Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political ecology'
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Poltorakov, O. "Political ecology: security studies approach." Thesis, Видавництво СумДУ, 2009. http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/13640.
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Prendiville, Brendan. "The political ecology movement in France." Thesis, University of Reading, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.293775.
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Phillips, Catherine. "South African permaculture, a political ecology perspective." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0003/MQ43199.pdf.
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Kedzior, Sya. "A POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF THE CHIPKO MOVEMENT." UKnowledge, 2006. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_theses/289.
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The Indian Chipko movement is analyzed as a case study employing a geographically-informed political ecology approach. Political ecology as a framework for the study of environmental movements provides insight into the complex issues surrounding the structure of Indian society, with particular attention to its ecological and political dimensions. This framework, with its focus on social structure and ecology, is distinct from the more traditional approaches to the study of social movements, which tend to essentialize their purpose and membership, often by focusing on a single dimension of the movement and its context. Using Chipko as a case-study, the author demonstrates how a geographical approach to political ecology avoids some of this essentialization by encouraging a holistic analysis of environmental movements that is characterized by a bottom-up analysis, grounded at the local level, which also considers the wider context of the movements growth by synthesizing socio-political and ecological analyses. Also explored are questions on the importance of gender-informed approaches to the study of environmental activism and participation in environmental movements in India.
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Stevens, Charles John 1950. "The political ecology of a Tongan village." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/290684.
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This dissertation presents a political ecological case study of a Tongan village. Political ecology includes the methodological approaches of cultural ecology, concerned with understanding human/resource relations, and political economy, concerned with the historical examination of the political and social organization of production and power. The ethnography of political ecology is primarily interested in understanding how certain people use specific environmental resources in culturally prescribed and historically derive ways. With this in mind, the research provides an historical and ethnographic account of a diversified, local economic system characterized by a highly productive but depreciating smallholder agriculture once regenerative and sustainable. The smallholders in the Kingdom of Tonga are imperfectly articulated with market systems and rely on agricultural production for a significant proportion of household consumption and ceremonialized obligations to kin, and community. The dissertation presents an historical account of the political economic changes in Tonga beginning in the nineteenth century and culminating in recent alteration of traditional farming techniques and the loss of economic self-sufficiency and agricultural sustainability.
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KINYAGU, NEEMA. "Political Ecology : Local Community on Water Justice." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för organisation och entreprenörskap (OE), 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-85884.
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Tourism is often promoted as growing industries that make an important economic contribution especially to marginalized communities in rural areas. But taking a Political Ecology approach, what sort of contribution does tourism really make? Why are its benefits spread unevenly? And have communities necessarily need to give up access and use rights to certain natural resources? This study provides an insight on understanding the different dimensions of justice on water access by local community from a tourism perspective. In understanding the issues of justice on water, environmental justice has been a central focus of this research. Justice issuesrelated to water access is still a complex phenomenal due to the truth that, it is embedded to historical and socio-cultural context and linked to integrity of ecosystem. However, justice issues can be viewed differently from different people in relation to different perspective. Therefore, Schlosberg framework of justice is adopted in this research to understand and explore water issues in three realms of justice i.e distributive, recognition and participation. Qualitative research method was employed in data collection and findings were presented based on three realms of Schlosberg's theory. However, researcher concluded that, there are mixed feelings and perceptions on understanding the sense of justice to local people in water access. Lastly, due to the fact that, the researches related to justice in tourism studies are still very limited , further research need to be done in investigating the access rights local people have on accessing their natural resources for instance water.
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Roy, Brototi. "Koyla Kahini. The Political Ecology of Coal in India." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/672611.
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Aquesta tesi contribueix a examinar com i per què el carbó continua dominant la matriu energètica mundial, malgrat les velles i noves preocupacions socioecològiques i com i per què es posa en dubte, utilitzant narratives de justícia ambiental i climàtica. Tot i que el carbó continua regnant en la matriu energètica mundial, els patrons del comerç mundial de carbó estan canviant. L’Índia està preparada per jugar un paper de lideratge en un futur pròxim, ja que la producció, el consum i el comerç de carbó engloben noves geografies al sud global. Al mateix temps, l’Índia també lidera la transició cap a les energies renovables a nivell mundial. Primer exploro aquesta paradoxa mirant els patrons metabòlics socials i els factors d’ecologia política i argumento que la transició energètica es dirigeix, en realitat, cap a més carbó tot i una retòrica dominada per les renovables. A continuació, exploro com això s’està facilitant amb la creació d’una nova geografia costanera, en paral·lel a les antigues geografies del carbó. Tot seguit, exploro com s’està qüestionant aquesta pujada del carbó i com s’estan configurant les protestes en regions amb poblacions marginades amb desigualtats preexistents. Defenso la necessitat d’una justícia ambiental decolonial per esbrinar com interactuen les múltiples formes de violència i perpetuen les injustícies ambientals mitjançant el que anomeno violència processal. Finalment, examino les múltiples maneres com les protestes contra el carbó de tot el món que fan servir una narrativa de justícia climàtica estan connectades. Exploro 61 casos de resistència i esbosso tres grans tipus de classificacions sobre les connexions. Defenso la necessitat de moviments decolonials per la justícia climàtica que s’adhereixin a les preocupacions locals i que no impulsin una narrativa global de dalt a baix, proporcionant dos exemples de l’Índia en què aquest enfocament perjudica més que beneficia a un moviment. La tesi es basa en un enfocament de mètodes mixts, que se centra en la investigació transdisciplinària i coproduïda, i mobilitza conceptes de les tres disciplines interconnectades de l’ecologia política, la justícia ambiental i l’economia ecològica.Esta tesis contribuye a examinar cómo y por qué el carbón continúa dominando la oferta energética global a pesar de las viejas y nuevas preocupaciones socio-ecológicas y cómo y por qué se cuestiona, utilizando narrativas ambientales y de justicia climática. Aunque el carbón sigue reinando en la cesta energética mundial, los patrones del comercio mundial de carbón están cambiando. India va a desempeñar un papel destacado en un futuro cercano a medida que la producción, el consumo y el comercio de carbón abarcan nuevas geografías en el Sur Global. Al mismo tiempo, paradójicamente, India también lidera la transición hacia las energías renovables a nivel mundial. Primero exploro esta paradoja estudiando los patrones metabólicos sociales y los factores ecológico-políticos. Sostengo que la transición energética es, de hecho, hacia más carbón a pesar de la retórica de las energías renovables. Luego estudio cómo esto se está facilitando con la creación de una nueva geografía costera, en paralelo a las geografías más antiguas del carbón. A continuación, analizo cómo se está impugnando este aumento del carbón y cómo se están configurando las protestas en regiones con poblaciones marginadas con desigualdades preexistentes. Abogo por la necesidad de justicia ambiental decolonial para desentrañar cómo interactúan las múltiples formas de violencia y se perpetúan las injusticias ambientales mediante lo que denomino violencia procesal. Finalmente, examino las múltiples formas en que se encuentran conectadas las protestas contra el carbón de todo el mundo que emplean una narrativa de justicia climática. Analizo 61 casos de resistencia y trazo tres tipos amplios de clasificaciones sobre las conexiones. Argumento que los movimientos decoloniales por la justicia climática deben apegarse a las preocupaciones locales en vez de imponer desde arriba una narrativa global, mostrando dos ejemplos de la India donde tal enfoque global hace más daño que bien al movimiento. La tesis se basa pues en métodos mixtos, está centrada en la investigación transdisciplinaria y coproducida movilizando conceptos de tres disciplinas interconectadas: ecología política, justicia ambiental y economía ecológica.
