Political Ecology Research Paper

1. The Rise Of ‘Political Ecology’?

Since the 1970s, political ecology has emerged as a multidisciplinary approach with which to analyze complex human–environmental interactions, especially those related to economic development and environmental destruction in the Third World (Peet and Watts 1996, Bryant and Bailey 1997). Although the field of political ecology has been greatly influenced by the ‘regional political ecology’ model set forth by geographers Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield (1987), political ecology is not as yet a comprehensive theory but a common ground where various disciplines intersect. Political ecology has been described in various ways: as ‘a framework for analyzing human– environmental relations’ (Grossman 1998); as a ‘research orientation that seeks to link macrolevel political economic processes with microlevel aspects of human ecology’ (Dodds 1998); as a ‘historical outgrowth of the central questions asked by the social sciences about the relations between human society, viewed in its bio–cultural–political complexity, and significantly humanized nature’ (Greenberg and Park 1994); and as a ‘program or movement … begun as a reaction to certain features of human ecology or ecological anthropology [as well as cultural ecology] as it was practiced in the 1960s and early 1970s’ (Vayda and Walters 1999).

In part, political ecology emerged as part of a broader critique of cultural ecology, risk–hazard studies, and ecological anthropology that began in the 1970s and stemmed from the apolitical and microlevel analytical traditions of these fields. This critique was centered on the perceived neglect of the political dimensions of human–environmental interactions, the preoccupation with homeostatic processes, and the conceptualization of human communities as fairly autonomous and homogeneous (Painter and Durham 1995). The renowned anthropologist, Eric Wolf, was among the first to use the term ‘political ecology’ in his criticism of cultural ecological and ecological anthropological approaches to the study of Alpine ecology (Wolf 1972). In his role as a discussant for an anthropological symposium on the ‘Dynamics of Ownership in the Circum-Alpine Area,’ Wolf emphasized the theoretical need to situate local ecological realities within the broader political economy.

In order to document trends in the historic rise of political ecology, the term ‘political ecology’ was used to search systematically a number of relevant digital databases of published articles and books, as well as theses and dissertations. These databases included the Social Science Index (scholarly articles published between 1974 and 1999), World Cat (books, articles, dissertations, reports published between 1000 and 1999), the University of California Digital Library (Melvyl–CAT, all books included in University of California holdings), and University of Michigan Dissertation Abstracts (theses and dissertations filed between 1861 and March 1999). Comparative analysis of the results of these searches revealed similar trends across databases. Between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s, a maximum of one article, book, dissertation, or report having the term ‘political ecology’ in the title of the work or as a specified key word and/or subject heading was found annually. From the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, the number of such works per database was in the range 5–10 annually (depending on the database). Between the mid-and late-1990s, this range increased to 15–25 per database.

 In addition to showing a significant increase in the number of scholarly works defined as ‘political ecology,’ analysis of the search results also demonstrated a similar distribution of disciplinary interest among the authors of these works. Across the databases, geographers accounted for ~33% of the works, anthropologists 20%, political scientists 15%, sociologists 10%, and philosophers 4%. Other disciplines represented included history, education, agriculture, forestry, wildlife, economics, health sciences, public health, and urban regional planning. Depending on the year, ~ 65–85% of these studies were focused on the Third World. In addition to demonstrating the growing popularity of ‘political ecology,’ the search results also showed an expansion over time in the number of disciplines represented by the authors, suggesting that political ecology is being embraced by an increasing number of disciplines. Analysis of the search results also pointed out two major and separate threads within the works classified as political ecological. The first of these, and the one that is the focus of this review, emanated from, and was in part a reaction to, the earlier scholarly fields of cultural ecology and human ecology. The second major strand consisted of a loosely defined set of scholarship concerned more specifically with politics per se, including green movements and green politics, especially in Europe and at the international and global levels.

Although the increasing popularity of political ecology is indicated by the recent plethora of studies explicitly using the term, a growing number of essentially political ecological studies were conducted beginning in the 1970s. Although not specifically employing the term, these included work on various ecological crises, the role of the state in deforestation, the human and environmental repercussions of booms and busts in the production of export commodities, and the impact of colonial policies on human–environmental interactions (Little and Horowitz 1987, Grossman 1998). Especially prescient were the ‘progressive contextualization methods’ urged by Vayda (1983) and the ‘cultural ecology of development’ approach suggested by Grossman (1984).

