The study of the connections between political, economic, and social variables and environmental problems and changes is known as political ecology. By making environmental phenomena and issues more political, political ecology departs from apolitical ecological research.
The academic field includes extensive research on a variety of subjects including environmental conflict, marginalization and degradation, control and conservation, and environmental identities and social movements. It also integrates ecological social sciences with political economy[1].[/2]
Origins
Frank Thone employed the term “political ecology” for the first time in a 1935 article.[/3] Since then, it has been extensively utilized in the context of human ecology and geography, but it lacks a formal definition. It was given a second lease on life in 1972 by anthropologist Eric R. Wolf, who did not expand on the idea in his article “Ownership and Political Ecology.”
In it, Wolf discusses how customs surrounding inheritance and ownership “mediate between the pressures emanating from the larger society and the exigencies of the local ecosystem.”*[4] Additional sources include early works from the 1970s and 1980s by Eric R. Wolf, Michael J. Watts, Susanna Hecht, and others.
Due to the advancement of development geography and cultural ecology, especially Piers Blaikie’s research on the sociopolitical causes of soil erosion, the field came into being in the 1970s and 1980s.(6) Since the field’s founding, “research has sought primarily to understand the political dynamics surrounding material and discursive struggles over the environment in the third world.”
Political ecology has historically concentrated on issues occurring in and affecting the developing countries.(7)
A wide range of academic fields, including geography, anthropology, development studies, political science, economics, sociology, forestry, and environmental history, produce scholars in political ecology.
Overview
Political ecology is a multidisciplinary field with a wide range of definitions and interpretations. Nonetheless, the phrase gains prominence due to widely held beliefs in the subject. Three key tenets of political ecology were established by Raymond L. Bryant and Sinéad Bailey:
First, the effects of environmental changes on society are not uniform because of disparities in political, social, and economic contexts, which lead to an uneven distribution of costs and benefits.
Secondly, “any change in environmental conditions must affect the political and economic status quo.”(8)
Third, because of the resulting changes in power dynamics, the unequal allocation of costs and benefits as well as the strengthening or weakening of pre-existing inequalities have political ramifications.
Furthermore, political ecology aims to offer criticisms and solutions about the interactions between the environment and political, economic, and social elements. A “normative understanding that there are very likely better, less coercive, less exploitative, and more sustainable ways of doing things” is what Paul Robbins claims the discipline has.In [9]
Political ecology can be used based on these presumptions in order to:
improving environmental governance by educating organizations and policymakers on the intricacies of the environment and development.
recognize the political, economic, and social constraints that influence the decisions that communities make about the environment.
Examine the ways that unequal relationships within and across cultures impact the environment, particularly in connection to governmental policies.
Scope and influences
Since its inception in the 1970s, the field of political ecology has evolved, complicating its objectives. Over the course of the discipline’s history, some factors have become more and less significant in influencing the field of study. The significance of ecological sciences in political ecology is traced by Peter A. Walker.10] He draws attention to the shift that many critics saw occur from a “structuralist” approach during the 1970s and 1980s, when ecology still held a prominent place in the field, to a “poststructuralist” approach that placed more of a focus on the “politics” of political ecology.11]
This shift has prompted inquiries about how the field uses the term “ecology” and how it differs from environmental politics. Research on political ecology has moved away from examining political influence on the surface of the earth.
Many conclusions have been drawn from cultural ecology, an analysis method that demonstrated how culture is impacted by and dependent upon the material circumstances of society (Walker claims that political ecology has essentially overshadowed cultural ecology as an analysis method.)
In [12] According to Walker, “whereas cultural ecology and systems theory emphasize[s] adaptation and homeostasis, political ecology emphasize[s] the role of political economy as a force of maladaptation and instability” .10]
Political ecologists frequently examine environmental concerns through the lens of political economy. A notable early example of this was Michael Watts’ 1983 book Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria, which linked the famine in northern Nigeria during the 1970s to colonialism’s effects rather than the drought’s inevitable outcome.
Relationship to anthropology and geography
Political economy was developed in the 18th and 19th centuries by philosophers like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Thomas Malthus in an effort to clarify the connections between political processes and economic output.13]In [14] It leaned too much toward structuralist theories, emphasizing how individual economic interactions uphold social order.