This thesis contributes to examining how and why coal continues to dominate global energy mix despite old and new socio-ecological concerns and how and why is it contested, using environment and climate justice narratives. Although coal continues to reign in the global energy mix, the patterns of global coal trade are shifting. India is primed to play a leading role in the near future as coal production, consumption and trade encompasses new geographies in the Global South. At the same time, India is also leading the transition towards renewables globally. I first explore this paradox by looking at social metabolic patterns and political ecological factors and argue that the energy transition is in-fact towards more coal despite a renewables-led rhetoric. I then explore how this is being facilitated with the creation of a new coastal geography, in parallel to the older coal geographies. This is followed by an exploration of how this rise in coal is being contested, and how are the protests being shaped in regions with marginalized populations with pre-existing inequalities. I argue for the need of decolonial environmental justice scholarship to unpack how the multiple forms of violence interact and perpetuate environmental injustices by what I term procedural violence. Finally, I examine the multiple ways in which coal protests from across the world which employ a climate justice narrative are connected. I explore 61 cases of resistance and draw three broad types of classifications about the connections. I argue for the need of decolonial climate justice movements which adheres to local concerns and doesn’t push for a global top-down narrative, by providing two examples from India where such approach does more harm than good to a movement. The thesis is based on a mixed-methods approach, focusing on transdisciplinary, co-produced research, and mobilizes concepts from the three interconnected disciplines of political ecology, environmental justice and ecological economics.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Programa de Doctorat en Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals
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Barua, Maan Singh Kharangi. "The political ecology of human-elephant relationships in India : encounters, spaces, politics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6a502560-2783-4951-a7a7-873112d758da.
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This thesis presents an examination of the political ecology of human-elephant relationships in India. Its overall aim is to revitalize the ecology that has been sifted out from the discipline. The thesis draws upon, and consequently develops, more-than-human geography through a sustained engagement of nature-society relations in a non-Western context. The thesis has three broad objectives. First, to examine what more-than-human geography’s emphasis on non-dualistic forms of agency, could contribute to understandings of policy, planning and politics in conservation. Second, to examine the spatial dimensions of human-elephant relations and the social orderings of space which influence these relationships. The third objective of the thesis is to interrogate the politics of elephant conservation through a sustained engagement with diverse modes of human-elephant encounters and the socio-political assemblages with which they are entangled. The thesis first deploys and develops the concept of ‘encounter value’ to account for the different forms of human-elephant encounters and how they contribute to the political economies of biodiversity conservation. The thesis then draws from a multi-sited ethnography examining both encounters and spaces of elephant conservation. It shows how elephants help forge connections across difference and the ways their geographies are reconfigured by global networks of conservation. The third empirical section has an implicit spatial dimension. It is concerned with writing a ‘more-than-human’ geography of landscapes, examining how humans and elephants cohabit with and against the grain of political design. Finally, the thesis examines politics as an ecology of relations, showing how human-elephant relations as well as social and political outcomes may be mediated by materials. Modes of enquiry between these papers overlap. They offer critical insights into three themes that interface between political ecology and more-than-human geography. First, the thesis contributes to conceptualizing modes of human-animal encounters in a symmetrical fashion. It explicates the role of nonhuman agency as an organizing force in political economies of conservation. Second, it posits new understandings of the spaces of animals. This is developed in two ways: landscapes as dwelt, political achievements and as fluid spaces emerging through international networks of environmental governance. Third, the thesis ecologizes politics and goes beyond the humanist frameworks of political ecology. It fosters novel conversations between more-than-human geography and the postcolonial critique of political ecology in the context of human-elephant relationships. Taken together, the thesis offers up a concerted, symmetrical and novel approach to the study people’s relations with animals.
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Tabart, Nicholas James. "Green and fairways? : the political ecology of golf /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 1999. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09ENV/09envt112.pdf.
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Demenge, Jonathan. "The political ecology of road construction in Ladakh." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2012. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/38501/.
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This thesis explores the politics and consequences of road construction for local populations and migrant road workers in Ladakh. Through a political ecology framework, I consider road construction as the transformation of an environment in which different agents act through specific socio-political arrangements and for purposes that are socially and culturally mediated. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in remote villages and among groups of Nepali and Jharkhandi road workers in Ladakh, the thesis documents the case of the Zanskar Highway, a 292 km long trans- Himalayan road that has been under construction since the 1970s. It analyses the reasons why states build roads, nationally and more specifically in the contested landscape of Ladakh; why people want roads; how people negotiate roads and their trajectory; and what the consequences of roads and road construction are in terms of mobility, isolation, resource use, livelihoods and well-being. In the thesis, I question the roads-development nexus, and argue that the reasons why states build roads are extremely diverse and have changed over time. I argue that road construction is a highly political process determined by conflicting motivations and perceptions. I also argue that the consequences of roads are complex, often ambiguous and region-specific, and that gains and losses that occur because of roads and their construction are unequally distributed, within and between local and migrant populations. The research makes an original contribution to road studies by studying the political, socio-economic and symbolic consequences of both roads and the process of their construction for the populations that live near new roads and those who build them. It also links ex-ante with ex-post road studies by looking at what happens during the process of construction. Finally, it contributes to Ladakh studies by documenting the history of road construction in the region and providing the first study of migrants in Ladakh.
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Locret-Collet, Martin Michel Georges. "Commoning our futures? : an anarchist urban political ecology." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2017. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7839/.
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One response to the increasing pressure of urban living is in the re-appropriation of public spaces and urban green to help sustain and enhance the environmental, social and cultural life of cities. But a major paradox arises here: while they are increasingly leaning on voluntarist discourses of sustainability, the pressure of privatization, the implementation of risk-based policies and the general principles of consumer-based urban economies only scarcely fit with the notion of common, public spaces, and hardly accommodate with the freedom of their users or their alternative or even subversive occupation. Using an explicitly anarchist analytical lens and based on extensive fieldwork in Birmingham and Belfast (UK) and Amsterdam (NL), this thesis uses an ethno-geographic approach, consisting mainly of documents and policy analysis, semi-structured interviews and field notes to replace urban green commons in their broader spatial, social and political networks. It demonstrates how sustainability is a consensual but ultimately undetermined political object. Emerging co-operative processes of environmental governance and stewardship are identified and traced to the development of a new category of actors and networks. The potential of urban green commons to foster more resilient, socially inclusive cities is assessed alongside the need for radically re-politicized urban environments.
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Rothenbach, Bert Fielding. "The impact of political and religious orientation on environmental concern /." Digital version accessible at:, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Carriere, Jason Lee. "The political ecology of sewage sludge the collision of science, politics, and human values/." view abstract or download file of text, 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1203585801&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=11238&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Thesis (M.S.)--University of Oregon, 2006.Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146 - 153). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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Joshi, Shangrila 1981. "Justice, Development and India’s Climate Politics: A Postcolonial Political Ecology of the Atmospheric Commons." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12030.