Embraced by geographers, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, historians, and many others, political ecology is closely associated with the frequently cited work of geographers Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield (Blaikie 1985, Blaikie and Brookfield 1987) in which they developed their conceptual framework for ‘regional political ecology.’ Blaikie and Brookfield (1987, p. 17) provide this definition: ‘Political ecology combines the concerns of ecology and a broadly defined political economy. Together this encompasses the constantly shifting dialectic between society and land-based resources, and also within classes and groups within society itself.’

Blaikie and Brookfield (1987, pp. 23–4) specify that ‘regional political ecology’ also is compatible with new directions in disaster and hazards research (e.g., Hewitt 1983) that linked hazardous events to processes of proletarianization and marginalization.

Although Blaikie and Brookfield are concerned primarily with land-based resources, other political ecologists have broadened the domain of political ecology to include other aspects of the environment such as marine resources, human biology, health and nutrition, and environmental governance and policy. In general, these varied political ecological analyses explain human–environmental interactions through their relations to political economic forces (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987). A vital concern is to understand local complexity in resource use within a larger, even global context. Central to Blaikie and Brookfield’s framework is the resource user (‘land manager’) whose decisions must be evaluated in their ‘historical, political, and economic context’ (Blaikie and Brook- field 1987, p. 239). Also crucial to political ecological analysis is the relative power of, and collaboration among, relevant social actors that affect access to, and management of, natural resources. These stakeholders are then linked within and among levels of analysis through relations of power (Stonich 1993, Peet and Watts 1996). Many political ecologists follow the ‘chain of explanation’ suggested by Blaikie and Brookfield (1987, p. 27) and focus their research efforts, at least initially, at the local level, examining resource–use patterns in relation to households (as producers and/or consumers) and conflicts within and among households. It starts with the land managers and their direct relations with the land (crop rotations, fuel-wood use, stocking densities, capital investments, and so on). Then the next link concerns their relations with each other, other land users, and groups in the wider society who affect them in any way, which in turn determines land management. The state and the world economy constitute the last links in the chain (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987, p. 27).

Political ecological studies, focused initially at the local level, often require the intricate analysis of human–environmental relationships that also was characteristic of earlier works in cultural ecology and ecological anthropology.

Political ecological analysis frequently integrates a number of essential components as outlined by Schmink and Wood (1987) in an early theoretical discussion. First, an assessment of the various contested ideologies that direct the use of resources and influence which stakeholders benefit from and which are disadvantaged by those ideologies. Also vital is a determination of the various international interests involved, including donor agencies, organizations, and private investors that promote particular patterns of natural resource use. Increasingly of concern is the function of the global economy in advancing specific patterns in access to and use of natural resources.

Crucial as well is the role of the state, particularly in terms of determining and implementing policies that favor the interests of certain social actors over those of others. Also central to the analysis is the relationship of class, ethnic, and gender structures to conflicts over access to productive resources, the interrelations among local resource users and groups of society who affect resource use, and diversity in the decisions of local resource managers (e.g., Stonich 1993, Rocheleau et al. 1996). Finally, political ecologists also tend to agree on the significant role of historical analysis in understanding the development of social and ecological relations and their subsequent links to environmental degradation (Blaikie 1985, Blaikie and Brookfield 1987, Guha 1990, Peluso 1993, Stonich 1993).

Efforts to characterize the evolving field of political ecology are difficult given the diversity, dynamism, and rapid growth of the field. One major focus of research using a political ecology approach has emphasized human impoverishment and environmental destruction (e.g., Johnston 1994) especially stemming from dominant development models (e.g., Stonich 1993, Painter and Durham 1995). These studies emphasized the relations among capitalist accumulation, state policy, surplus extraction, environmental destruction, and human impoverishment. Scholars often couched their arguments in opposition to prevailing popular explanations of environment degradation: Malthusian pressures, the irrationality of peasants, and/or technological ignorance (Painter and Durham 1995). A number of findings from these studies potentially can help understand deteriorating human and environmental conditions in other development contexts.

