Team Members: Lauren Cloughesy, Norbu Globus, Keldy Mason, Jade Murphy
Definition:
Political Ecology is the study of understanding how human societies – their political, social, and economic factors – relate to changes in our ecosystem and to link the effect of changes in social systems to the changes in our ecosystem. Political Ecology tends to take on the assumption that all issues concerning our ecosystem are political issues as well. That is to say that policy-makers intrinsically control the action taken towards tackling issues regarding the degradation or conservation of the resources that biodiversity provides humans and the earth. This stance attempts to take on issues regarding our ecosystem in a broader context. This method of viewing problems strives at including all parties in a discussion that relates the connections between society, growth, social change, and the worldly ecosystem. Through these connections, more fields of study are brought into the discussion and increase how much we understand about different ideologies of how the world works by constantly critiquing numerous schools of thought. Political Ecology is relevant in a modern context because it accepts the damage and growth that has occurred in a way that finds solutions to benefit plant, animal, and human life through human society and economic benefit. It approaches worldly change as a forward looking endeavor instead of retreating back to the way that things so that we are constantly evolving as a society.
Context:
Political Ecology was created by Frank Thone in 1935, making the term around eighty years old, written about in an article called Nature Rambling: We Fight For Grass. Based on information received from Ngram Viewer, the interest in Political Ecology had slowly been increasing from 1935 to 1985, and from 1985 onwards, the United States exponentially became more interested in Political Ecology as an ideology. Its interest hit its peak in 1997, and since then our interest in Political Ecology has been decreasing.
One important scholar that promotes Political Ecology is Paul Robbins. Robbins is the director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, where he teaches and conducts research surrounding conservation conflicts and urban ecology. According to Paul Robbins, Political Ecology represents an explicit alternative to “apolitical” ecology, that it works from a common set of assumptions and employs a reasonably consistent mode of explanation. In his book Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction, Robbins breaks down the different ways in which people who act in apolitical ways are actually being political. To be apolitical is to attribute ecological change to decisions made in order to produce the greatest economic benefit as well, to which Robbins provides the example of the pulp and paper industry, who managed to simultaneously increase profit margins and decrease emissions through a more effective use of industrial tools. He also elaborates upon the diversity and breadth of Political Ecology, and how it can be used to address a variety of topics, including political corruption and the relationship between knowledge and power, as well as the possible use of the community coming together and taking collective action towards saving the resources that come from the earth via policy.
Neo-Marxism, a loose term to define, tends to encompass Marxist theory which critiques the development of capitalism and the class conflicts that are present between the upper and lower class. The origin of Political Ecology lies in the idea of political economy, which is sourced in Marxism and has been generated from post-structuralism (Robbins). Neo-Marxism promotes the ideas placed forth by Political Ecology because “neo-Marxism offered a means to link local social oppression and degradation of our ecosystem to wider political and economic concerns relating to production questions (Blaikie, 1985; Bunker, 1985).” Neo-Malthusian, on the other hand, opposes Political Ecology and its explanations of human impacts on the spaces they inhabit and rely on. The neo-Malthusian view is one that adopts the idea that population growth is exponential and that human population growth can easily get ahead of its food resources if it is not held in check with contrived birth control measures and other population control programs. Because of this mind-set, neo-Malthusians emphasizes the need for population control to intercept ecological degradation rather than placing laws on human consumption and use of resources that come from the ground, like gas. This separates it from the issues concerning the global distribution of power and goods (Robbins 2004: 7-8). Therefore it explicitly aims to represent an alternative to apolitical Ecology.
Critique:
In his book Critical Political Ecology: The Politics of Environmental Science, Tim Forsyth illustrates the problems with the current format and debate placed forth by political ecologists. He describes many debates, one being the inability to find a common definition to the word “ecology” in Political Ecology. While some focus on the political economy aspect, other focus on more authoritative political institutions. His main issue lies in the inherent desire to separate politics and science, and Forsyth states that we need to embody a more “politically aware understanding of the contexts within which environmental explanations emerge, and are seen to be relevant.”(21) With this thinking, an issue arises in who to blame when things go awry. It becomes easy to blame policy makers or political parties for the decreasing quality of our air or the negligent use of our resources, for example, and shift the blame away from the individual. Because of this, people may feel that their actions do not affect the earth and thus make poor decisions regarding the world we live in.
A scholar who opposes Political Ecology is Hans Magnus Enzensberger, a German author, poet, translator and editor. His writings and poems contain economic and class-based issues. In 2009, Enzensberger was awarded a Lifetime Recognition Award by the trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry. Enzensberger starts off his essay against Political Ecology by outlining the different ways in which industrialization is depleting natural resources that cannot be renewed easily, along with the increased use of energy and how it is contributing to changes in our climate. It seems that the main reason for this list is to outline how he believes all of these issues are irreversible, and therefore there is no reason for trying to do anything about said environmental problems because capitalism will lead to economic catastrophe.
Throughout the article he routinely states that the whole movement is confusing and too broad, and he believes that the Left “holds aloof from the ecological movement.” He also states that Political Ecology tries to go beyond its effective limits, and because he does not want to associate the Left with the ecological movement, will not form opinions for fear that those opinions will form an ideology. Enzensberger believes that Political Ecologists attempt to apply the ideology to too many unrelated topics. He consistently returned back to the idea that the capitalist society in which we live will take too large a toll on the management of ecosystem resources and services for political ecology to be effective.
Conclusion:
It is important for both environmentalists and political parties to accept and implement Political Ecology since the world is constantly evolving. Political Ecology is one of the few fields of thought that addresses the ramifications of human presence within the workings of the world instead of attempting to create an ideology that removes humans from the problem. Through our research, Political Ecology proves to be an active ideology that can intertwine numerous disciplines of study successfully. According to the University of Arizona Journal of Political Ecology “[Political Ecology invokes] questions asked by the social sciences about relations between human society, viewed in its bio-cultural-political complexity, and a significantly humanized nature. It develops the common ground where various disciplines intersect.” This quote demonstrates that, while the term Political Ecology may be a rebranding of previous terms, it unifies politics and society in a way that allows people to benefit socially and economically, while also lessening the impact on the quality of our earth and our air.
In order to use this ideology to benefit the earth and politics, groups of motivated individuals must work together to observe the way in which changes in our surroundings affect the economy and our social structures and vise versa. Because the way we think about what effects our biospheres must be interdisciplinary, it is important to focus on the political, economic, and social factors. This allows us to make educated decisions about vital topics including conservation, resource distribution, population growth, etc, and thus strive to benefit the dynamic earth.
References:
Bryant, Raymond L., and Sinéad Bailey. Third World political ecology. London: Routledge, 2005.
Ensenberger, Hans M. “A Critique of Political Ecology.” New Left Review. March 1974. Accessed March 22, 2017. https://newleftreview.org/I/84/hans-magnus-enzensberger-a-critique-of-political-ecology.
Forsyth, Tim. Critical Political Ecology: the politics of environmental science. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009.
Greenberg, James B., and Thomas K. Park. “Journal of Political Ecology.” Political Ecology 1 (1994).
“Political Ecology.” Environmental Justice Organisations Liabilities and Trade. Accessed March 22, 2017. http://www.ejolt.org/2013/02/political-ecology/.
Robbins, Paul. Critical Introductions to Geography : Political Ecology : A Critical Introduction (2). Hoboken, GB: Wiley, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 21 March 2017.
Robbins, Paul. Encyclopedia of environment and society. Vol. 4. Los Angeles: Sage, 2007.