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xvi, 203 p. : ill. (some col.)Global climate negotiations have been at a standstill for over a decade now over the issue of distributing the responsibility of mitigating climate change among countries. During the past few years, countries such as India and China - the so-called emerging economies that were under no obligation to mitigate under the Kyoto Protocol - have increasingly come under pressure to accept limits comparable to those for industrialized countries. These countries, in turn, have strongly resisted these pressures. My dissertation examines India's participation in these ongoing climate negotiations. Based on qualitative interviews with relevant Indian officials, textual analysis and participant observation, I tell the story of why and how this so-called emerging economy has been resisting a cap on its emissions despite being one of the most vulnerable countries to the consequences of climate change. I draw upon the literatures of environmental justice, international relations, postcolonialism and political ecology to develop my dissertation and adopt a self-reflexive approach in my analysis. The need for global cooperation to address global environmental issues has arguably provided greater bargaining power to countries formerly marginalized in the global political economy. Following the dynamics of North-South environmental politics, India's climate politics consists of utilizing this power to increase its access to global resources as well as to hold hegemonic industrialized countries accountable for their historical and continuing exploitation of the environmental commons. A key aspect of India's climate politics consists of self-identification as a developing country. Developed countries with higher cumulative and per capita emissions are seen to have the primary responsibility to mitigate climate change and to provide financial and technological support to developing countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Developing countries are seen to have a right to pursue development defined as economic growth. The climate crisis is thus seen by my respondents as an opportunity to address the unequal status quo between developed and developing countries. I suggest that this crisis also creates opportunities to redefine development beyond a narrow focus on economic growth. This may be enabled if the demand for justice in an international context is extended to the domestic sphere.
Committee in charge: Shaul Cohen, Chairperson; Alec Murphy, Member; Ted Toadvine, Member; Peter Walker, Member; Anita Weiss, Outside Member
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Taylor, Carylanna Kathryn. "Shaping Topographies of Home: A Political Ecology of Migration." Scholar Commons, 2011. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3742.
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Even from afar, transnational migrants influence how their households and communities of origin use natural resources. This study depicts the circulation of people, funds, and ideas within transnational families that extend from a Honduran village to the United States. Developing a "political ecology of migration" approach, I show how these circulations can reshape resource use practices and the socio-economic and bio-physical topographies of emigrants' former homes. The project advances anthropological thought by linking rich literatures on political ecology and transnationalism through a multi-method ethnography of transnational families. The study is also relevant to emigrants, community members, and practitioners interested in incorporating emigrants and remittances into development and conservation projects.
The multi-sited project is anchored in a 380-household Honduran village, located in Cerro Azul Meámbar National Park, and encompasses the movement and practices of its residents and emigrants, including two secondary study sites in the United States. Research began with four focus groups. These formed the basis for 51 household village-wide structured interviews on experiences, practices, and beliefs related to remitting, migration, communication, farming, and natural resource use. I worked closely with four of these families in Honduras and at their emigrant family members' homes in south Florida and Long Island, New York. Through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and diaries tracking remittances and discourse through phone conversations, the multi-sited project traces transnational flows of funds, people, and ideas within the families. The ethnography highlights factors that shape, encourage, or impede emigrants' participation in natural resource management and development activities, as well as unintended socio-economic and environmental consequences of their actions.
Study participants spend remittances not only on more commonly documented health, education, housing, and food, but also on a number of areas that directly impact the socio-natural landscape: farm inputs, cattle-ranching, land, labor, firewood collection, and a village-wide potable water project. How money is earned, sent, and spent is affected by emigrants' perceptions of home - perceptions shaped by phone calls, visits, nostalgia, precarious economic and immigration status, plans to return, and dreams of a better future for themselves and their children. Some environmental impacts are directly related to spending decisions, such as the decision to buy agrochemicals. In other cases, impacts arise from nonmonetary relationships, such as lending land.
The study's political ecology of migration approach shows how emigrants' remitting and communication practices within transnational family networks translate into material, landscape impacting practices in their households and village of origin.
The study contributes to a more nuanced treatment of material practices and places in migration research and provides political ecology with a network based approach to capturing transnational dynamics impacting local livelihoods and landscapes. Ethnographic understanding of these dynamics has the potential to assist researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to take migrants into account in development of interventions and as well as to understand how their practices and beliefs shape and reshape the topographies of their current and original homes.
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Evans, James Philip Martin. "Biodiversity conservation and brownfield sites : a scalar political ecology?" Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2003. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/185/.
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This thesis develops a multi-scalar political ecology of biodiversity conservation on brownfield sites in Birmingham, U.K. While urban brownfield biodiversity is increasingly recognised as a valuable resource, political pressure to develop such spaces is also growing. Forty-five interviews were conducted with practitioners and policy makers, supported by genealogical and discursive analyses of a range of texts, to interrogate this tension. Common discourses structuring ecological, conservation and planning activities are traced across national and international levels, to contextualise the formulation and implementation of biodiversity action plans at the local level. Because urban landscapes are characterised by disequilibrium, planning policies and ecological models under-represent the worth of these spaces. The mediation of these discourses through local networks of actors engaged in the biodiversity action plan process is explored socially and geographically. A scalar political ecology of urban planning is developed through the consideration of wildlife corridors, and a case study of a specific brownfield site. The thesis offers an integrative analysis of socioecological transformation, and urban ecological governance. It is argued that while the BAP process has the potential to reconfigure urban geographies, it is currently sterile because such forms of sustainable governance contradict the dominant ‘scalar fix’ of capitalism.
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Becker, Joachim, and Werner G. Raza. "Theory of regulation and political ecology. An inevitable separation?" Institut für Wirtschaftsgeographie, Abt. Stadt- und Regionalentwicklung, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, 2000. http://epub.wu.ac.at/1312/1/document.pdf.
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Departing from a critique of the concept of Political Ecology of Alain Lipietz for its failure to integrate Political Ecology and the Theory of Regulation, we present a possible way of integrating the two approaches via the formulation of a sixth structural form: the social relation towards nature or ecological constraint. Finally, we illustrate the usefulness of this category by applying it to an analysis of the recent developments in the biotechnology industry. (author's abstract)Series: SRE - Discussion Papers
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Bryant, Raymond L. "The political ecology of forestry in Burma 1824-1994 /." Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, 1997. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb402286793.
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Marks, Daniel. "An Urban Political Ecology of the 2011 Bangkok Floods." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/15749.
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This thesis challenges the dominant approach to examining flooding through a case study of the 2011 Bangkok floods. The alternative approach developed here views floods not only as outcomes of biophysical processes but also as products of political decisions, economic interests, and power relations. This approach illustrates how vulnerability to floods, which is a combination of exposure to floods and capacity to cope with them, and the extent to which floods are a disaster, are uneven at multiple scales across geographical and social landscapes. Using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, the thesis investigates how state actors and socioeconomic processes affect the production of vulnerability to flooding. The study addresses theoretical and empirical gaps in earlier studies through its multi-temporal and multi-scalar approach to a major disaster. Little research in Southeast Asia, and thus in Thailand, analyses disasters from an in-depth urban political ecology (UPE) perspective before, during, and after the event. This thesis argues that floods in Bangkok are the result of human-nature interactions over time, particularly over the last half-century. While the Chao Phraya River Basin received heavy rainfall in 2011, a number of human activities interacted with that rainfall to create the floods. Bangkok’s dense urbanisation heightened resident's collective exposure while the pattern of urbanisation caused vulnerability to floods to become more imbalanced both spatially and socioeconomically. The historical development of the water system of the basin reflected primarily the interests of elites, which further heightened the collective vulnerability to flooding of those living in Bangkok. During the floods, both politicians and bureaucrats made decisions on how dams and water gates were managed to protect the interests of farmers. These varied decisions caused more water to flow downstream. Fragmentation and conflicting interests among state actors, patronage incentives, and technical weaknesses enervated the state’s response. Once the water reached Bangkok, state actors undertook various actions, such as closing water gates, erecting temporary dykes, and diverting water, which created new inequalities in terms of those who were exposed. Reflecting Bangkok’s socioeconomic and political inequalities, communities in the peri-urban fringes, particularly slum communities, were heavily inundated. These communities experienced the highest flood levels and for the longest duration, whereas the inner city of Bangkok was protected and remained dry. During the floods, many local leaders and residents collectively challenged these injustices by various forms of protest, somewhat reshaping the spatiality of the floods and reducing their vulnerability. Subsequent to the floods, for the most part, state agencies have not addressed underlying drivers of vulnerability to floods. Due to unchanging power geometries, state responses merely reproduced the proposed solutions and associated economic and environmental injustices of the past, while also creating new patterns of uneven exposure. Overall, placing the role of the state as central in it analysis, the UPE analysis made in this thesis provides a nuanced understanding of how state actors together with unequal socioeconomic processes have mostly reinforced each other and have created uneven and unjust vulnerabilities to flooding across several spatial and temporal scales.
