Political Ecology
Dr. Annuska Derks
What is Political Ecology?
Difference between explaining Serengeti‘s declining biodiversity and destroyed landscape from a:
apolitical ecology perspective political ecology perspective
http://www.planetwissen.de/natur_technik/naturschutz/serengeti/img/intro_serengeti_grafik1_g.jpg
What is Political Ecology?
Political ecology perspective is about:
Identifying broader system
Viewing ecological systems as powerladen Taking an explicitly normative approach
What is Political Ecology?
3 assumptions (Bryant and Bailey 1997): 1. The costs and benefits associated with environmental
change are distributed unequally
2. This unequal distribution inevitably reinforces or reduces existing social and economic inequalities 3. The unequal distribution of costs and benefits and the reinforcing or reducing of preexisting inequalities holds political implications in terms of altered power relationships between actors
The chain of explanation
Transnational finance
International institutions
The state
Transnational firms
Local/regional institutions
Producers/Communities
Landscape/Ecological system
(Adapted from Robbins 2004: 74)
Four Theses of Political Ecology (Robbins 2004)
Thesis 1
Degradation and marginalization
Thesis 2
Environmental conflict
Thesis 3
Conservation and control
Thesis 4
Environmental identity and social movement
Four Theses of Political Ecology and the things they try to explain
Thesis 1
Thesis Degradation and marginalization
Environmental change: who and why?
What is explained?
Relevance
Land degradation, long blamed on marginal people, is put in its larger political and economic context
Four Theses of Political Ecology and the things they try to explain
Thesis 2
Thesis Environmental conflict
What is explained? Environmental access: who and why?
Relevance
Environmental conflicts are shown to be part of larger gendered, classed and raced struggles and vice versa
Four Theses of Political Ecology and the things they try to explain
Thesis 3
Thesis Conservation and control
What is explained? Conservation failures and political/economic exclusion: why and how?
Relevance
Usually viewed as benign, efforts at environmental conservation are shown to have harmful effects, and sometimes fail as a result
Four Theses of Political Ecology and the things they try to explain
Thesis 4
Thesis Environmental identity and social movement
What is explained? Social upheaval: who, where, and how?
Relevance
Political and social struggles are shown to be linked to basic issues of livelihood and environmental protection
