NIFK15004U Political Ecology

Environmental problems such as land degradation and deforestation are complex processes and often cannot be understood in isolation from broader processes of economic and social development, struggles over access and rights to resources, or conflicts originating from historical grievances. Yet, their complexity is not always acknowledged by researchers, governments, and development interventions seeking to identify, measure, and correct or alleviate them. Scientific measurements of the extent of environmental degradation are often inaccurate and/or highly uncertain, and knowledge of the underlying drivers is framed in ways that put direct blame on some actors, for instance farmers practicing subsistence farming, while leaving others out, such as large-scale investments in mining.

Political Ecology asserts that the way we know environmental problems affects the solutions we identify, which implies that science and knowledge of environmental problems are inherently political and intrinsically linked to economic and social context. Further, Political Ecology is keenly invested in understanding how local processes of environmental change are linked to past and present wider regulatory frameworks and market processes.

Political Ecology draws on various disciplines to frame studies on resource and management challenges in fields such as environment and development, climate change, land-use, and conservation. This course illustrates how Political Ecology is useful to understand processes of natural resource management, use, and contestations around these. Participants in this course will be challenged to re-think and reconsider mainstream understandings of environmental problems and how they are produced.

The course is primarily (but not exclusively) concerned with and draws its examples and cases from environmental problems in developing countries (Global South) including those concerned with forests, agricultural lands, water, wildlife and range lands.

The course is structured in four themes each of a duration of approximately two weeks. The four themes are briefly described below. During the course you will be presented with ways of viewing that appear critical towards much of mainstream practice in development and environmental policy. In the last week of the course we will discuss the dilemma of having to navigate as an expert in a professional context of institutions with aims, logics, and narratives that may be subject to critique from a political ecology perspective.

Environmental degradation

This theme concerns environmental change (degradation). We will look into questions such as: By whom and how is environmental degradation defined? How can we know/ascertain/measure environmental change? How is environmental knowlegde produced and used? Who drives degradation? How and why have environmental crisis narratives emerged and persisted? What functions have they served? And what are the environmental and socio-economic consequences?

The political economy of natural resource management and use

Political ecology may be defined as “the concerns of ecology and a broadly defined political economy” (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987, p. 17). In this theme we in particular discuss Marxist political economy which has formed a central element in political ecology as a critique of capitalism and neo-liberalism. We also broaden the view to other orientations of political economy. Focus throughout the theme is on the analysis of cases and situations in relation to use of natural resources and conservation, on questions such as “who gains?”, “who loses?”, “how?” and “why?”

Gender and social difference

Environments are located in socially uneven terrains. Gender, caste, class, ethnicity, and indigeneity are some of the kinds of social difference that shape resource access. In this module we look at perspectives from post-structuralist and feminist political ecology to understand some of the subtle, everyday dynamics that create environmental inclusions and exclusions. Feminist political ecology considers gender a critical variable in shaping resource access and control, and conceptualizes its intersections with other forms of social difference. And more than that, it deconstructs the very idea of gender. Also relying on post-structuralist critiques, we discuss how subjectivities are shaped through interactions with the environment and ask how to denaturalize power, categories, and social hierarchies in our analysis of resource access and control.

Environmental conflict and resistance

Environmental conflicts have multiple causes and forms. Conflicts arise when people living in rural areas of the ’Global South’ experience restrictions on access to land and livelihood as a consequence of multiple processes of extraction, infrastructure development, or conservation. These are often both exacerbated by and contributing to local processes of social stratification and elite formation. They are often accompanied by competing claims seeking to legitimate a certain development in the area and about the histories, identities and capabilities of people living there. At times, conflicts erupt into open acts of defiance and violence, whereas at other times it takes shape as hidden forms of resistance. In ‘Environmental conflict and resistance’ we will seek to understand the causes and forms of environmental conflicts and resistance.