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Franks, Daniel. "Consuming Landscapes: Towards a Political Ecology of Resource Appropriation." Thesis, Griffith University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/365487.
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In this thesis I develop a political-ecological model of Resource Appropriation called Landscape Consumption. Resource Appropriation, the intentional taking by a social group(s) from one society of the resources of another sovereign political society without consent, is a pervasive and persistent social phenomenon. Resource Appropriation may manifest between states, nations, corporations or other forms of social organisation and may range from the direct looting of resources, occupation of land and colonialism, to the enforcement of disadvantageous economic, political and trading relationships. Consistent with the field of Political Ecology this thesis attempts to account for the broader environmental and social transformations that accompany Resource Appropriation and the underlying political and economic processes. In doing so the thesis contributes to the growing collection of literature that explores the relationship between natural resource development and social and ecological transformation.
The Landscape Consumption model argues that Resource Appropriation is not simply achieved by the power of an army or a type of economic instrument but through a broad array of socio-ecological techniques employed by a dominant group(s) that reshapes the relations of space and place, perception and experience, society and ecology. The model draws on three themes: domination, detachment and consumption. Landscape Domination refers to the broader political, social, economic and ecological control imposed by a dominant social group(s) in the pursuit of a resource. While a single resource may be the focus of appropriation in practice broader social and ecological domination is required. Landscape Detachment argues that such domination facilitates the detachment of the dominated from the social and biogeophysical processes of information feedback. Landscape Consumption hypothesises that the combined effects of domination and detachment result in a deterioration of both societies and ecologies. The process of consumption relates not only to the resources directly sought by dominant social groups but also to the consequent deterioration of the function, abundance and diversity of the landscapes where the resources were appropriated.
The Landscape Consumption model responds to the transformed power relationships that characterise the contemporary international political environment. Resource Appropriation over the past decades has shifted from direct nation-state domination (colonialism and neo-colonialism) to more complex and less formal forms that have involved interstate and international institutions and actors, argued here to constitute Empire. The thesis argues that the project of Empire includes multilateral economic systems and institutions built since the Second World War, the discourses of neoliberalism and trade liberalisation, expansion of corporate power, and also the various foreign and economic policies pursued by nation-states; but that the agency of Empire is more accurately attributable to the complex of interconnections and relationships between these heterogenous elements and thus requires a new conception of sovereignty. The model adopts a landscape approach to account for the complex sovereignty and agency that has accompanied this shift. Landscape provides the means to explain the multiple interactions between social groups and biogeophysical environs grounded by their location in geographic space. Landscape is a theoretical tool that provides insight into the socio-ecological processes, discourses, relationships and actors that contribute to domination for Resource Appropriation and is flexible enough to conceptualise the agency of diverse social groups. The model is useful in this context as Empires do not arise to dominate ecology and society in one totalising moment, but are built and defended landscape by landscape.
To test the Landscape Consumption model the thesis makes a historical comparative analysis of two case studies, in Chile and West Papua, where previously autonomous landscapes were integrated or re-integrated into larger political-economic entities through practices of domination. The case studies draw on a wide variety of sources, such as declassified government and military records, fieldwork, and interviews to investigate copper Resource Appropriation during the time period of 1955–2005. The case studies reveal the multiple processes and actors involved in Resource Appropriation and confirm the applicability of the Landscape Consumption model. The case studies suggest that while Resource Appropriation does lead to broader deterioration of environmental and social resources, dominated landscapes can mitigate the extent of Landscape Consumption by mobilising to challenge the dominance of imposed landscapes.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith School of Environment
Faculty of Environment and Planning
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Sell, T. M. "The wings of power : Boeing and politics in Washington State : a study in political ecology /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/10699.
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Berthier, Charles. "L'évolution de l'imaginaire de l'écologie politique au début du XXIe siècle : la restructuration de l'écologie radicale française autour du mouvement pour la décroissance." Thesis, Rennes 1, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014REN1G029/document.
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Des origines de l'écologie politique à nos jours, beaucoup d'écologistes pensent qu'ils participent à la réalisation d'une transformation politique et sociale de leur univers social, ainsi que de l'univers scientifique, cela dépasse les limites d'un pays et d'un continent, mais cela recouvre aussi certaines particularités au niveau national. Nous nous proposons d'étudier les spécificités de l'écologie politique française en la mettant en relation avec l'écologie politique américaine, puis en insistant sur le rôle des acteurs radicaux pour redéfinir une écologie radicale moins consensuelle que l'écologie institutionnalisée. Au XXIe siècle, l'intensité du besoin social d'un courant politique et d'une science écologique s’accroît avec la multiplication des catastrophes humaines et naturelles et avec l'augmentation de leur visibilité dans les médias. L'écologie radicale se propose de répondre à ces nouveaux défis. Nous pouvons en dégager une spécificité de l'écologie politique française placée à la fois à proximité des acteurs politiques conventionnels acceptant les règles du jeu existant et à la fois à la lisière, ainsi qu'à l'écoute, des marges politiquesFrom the origins of the political ecology to now days, many ecologists think they are involved in the process of political and social transformation of their social and scientific universes. But it exceeds national borders and also continental limits. We will study the specificity of the French political ecology and outlook it with the American political ecology and, then, we will incite on the role of radical actors to redefine a radical ecology less consensual that the institutionalized ecology. In the 21st century the social need for a political stream and an ecological science increases trough the multiplication of human and natural disasters and the rise of their visibility in medias. Radical ecology suggests answers to those new challenges. We could then draw the specificity of the French political ecology which is, at the same time, close to conventional political actors by accepting the rules of the political field, at its frontiers, and, finally in touch with political margins
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Muradian, Sarache Roldán Petros. "Trade, Environment and Development: A Political Ecology and Material Perspective." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/4938.
