctive political areas in Southwest Finland? And (2) can political areas of stable and unstable competition patterns be identified by investigating election results over time? Using cluster analysis and map visualizations we show that there are distinctive political areas of competition to be found in contemporary Southwest Finland and that the map of political support changes significantly at the municipal and polling district levels.

Political Ecology and the Social Sciences – The State of the Art

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip D. Lowe ◽  
Wolfgang Rüdig
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Change ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Green Parties ◽  
The Social

The ‘environment’ as a political issue has had a mixed history. Its sudden upsurge in the late 1960s was followed by many ups and downs. It has, however, continued to press itself on to the political agenda in various forms. Most recently, the rise of green parties in Western Europe has demonstrated that the environment is not one of many issues which come and go but has led to more fundamental political change.

Towards narrative political ecologies

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110106
Author(s):  
Leila M. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
Narrative Story ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Political Ecologies

Work on narrative, story, and storytelling has been on the rise across the humanities and social sciences. Building on significant work on these themes from Indigenous, Black, and Feminist scholarship, and other varied traditions, this piece explores and elaborates the potential regarding the elicitation, sharing, and analysis of stories for nature-society studies. Specifically, the piece examines core contributions along these lines to date, as well as the methodological, analytical, political, and transformative potential of story and storytelling to enrich, broaden, and deepen work in nature-society, political ecology, and environmental justice. All told, focus on story and storytelling, offers a number of relevant and rich openings to understand and engage complex, unequal, and dynamic socio-natures. While these elements have been present in nature-society work from some traditions and lines of inquiry, the time is ripe to broaden and deepen these engagements to more fully imagine, and respond to, key nature-society challenges.

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