First, environmental destruction identified with the economic production systems of the poor usually is an outcome of their impoverishment, either absolutely or relative to other social classes. Impoverishment often is related to diminished access to land and other natural resources and to increased repression and violence at the hands of state authorities and more powerful individual and corporate interests engaged in land speculation. Moreover, environmental destruction associated with the decisions of the poor usually is intricately linked to existing environmental parameters, especially environmental marginality.

Second, as a consequence of their vulnerability and lack of power, smallholder producers often have received a disproportionate share of the blame for environmental decline. In contrast, political ecological research has demonstrated that a great deal of land and other natural resources has been degraded by the activities of more powerful private, public, and corporate interests. Large-scale enterprises that have acted destructively frequently have been granted land on concessionary terms by the state. This allows these more powerful stakeholders to treat land as a low-cost input, and makes it more economical to move elsewhere after the environment is degraded rather than try to conserve natural resources. Third, the same policies and practices that result in wealthy interests receiving land on favorable terms are responsible for the impoverishment of smallholders, because such policies institutionalize and exacerbate unequal access to resources. In sum, the political ecology approach applied to Third World development has shown that the crucial issue underlying environmental destruction and human poverty is blatant inequality in access to resources within a socially institutionalized context (Painter and Durham 1995). While other approaches, not labeled as political ecology, have found similar results, political ecological studies tend to emphasize these conclusions.

2. Current Trends And Debates In Political Ecology

Recently, the research agenda of political ecology has expanded to encompass a much wider and loosely delimited range of scholarship. Of special significance are efforts to understand the social construction of the environment and the increased integration of various cultural and discursive approaches into political ecological analysis (e.g., Escobar 1999). Reflecting the growing poststructural concern with discourse in the social sciences more generally, scholars such as Escobar emphasize that perceptions and discourses about environmental problems are social constructions that reflect specific backgrounds, values, and positions of power rather than absolute truths. Diverse constructions and associated discourses frame contested points of view about what constitutes ‘environmental problems’ as well as possible suggested solutions to these ‘problems.’ Coupled with a concern for political economy, these scholars are examining the plurality of perceptions and definitions of environmental and natural resource problems.

A second important trend is the ‘serious treatment of politics in political ecology,’ especially attempts to integrate political action (from passive resistance, to civil society, to political parties) into questions of resource access and control (Peet and Watts 1996, p. 10). Examples of this view of political ecology have emphasized various scales or levels of analysis from the domestic (household) to the global. For example, scholars such as Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter, and Carney have focused their efforts at examining household level gender politics involving property rights, labor, access, and control of natural resources (Carney 1996, Rocheleau et al. 1996). In comparison, other scholars have focused on the more macrolevel and specific cases such as the World Bank and post-UNCED legal frameworks. These scholars have attempted to demonstrate the linkages between power relations, institutions, and environmental governance. Among the most important issues identified by studies that ‘seriously’ consider the politics of political ecology are the frequent occurrences of coercive patterns of environmental conservation. This was clearly demonstrated by Peluso (1993), who showed how state power and forestry institutions in Indonesia are contested by Indonesian peasants in the context of coercive conservation measures.

A related and expanding research interest for political ecologists is civil society—especially the proliferation of social and environmental movements (including the environmentalisms of the poor) and NGOs concerned with environmental governance at various levels—from the local, to the national, to the international and global. This trend, in addition to the previously discussed expansion of political ecology into the arena of politics, may represent a movement within political ecology to integrate the two separate strands of scholarship discussed earlier.

Political ecology has been criticized for overemphasizing the explanatory power of structural forces (i.e., the political economy) while downplaying the crucial role of local resistance, household survival strategies, inter and intrahousehold conflicts over natural resources, as well as cultural beliefs (Stonich 1993). While several political ecologists have considered how local level forces interact with broader structural forces (e.g., Stonich 1993), increased attention to civil society may help restore the balance to what is essentially part of the broader structure–agency debate within the social sciences.

Finally, a nascent but exciting new direction aims to integrate political ecology into new ecological paradigms concerned with chaotic fluctuations, instability, and disequilibria. The shift from earlier systems models of ecology that stressed stability and resilience to the new ecology of chaos presents significant challenges and opportunities to the theory and practice of a political ecology concerned with the complex dynamics of local human–environmental relations (Peet and Watts 1996).