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Esta tesis doctoral no sigue una estructura tradicional. El manuscrito que aquí se presenta es más bien un compendio de artículos independientes, algunos de ellos ya publicados. Los artículos no son presentados en un orden cronológico, ni necesariamente tienen que ser leídos en orden consecutivo. La mayoría de los artículos tratan con un tema general común: la relación entre comercio y medio ambiente. Este tema es abordado desde la perspectiva de la ecología política y el análisis de flujos de materiales. Diferentes enfoques y escalas fueron adoptados, yendo desde la discusión general acerca de los efectos de la globalización en países especializados en la exportación primaria, hasta el análisis local de conflictos entre proyectos dirigidos a promover las exportaciones de recursos naturales y poblaciones rurales. Diferentes metodologías y literaturas fueron exploradas, haciendo el alcance del trabajo aquí presentado bastante amplio y transdisciplinario entre economía, ecología y sociología. Algunas veces, la transdisciplinaridad puede ser lograda a expensas de profundidad y rigurosidad, desde el punto de vista de un especialista. Sin embargo, uno de los objetivos del doctorado en ciencias ambientales es lograr que surjan sinergias fructíferas cuando distintas disciplinas coinciden alrededor de temas ambientales. Este también fue una de mis principales motivaciones. El primer artículo, Globalisation and Poverty-an Ecological Perspective, es el más "político" de los artículos aquí compilados. Este puede ser visto como una introducción general y un resumen del marco que hemos adoptado para estudiar las relaciones ambientales y económicas Norte-Sur. Este artículo fue publicado por la fundación Heinrich Boell. El siguiente artículo, Trade and the Environment: From a Southern Perspective, publicado en Ecological Economics, hace una revisión de la literatura económica sobre la relación entre comercio y medio ambiente, y propone una visión alternativa sobre el tema, mostrando al mismo tiempo alguna evidencia empírica relevante. En contra de la visión ortodoxa de que el comercio es bueno para el crecimiento económico y éste último es bueno para el medio ambiente, se argumenta que los países especializados en la producción de recursos naturales pueden quedar atrapados en trampas de pobreza y degradación ambiental, lo que produciría una polarización internacional de la renta y las condiciones ambientales. El tercer artículo, South-North material flows: history and environmental repercussions, fue publicado en Innovation. Aquí se reportan series de tiempo para las importaciones de recursos no renovables provenientes desde los países en desarrollo hacia los países desarrollados. También se introduce el concepto de desplazamiento internacional de cargas ambientales y se discute su importancia para el debate sobre la relación entre ingreso y calidad ambiental (curva ambiental de Kuznets). Luego, el artículo titulado Embodied Pollution in Trade: Estimating the Environmental Load Displacement of Industrialised Countries (aceptado en Ecological Economics) ahonda en la idea de desplazamiento de cargas ambientales, calculando las emisiones contenidas en el comercio de Japon, Estados Unidos y Europa. El siguiente artículo, International Capital vs. Local Population: The Environmental Conflict of the Tambogrande Mining Project, Peru, adopta escalas de análisis y metodologías totalmente diferentes. Aquí se describe con detalle un conflicto ambiental entre una empresa transnacional minera de Canadá y una población en el norte del Perú, desde un enfoque sociológico y enmarcándolo en la discusión general sobre la naturaleza de los movimientos ambientales periféricos y el rol de los expertos en la toma de decisiones en situaciones de incertidumbre. El último artículo de esta compilación, Ecological Thresholds: A Survey, publicado también en Ecological Economics, no trata directamente el tema de comercio. Este artículo es una revisión de la literatura ecológica sobre discontinuidades ambientales. Este tema esta relacionado con la validez de la hipótesis de una relación positiva entre ingreso y calidad ambiental. Aquí se muestra que las discontinuidades ecológicas son comunes en los sistemas ecológicos y que esto arroja dudas sobre la validez de los supuestos de la curva ambiental de Kuznets, particularmente sobre la reversibilidad del cambio ambiental.
This doctoral thesis does not follow a traditional structure. It is rather a compendium of independent articles, some of them already published. The papers are not presented in a chronological order, neither have to be read in the order of arrangement. Since each article can be read independently and has its own introduction and discussion, the general introduction and discussion sections will be very short, intending not to be redundant. Most of the papers deal with a common general theme: the relationship between trade and the environment. This subject is tackled from a political ecology and material perspective, making emphasis on North-South relations. Different standpoints and scales were adopted, going from the general discussion about the effects of globalisation in countries specialised natural resources to the very local analysis of environmental conflicts between outward-oriented development projects and local populations. Different methodologies and literatures were explored, making the scope of the whole work here presented very broad and trans-disciplinary between economics, ecology and sociology. Sometimes, trans-disciplinarity can be reached at the expense of in-depth analysis and rigour, from the point of view of a specialist. However, one of the aims of the doctoral program in ecological economics was to get fruitful synergies arising when different disciplines meet around environmental issues. This was also one of my main motivations.
The first article, Globalisation and Poverty-an Ecological Perspective, is the more "political" of the papers here compiled. It can be seen as a general introduction to and summary of the framework we have adopted to deal with North-South environmental and economic relations. This paper is going to be published by the Heinrich Boell Foundation. The following article, Trade and the Environment: From a Southern Perspective - published in Ecological Economics- reviews the economic literature about the relationship between trade and the environment, and proposes an alternative vision on the issue, showing some statistical data to support it. Against the orthodox view that trade is good for economic growth, and economic growth is good for the environment (through the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis), this article describes two different ecological economics approaches (North and South) to the debate on trade and the environment. It also suggests some general policy options for developing countries specialised in natural resources exports. The third paper, South-North material flows: history and environmental repercussions, was published in Innovation. It reports time-series of Northern non-renewable imports from developing countries, introduces the idea of environmental load displacement and discusses its implications for the EKC hypothesis. The paper entitled Embodied Pollution in Trade: Estimating the Environmental Load Displacement of Industrialised Countries (accepted in Ecological Economics) goes further on the idea of environmental load displacement, calculating entailed pollution in material flows for different economic sectors in Europe, US and Japan. Later, the article International Capital vs. Local Population: The Environmental Conflict of the Tambogrande Mining Project, Peru adopts a totally different scale of analysis and methodology. It describes with detail an environmental conflict between a transnational mining corporation and a rural population in northern Peru, from a sociological point of view, and framing it on the general discussion over the nature of peripheral environmental movements and the role of experts and social relations in environmental decision-making and governance. The final paper of this compilation, Ecological Thresholds: A Survey - published also in Ecological Economics- does not address the topic of trade. It is a review of the ecological literature dealing with environmental discontinuities. However, it is related to the discussion about the validity of the EKC hypothesis. The EKC hypothesis rests on the assumption that environmental changes are reversible and continuous. The latter paper shows that ecological discontinuities are common in ecological systems as the consequence of human intervention. Therefore, some of the key assumptions of the EKC have to be revised.
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Asara, Viviana. "Democracy without growth: The political ecology of the Indignados movement." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/305110.
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Esta tesis es un estudio longitudinal en profundidad del movimiento de los Indignados en Barcelona, desde el inicio de los campamentos en Plaza Catalunya hasta las numerosas asambleas de barrio, comisiones, y la emergencia de proyectos teritoriales. Durante tres años fueron conducidas 74 entrevistas en profundidad y 6 grupos focales con los participantes del movimiento, mientras se emprendieron aproximadamente 600 horas de observación participante. La tesis investiga la ecología politica del movimiento de los Indignados, concretamente pretende comprender las maneras en las que el movimiento ha entendido la crisis ecologica-economica, y las nuevas ideas y procesos socio-politicos y transformaciones socio-ecologicas que puso en marcha. La ecología politica en esta tesis se entiende en su más sentido amplio, como las nuevas relaciones y realidades socio-naturales que el movimiento ha generado, tanto cognitivamente como materialmente, mientras imaginaba y ejecutaba un orden socio-ecologico alternativo.
Si una transformación socio-ecologica va a tener lugar, ésta será el resultado de procesos políticos democráticos en la que los movimientos sociales juegan un papel fundamental. Los movimientos sociales son un actor importante del cambio social, ya que contribuyen a la innovación cultural y empiezan la transformación institucional. Así pues, esta tesis considera la posibilidad de una transformación socio-ecológica a través de la perspectiva del movimiento de los Indignados. En particular aborda la teoría del decrecimiento que se puede describir como la visión de la reducción democrática y redistributiva de la producción y consumo en los países industrializados. Esta investigación avanza la teoría del decrecimiento conectándola con las teorías políticas sobre democracia, y aprendiendo de un caso de estudio empírico, el movimiento de los Indignados, centrado en la demanda de una ‘democracia real’.