In [15] Eric Wolf refused to view local cultures as “primitive isolates” and instead employed political economics within a neo-Marxist framework to examine their place within the global capitalist system.In [16] However, not enough attention was paid to how the environment affects political and economic processes.In [14]
On the other hand, the functionalist-oriented anthropology of the 1950s and 1960s is sometimes attributed as being shifted and ecology and environment being included into ethnographic research by Julian Steward and Roy Rappaport’s theories of cultural ecology.(17)
Political ecology has advantages as well as disadvantages. Fundamentally, it places ecological and political theories of human behavior in perspective. However, Walker[26] notes that it has fallen short of providing “compelling counter-narratives” to “widely influential and popular yet highly inaccurate and unabashed neo-Malthusian rants, such as Jared Diamond’s Collapse (2005) and Robert Kaplan’s ‘The impending anarchy’ (1994) (385). Ultimately, as long as there is opposition to Marxist and neo-Marxist theory, incorporating political ecology into policy decisions will continue to be difficult, particularly in the US and Western Europe.In [27]
Political ecologists are criticized by Andrew Vayda and Bradley Walters (1999) for assuming “the importance… of certain kinds of political factors in the explanation of environmental changes” (167). In reaction to unduly political approaches in political ecology.
Power perspective in political ecology
The fundamental element of political ecology is power. According to Greenberg and Park, political ecology is a means of bringing political economy and ecological study together to create a more comprehensive understanding of bio-environmental connections through coordinating power distribution.(31 )
According to Bryant, political ecology is the dynamic in politics that is connected to “discursive struggle” and material in the surroundings of less developed countries, demonstrating how unequal power relations constitute a political environment.33] According to Robbins, political ecology refers to empirical research that demonstrates how changes in an ecosystem are directly related to power.33]
Actor-oriented power perspectives:
In contrast to the assumption that power is seen as a force that is likely to pass people through unconsciousness, actor-oriented power perspectives hold that power is exercised by actors. The Norwegian sociologist Fredrick Engelstad defined power as the result of combining intentionality, causality, and relationality.34]
This has the consequence that actors are viewed as power brokers in a major sense because of their ability to accomplish goals through action (intentionality), engage in relationships with other actors (relationality), and produce desired outcomes through action (causality). When considering the power perspective from an actor-oriented perspective, Dowding argued that although power is connected to agency, structure is still important.(35)
Max Weber (1964) made significant contributions to actor-oriented power theory when he defined power as an individual’s capacity to realize their desires in the face of opposition from others. Robert Dahl gives the example of actor A using actor B’s unwillingness to perform a task as a means of exerting control over actor B.36] The most extreme instance of this is when a group of people are forced to perform a task against their desire or way of thinking.
The theory of actor-oriented power, according to Svarstad, Benjaminsen, and Overå, aids in offering conceptual distinctions with helpful insight into the theoretical components that are essential in researching political ecology.(37)
Neo-Marxist power perspectives
Marxist political economics, which focused on the inequality resulting from global capitalism, is one of the pillars of political ecology. Though there are many perspectives on power in political ecology that Marx has either directly or indirectly impacted, his power perspectives are perhaps the ones that are most prominent.
45] Marxist analysis of capitalism primarily focuses on class relations and how stable it is to reproduce them.[46]- Marx also ranked human agency as the most crucial component of his theory of power, noting that human agency is socially constructed, as demonstrated by the following comment from him:
Men write their history, but they do not do so at their own discretion or under their own choosing; rather, they write it under conditions that have already been established, communicated, and provided.”
Poststructuralist power perspectives
Michel Foucault worked in the field of poststructuralist power theory and applied it to political ecology. Three elements of power are identified by poststructuralist power theories: governmentality, discursive power, and biopower.
Biopower suggests that governments prioritize improving population health and quality of life in order to secure life. In his writings, Foucault elucidated the ways in which people have acquired appropriate behavior through their understanding of power.
Foucault distinguishes between biopower and sovereign power in this way. The phrase “take life or let live” refers to sovereign authority, whereas “make life or let die” refers to bio-power.48] As the human species continues to evolve in accordance with nature, the superior one will step in and affect the environmental conditions .
Political ecology stressed that Foucault’s concept of “governmentality” is a useful framework for comprehending how power functions in environmental governance.[49] [50] [51] According to Foucault, governmentality is the strategy used by the state to force its people to act in a way that supports those policies.52] Fletcher distinguishes four types of governmentality.
First, “discipline” makes sure that people internalize societal norms and ethical standards, among other things.51] The “truth” is a means of defining truth through the application of religious norms to the governance of citizens. “Neoliberal rationality” is the third motivating framework that has been developed and applied to enhance results. Fourth, “sovereign power” is the ability to rule through laws and punish those who break them. Fletcher asserts that various governmentalities could coexist, clash, or function independently.
Last but not least, “discursive power” is demonstrated by actors (business, governmental, and non-governmental organizations) who force individuals or groups to absorb and contribute to the discourses they create. Discourses are examined in political ecology according to a critical realist epistemology, in contrast to other fields.53, 54, 55, and 37.
In certain cases, attempts to appropriate new territory during a state’s colonial past might be linked to the development of discursive power. Based on Foucault’s political-ecological discursive power, it is necessary to note that different viewpoints exist than Foucault’s that allow for greater room for human activity.