The prospect of integrating political ecology and the ‘new’ ecology also highlights a key issue in current debates over political ecology that centers on the place and priority of the environment itself in political ecological research and explanation (Grossman 1998). Critics have faulted political ecology for failing to give due consideration to the environment itself (e.g., Zimmerer 1996, Grossman 1998, Scoones 1999). These critics maintain that some studies labeled as political ecology focus almost exclusively on the effects of politics and political economic forces on the environment—treating the biophysical environment solely as modified by human actions. While most critics ac- knowledge the importance of considering political economic factors, they point out that it is also crucial to analyze the significance of the environmental variables themselves and how they interact with political economic and other forces to affect human– environmental relations. In their provocative critique of political ecology from this perspective, Against Political Ecology, Vayda and Walters (1999) maintain that ‘It may not be an exaggeration to say that over- reaction to the ‘‘ecology without politics’’ of three decades ago is resulting now in a ‘‘politics without ecology’’.’

To some extent, the perceived imbalance between the priorities given to political economic and ecological factors in political ecological analysis and explanation pointed out by recent critics is tied to the growing importance of poststructuralism postmodernism and discourse theory that is apparent in many of the new directions in political ecology. With its emphasis on social construction and discursive formations, discussed previously in this review, the constructionist approach has added a significant critical dimension to the earlier work by political ecologists. Especially important have been constructivist examinations of the role of science in environmental debates and the role of discourse in framing environmental problems and conflicts (especially but not exclusively in the Third World). Despite these contributions, various critics have pointed out several limitations associated with the strong idealist position inherent in constructionist arguments (see, e.g., the commentaries following Escobar’s article in Current Anthropology (Escobar 1999)). First, the concept ‘cultural and/or social construction’ of the environment can overestimate the power of human behavior and actions to create, transform, or otherwise control environmental forces while simultaneously underestimating the transformative power of the environment. The profound repercussions of the 1997–98 El Nino Southern Oscillations (ENSO) and La Nina events and of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 are persuasive examples of the power of the environment as an active agent capable of provoking widespread and significant human response. Critics maintain that political ecology must balance the cultural social construction of the environment with a meaningful and comprehensive analysis of the environmental construction of the social and the cultural. Furthermore, they suggest that an overemphasis on constructivist discourse analysis may diminish the concern for the material issues and practice that first provoked the emergence of political ecology. From the perspective of more materially oriented political ecologists, the importance of understanding discursive formations lies precisely in what that understanding reveals about the behaviors of the diverse actors involved in social and environmental problems and conflicts.

3. Future Directions

The field of political ecology developed initially to provide a political economic perspective on the causes of environmental problems and degradation. During the 1990s, research interests broadened considerably but the concern with the fundamental importance of political economy remained central to the field. While political ecology may represent an emerging research agenda, neither past developments nor recent trends are theoretically integrated and it remains to be seen where existing convergences and tensions may lead. Current trends and new directions in political ecological research reveal significant stress between material and idealist perspectives that are linked to perhaps irreconcilable differences between scientific and poststructural postmodern positions. There have been some efforts, however, to bridge the gap between these two disparate and often divisive positions (e.g., Peet and Watts 1996, Rocheleau et al. 1996). The fact that political ecology has engendered much recent debate and discussion among proponents and opponents with vastly different points of view suggests a vibrant and maturing field. It is not clear, however, if political ecology will mature into a unified field with its own comprehensive theory or rather remain an intellectual meeting ground for scholars from diverse disciplines. There is considerable debate among practitioners about the appropriate future for political ecology. There is still much to be done. As yet, a core literature has not been established and the growing number of studies conducted within the rubric of political ecology does not share any unifying principle, concepts, or methodology. Political ecologists have yet to address adequately crucial issues of scale—particularly the discontinuity between local-level complexity and specificity and larger-scale generalization and representation. In addition, most research to date has been multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary, despite the fact that much political ecological research has demonstrated the need for interdisciplinary approaches to understand the complex dynamics of human–environmental relations and ameliorate problems (e.g., Stonich 1993). A key implication of this review is that further research is warranted to expand the theoretical framework of political ecology, to enhance its interdisciplinarity, and to test its applicability in particular contexts as well as at the global level.

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