El primer capítulo presenta un marco teórico multidisciplinar que incluye las teorías de decrecimiento, democracia, ecología politica y estudios de movimientos sociales, y expone la metodología y las preguntas de investigación. El segundo capítulo se concentra en una revisión critica de la teoría democrática dentro de la literatura sobre el decrecimiento, aclarando conceptos como democracia, autonomía, revolución y transición a través de la filosofía de Cornelius Castoriadis, que el movimiento del decrecimiento considera uno de los referentes teóricos.
La segunda parte de la tesis utiliza la imaginación radical del movimiento de los Indignados para explorar y comprender como la democracia puede ser concebida y practicada sin crecimiento, y como una transformación socio-ecológica hacia el decrecimiento se puede imaginar. El tercer capítulo emplea la herramienta del análisis de marcos para comprender como el movimiento plantea la concepción de democracia y de crisis, y cómo concibe el cambio. Aclara también el papel de las ideologías dentro del movimiento y su diferenciación de los marcos y el papel de la dimensión ecológica del movimiento, abordando la tesis del post-materialismo de la teoría de los Nuevos Movimientos Sociales. El cuarto capítulo investiga las micro-alternativas emergidas desde el movimiento después de la descentralización a los barrios, enfocándose en cuatro casos de estudio nacidos después de la plaza, poniéndolos en relación dialógica con el caso de estudio de la plaza misma. El capítulo utiliza la teoría de la política prefigurativa para analizar como la construcción de alternativas puede explicarse y cómo y porqué está conectada con la producción de espacio, profundizando en la cuestión sobre que se prefigura en las prácticas espaciales indignadas.
El último capítulo discute los resultados de la tesis y concluye con su trascendencia y contribución para unas conceptualizaciones de democracia y de cambio socio-ecológico apropiadas para la teoría del decrecimiento y señala unas direcciones de investigación futura.This thesis is an in-depth longitudinal study of the Indignados’ movement in Barcelona, from the inception of its encampments in Plaza Catalunya, to its numerous commissions, neighborhood assemblies and the emergence of territorial projects. Over the course of three years, 74 in-depth interviews and 6 focus groups were held with movement participants, whilst approximately 600 hours of participant observation were conducted. The thesis investigates the political ecology of the Indignados’ movement. Namely it aims to understand the ways in which the movement made sense of the ecological-economic crisis, and the new ideas and concrete socio-political processes and socio-ecological transformations it set in motion. Political ecology is here understood in a broad sense, as the new socio-natural worlds and relations the movement engendered, both cognitively and materially, as it imagined and enacted an alternative socio-ecological order. If a socio-ecological transformation is to take place, it will be the result of democratic political processes in which social movements play a paramount role. Social movements are a lever of social change, as they contribute to cultural innovation and initiate institutional transformation. Hence this thesis looks at the possibility for social-ecological transformation through the lens of the Indignados’ movement. Particularly it addresses the theory of degrowth, which can be described as a vision of a democratically led redistributive downscaling of production and consumption in industrialized countries. This research advances the theory of degrowth by connecting it with political theories on democracy, and by learning from an empirical case study, the Indignados’ movement, centered upon the claim for a ‘real democracy’. The first chapter introduces a combined theoretical framework that includes theories of degrowth, democracy, political ecology and social movement studies, setting out the methodological frame and research questions. The second chapter is focused on a critical review of theory within the degrowth literature, shedding light on concepts such as democracy, autonomy, revolution and transition, drawing in particular on the philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis, which the degrowth movement considers a key theoretical reference point. The second part of the thesis uses the Indignados’ movement’s radical imagination to explore and understand how democracy can be thought and practiced without growth, and how a social-ecological transformation towards degrowth can be envisaged. The third chapter uses the tool of framing analysis to understand how the movement frames its conception of the crisis and democracy, and how it envisages change. This chapter also sheds light on the role of ideology within the movement and its distinctiveness from frames and on the ecological dimension of the movement, hence addressing the post-materialism thesis of New Social Movement theory. The fourth chapter investigates the micro-alternatives that have sprung out of the movement since the decentralization of the movement. It focuses on four specific case studies that evolved after the Square, bringing them into a dialogical relationship with the case study of the Square itself. In doing so, the chapter builds on the theory of prefigurative politics to analyse how the construction of alternatives can be explained, and how and why are they linked to space production, delving into the question of what is being prefigured by the indignant spatialised practices. Finally, the final chapter discusses the thesis results and concludes with their significance and contribution to a conceptualization of democracy and social-ecological change apt for degrowth and future research questions.
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Connolly, Creighton Paul. "A landscape political ecology of 'swiftlet farming' in Malaysian cities." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2016. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/a-landscape-political-ecology-of-swiftlet-farming-in-malaysian-cities(c44a80de-103d-4f0a-9e83-c62b40d5ac3b).html.
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This dissertation develops the conceptual framework of landscape political ecology (LPE) to consider particular forms of socio-ecological transformation resulting from the relatively re- cent but heavily contested practice of ‘swiftlet farming’ in Malaysian cities. Swiftlet farming is a colloquial term given to the semi-domestication of edible-nest swiftlets (Aerodramus fuciphagus) in converted buildings within urban areas in order to harvest their nests. These nests have long been a highly sought-after delicacy in China and overseas Chinese communities, and subsequently fetch over US$2000 on the international market. The primary research question investigated asks how the industry has been perceived and contested on an everyday basis in Malaysian cities. Engaging these controversies provides the opportunity to capture the significant negotiation that is embedded in the mechanisms of landscape production and capital accumulation as they take place through struggles over swiftlet farming in contemporary Malaysian cities. This research also seeks to understand how the swiftlet farming industry has transformed not only the cities in which it has been located, but also the ecology of swiftlets and their breeding patterns. The dissertation is centered on a six-month participatory ethnography which took place primarily in the city of George Town, Penang, but also investigated other related sites in peninsular Malaysia. I maintain that such ‘co-productive’ research has enabled a more situated view of socio-ecological transformations that have transpired through urban swiftlet farming in Malaysia, and the controversies surrounding them. The empirical chapters aim to unpack the controversies and discourses that emerged in response to swiftlet farming in the study areas, primarily its perceived impact on urban health, forms of cultural heritage, and the wider implications of ‘farming’ such animals in urban residential areas. In exploring these topics, LPE provides a cohesive and integrated approach that helps to untangle the interconnected economic, political, ecological and discursive processes that together form increasingly heterogeneous socio-natural landscapes. The implications of this thesis thus speak to the fraught cultural politics underlying processes of urban socio-ecological transformation in contemporary Southeast Asian cities.
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Elmhirst, Rebecca Jane. "Gender, environment and culture : political ecology of transmigration in Indonesia." Thesis, Imperial College London, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/8414.
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Bangura, Ahmed Ojullah. "The political ecology of sustainable community development in Sierra Leone." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/13343.
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Natural resources are in abundance but have not benefited resourcebased communities. The mining industry, especially in developing countries, has fallen short of working towards sustainable community practices. Different governance initiatives adopted by governments to make the communities beneficiaries of these resources are yet to bring sustainable results. Government is seen as the sole actor on policymaking and its implementation, and the production and delivery of goods and services. Acknowledgement is not given to the roles and responsibilities of the resource-based communities to work as co-partners towards sustainable community development. Hence, this thesis argues that government policies should move away from seeing resource communities as recipients and representatives in policymaking towards co-partnership. As such, this thesis aims to explore the dynamics between resource use and achieving sustainable community development by exploring the barriers and potential for sustainable community development in diamond mining communities in Kono, Eastern Sierra Leone. To do this, the thesis uses data from a wide rage of indebt semi-structured interviews, documents and focus group discussions from four case studies representing four chiefdoms to point out a shift from the governance approach of institutionalisation to adaptive governance approach that will make the resource communities self-determined and sustainable. The thesis deals with three objectives. First, a focus is put on the relationship between resource exploitation and community governance in mining communities through an analysis of key actors and their roles at a range of scales. Second, in an attempt to find out the scope of sustainability in resource-based communities, attention is given to the ways mining communities utilise their assets and undertake practices that contribute towards sustainable community development. Third, in finding answers from issues arising in these communities and the prospect for effective mining policies, the thesis attempts to identify both the structural and community-based barriers to promoting sustainable community development in mining communities and then make policy recommendations for community development in such communities. Key Words: Resource Exploitation; Community Development, Community Governance, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Community Development
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Loftus, A. J. "A Political Ecology of Water Struggles in Durban, South Africa." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2006. http://digirep.rhul.ac.uk/items/83d8dfba-f70b-7131-1068-e38de07290fa/1/.
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This thesis looks at the relationshp between water and social power. It attempts to answer two questions: who controls the distribution of water in the South African city of Durban? And how might this distribution be transformed in positive democratic ways? In attempting to answer these questions, the thesis provides insights into post-apartheid South African society and the possibilities for democratic social change. The framework of analysis builds upon work conducted in urban political ecology. In particular, I argue that urban environments, indeed all environments, should be understood as created ecosystems. Recognising this, I suggest that Durban's waterscape should be seen as produced through capitalist social relations. The waterscape thereby becomes a particular accumulation strategy through which profits may be generated. for Durban's communities, one of the most direct effects of this capitalist accumulation strategy is that access to water is dependent upon the exchange of money. Whilst this situation has been amerliorated somewhat through the development of a free basic water policy, the policy itself has necessitated a much tighter regulation of domestic supplies and, in effect, a more severe commodification of each household's water supply. In turn, this has resulted in water infrastructure acquiring power over the lives of most residents. This, I argue, is a result of the social relations that come to be invested within that infrastructure. The possibilities for change that are suggested lie within the struggle for feminist standpoint and the connection of these situated knowledges of the waterscpe with a broader historical and geographical understanding of the terrain of civil society. from such an understanding of civil society, a dialectical critique of hegemony is opened up. Overall, the thesis moves from an analysis of the power relations camprising the waterscape to the development of a critique from which, it is hoped, the possibilities for political change might emerge.
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Robinson, Philip Alexander. "A political ecology of bovine tuberculosis eradication in Northern Ireland." Thesis, Durham University, 2014. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10796/.
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Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is arguably the most important animal health problem in the world. TB is endemic in the Global South, and also affects several nations and regions with highly developed cattle farming industries and statutory eradication programmes in the European Union, including Northern Ireland. The disease has implications for livestock agriculture, wildlife ecology, public health, and the national economy. In addition to scientific and technical complexities, socio-economic and socio-cultural factors affect efforts to control the disease. Disease problems such as TB at the human-nature interface are complex and indeterminate, and require innovative multidisciplinary research to find holistic and workable solutions: geography has much to contribute. This investigation uses a political ecology framework, and provides explanations for the historical and geographical patterns of the disease through a ‘chain of explanation’ approach (Blaikie & Brookfield, 1987). It utilizes political ecology, STS, rural, cultural, health, ‘more-than-human’ and veterinary literatures to produce a political ecology of animal disease control in the First World. Significantly, this account is as much about people and politics as it is about land use, technology, cattle, badgers, bacteria and disease. Conducted from the positionality of being a vet and a farmer’s son, and based on ethnographic interviews with farmers, vets, policy makers and other agricultural industry representatives, the links in the chain explain why the statutory eradication programme has not yet been successful in achieving its original aim. The disease continues to spread across the landscape and evades efforts to eradicate. The thesis shows how TB permeates time and space shaped by global economic forces, political structures, cultural practices and complex ecologies. TB, often invisible and underestimated, must be made visible again. New network structures are required to rescale governance and move closer to the target of TB eradication.
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Crawford, James P. ""The trawler wreck all": political ecology and a Belizean village." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/45062.
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Matheka, Reuben M. "The political ecology of wildlife conservation in Kenya, 1895-1975." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007530.
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The study examines the development of wildlife conservation policy and practice in Kenya from 1895 to 1975. Started by the colonial state as part of its resource control programme, wildlife conservation in Kenya gradually became an important aspect of the country's economy chiefly because of its significance as the basis of a vibrant tourist industry. The conservation programme was also important to conservationists who viewed Kenya's wildlife as a heritage to humanity. Similarly, local communities, which were affected in various ways by wildlife conservation policies, had their own perceptions of the programme. All this led to the proliferation of groups whose interests were potentially conflicting. Wildlife conservation in Kenya during the period under examination was thus characterised by various struggles between interest groups such as conservationists, the state, and local communities. The struggles centred around such issues as the costs and benefits of conservation and were manifested through anti-conservation activities like the poaching of wild animals by dissatisfied groups. These struggles changed over time in line with social, economic, political, and ecological developments. International events/processes (such as the two world wars, economic booms/depressions, and decolonisation) triggered local processes which influenced conservationism either positively or negatively. Wildlife conservation in Kenya during the period under study was dynamic. The thesis challenges the myth of a monolithic 'colonial' wildlife policy often implied in many studies on the subject. The thesis also lays emphasis on the ecological basis of wildlife conservation while recognising the impact of social, political, and economic developments on the evolution of wildlife conservation policy and practice in Kenya. The country's 'geography' not only provided the foundation for conservation but also influenced the programme over time. Droughts, floods, army worm infestations, and other 'natural' occurrences interacted with social and economic changes, such as population growth and the development of capitalism, to shape conservation policy. The conservation programme was thus influenced by a complex interaction of a variety of factors.
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Humphreys, Bebbington Denise. "The political ecology of natural gas extraction in Southern Bolivia." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2010. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-political-ecology-of-natural-gas-extraction-in-southern-bolivia(dcbcf2ae-e3a3-4ba4-ac3b-9b1b0b959643).html.
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Capital investment in natural resource extraction has fuelled an unprecedented rush to secure hydrocarbon and mining concessions and contracts throughout the Andes-Amazon-Chaco region leading to increased tensions and conflict with lowland indigenous groups residing in the areas that contain subsoil resources. This thesis explores resource extraction and conflict through an ethnography of state-society interactions over proposed hydrocarbon extraction in Bolivia. It asks, how does a “post-neoliberal state” combine commitments to indigenous people, the environment and the redistributive development of natural resource wealth, and how do social movements and other actors respond? In answering this question, the thesis examines how hydrocarbon expansion has affected the country’s most important gas producing region (the Department of Tarija), indigenous Guaraní society and indigenous Weenhayek society, both in their internal relationships and in their historically uneasy negotiations with the central state. By paying particular attention to the Guaraní and Weenhayek it also asks how far a national “government of social movements” has favoured or not the concerns and political projects of indigenous groups that are generally not well represented in the social movements that undergird this new state. In this vein, this research seeks to shed light on a series of contradictions and incongruities that characterise extractive-led economies with an end to contributing to debates about the possibility of combining more socially and environmentally sound modes of production, new forms of democracy, self governance and popular participation.
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Bush, Simon R. "A political ecology of living aquatic resources in Lao PDR." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/975.
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This thesis uses a political ecology framework to critically analyse how development and environmental orthodoxies influence the use, management and development of living aquatic resources in an information poor developing country context. The research focuses specifically on Lao PDR, the only landlocked country of the Mekong River Basin, to question how knowledge over living aquatic resources is framed by a range of stakeholders. Specific attention is given to how aquaculture has gained ascendancy over capture fisheries in the rhetoric of resources users as well as government and nongovernment organisations. The empirical research focuses on the role of broad scale economic, social and environmental influences over resource use, the practical and perceived importance of both aquaculture and capture fisheries in rural Lao livelihoods and finally, how living aquatic resources are represented within the dominant development agendas of conservation, poverty alleviation and rural development. Field work was conducted in Savannakhet province in Southern Lao PDR over 18 months from 2001 to 2002. The thesis has a strong empirical research base divided into activities carried out over multiple scales ranging from household to the Mekong River Basin. The thesis begins by establishing the historical context of resource use as well as the major orthodoxies on which development is based. Attention then turns to the extensive empirical research conducted over three districts of Savannakhet province. The results of the empirical research report two macro scale studies at the district level. The first is a survey of fish ponds across three districts focusing on the spatial distribution of investment and resource use. The second is a survey of fish trade focusing on the differential trade between culture and capture fish species. The results of both studies highlight the disjuncture between complex patterns of aquaculture and capture fishery use and the major assumptions made about the use of these two resources by policy makers and management. Analysis then moves to the local level focusing on the role and importance of aquaculture and capture fisheries to the livelihoods of rural Lao communities. The results show the instrumental and hermeneutic importance of fish and other aquatic resources in the livelihoods of households and the community. In particular it is shown that capture fisheries are more important to rural livelihoods in terms of income and nutrition, while aquaculture is perceived as a more important activity in the development of community and household economies. ii The final section then compares the empirical findings of the thesis with the policy and planning agendas of government and non-government organisations. The analysis focuses on the role of ideas and agency creating a highly politicised policy environment concluding that aquaculture based policy is more compatible with both government and non government agendas of poverty alleviation and rural development than capture fisheries. Furthermore, capture fisheries are marginalised within conservation as a resource that cannot contribute to the improvement of livelihoods or alleviate poverty. The thesis concludes that living aquatic resources provide an imperative source of food and income to rural communities through diverse and complex human-environment interactions. In contrast government and non-government organisations operating at regional, national and local scales of policy and planning simplify these relationships drawing on wider orthodoxies of aquaculture and capture fisheries development. These simplifications do not reflect the problems and needs of the predominantly rural population. Furthermore, in the absence of a strong empirical base of information, living aquatic resources management and development has become highly politicised. Instead of responding to the realities of resource users, policy and planning reflect the interests and beliefs of development organisations, government and non-government. The thesis provides an important, grounded account of the importance of living aquatic resources to rural livelihoods in Lao PDR and how these resources are understood and translated into national development and management agendas. In doing so the thesis contributes to an understanding of how complex human-environmental systems are perceived and represented in development policy and wider knowledge systems. The thesis also makes an important theoretical contribution to the growing body of literature on critical political ecology by arguing for the revitalisation of ecology as an integrated approach within political ecology and more widely within the study of humanenvironment interaction.
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Bush, Simon R. "A political ecology of living aquatic resources in Lao PDR." University of Sydney, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/975.
Full textAbstract:
Doctor of Philosophy(PhD)This thesis uses a political ecology framework to critically analyse how development and environmental orthodoxies influence the use, management and development of living aquatic resources in an information poor developing country context. The research focuses specifically on Lao PDR, the only landlocked country of the Mekong River Basin, to question how knowledge over living aquatic resources is framed by a range of stakeholders. Specific attention is given to how aquaculture has gained ascendancy over capture fisheries in the rhetoric of resources users as well as government and nongovernment organisations. The empirical research focuses on the role of broad scale economic, social and environmental influences over resource use, the practical and perceived importance of both aquaculture and capture fisheries in rural Lao livelihoods and finally, how living aquatic resources are represented within the dominant development agendas of conservation, poverty alleviation and rural development. Field work was conducted in Savannakhet province in Southern Lao PDR over 18 months from 2001 to 2002. The thesis has a strong empirical research base divided into activities carried out over multiple scales ranging from household to the Mekong River Basin. The thesis begins by establishing the historical context of resource use as well as the major orthodoxies on which development is based. Attention then turns to the extensive empirical research conducted over three districts of Savannakhet province. The results of the empirical research report two macro scale studies at the district level. The first is a survey of fish ponds across three districts focusing on the spatial distribution of investment and resource use. The second is a survey of fish trade focusing on the differential trade between culture and capture fish species. The results of both studies highlight the disjuncture between complex patterns of aquaculture and capture fishery use and the major assumptions made about the use of these two resources by policy makers and management. Analysis then moves to the local level focusing on the role and importance of aquaculture and capture fisheries to the livelihoods of rural Lao communities. The results show the instrumental and hermeneutic importance of fish and other aquatic resources in the livelihoods of households and the community. In particular it is shown that capture fisheries are more important to rural livelihoods in terms of income and nutrition, while aquaculture is perceived as a more important activity in the development of community and household economies. ii The final section then compares the empirical findings of the thesis with the policy and planning agendas of government and non-government organisations. The analysis focuses on the role of ideas and agency creating a highly politicised policy environment concluding that aquaculture based policy is more compatible with both government and non government agendas of poverty alleviation and rural development than capture fisheries. Furthermore, capture fisheries are marginalised within conservation as a resource that cannot contribute to the improvement of livelihoods or alleviate poverty. The thesis concludes that living aquatic resources provide an imperative source of food and income to rural communities through diverse and complex human-environment interactions. In contrast government and non-government organisations operating at regional, national and local scales of policy and planning simplify these relationships drawing on wider orthodoxies of aquaculture and capture fisheries development. These simplifications do not reflect the problems and needs of the predominantly rural population. Furthermore, in the absence of a strong empirical base of information, living aquatic resources management and development has become highly politicised. Instead of responding to the realities of resource users, policy and planning reflect the interests and beliefs of development organisations, government and non-government. The thesis provides an important, grounded account of the importance of living aquatic resources to rural livelihoods in Lao PDR and how these resources are understood and translated into national development and management agendas. In doing so the thesis contributes to an understanding of how complex human-environmental systems are perceived and represented in development policy and wider knowledge systems. The thesis also makes an important theoretical contribution to the growing body of literature on critical political ecology by arguing for the revitalisation of ecology as an integrated approach within political ecology and more widely within the study of humanenvironment interaction.
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McCarthy, John F. "The fourth circle: A political ecology of Sumatra's rainforest frontier." Thesis, McCarthy, John F. (2000) The fourth circle: A political ecology of Sumatra's rainforest frontier. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2000. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/51163/.
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The Indonesian archipelago contains the world's second largest expanse of tropical forest and is a major world centre for biodiversity. Yet, Indonesia has one of the highest rates of deforestation. Central to this problem is the incomplete understanding of the institutional dynamics associated with deforestation at the district and village levels. This thesis is based on 12 months field research conducted during 1996-99 in Aceh, Sumatra. It examines how local institutional arrangements govern resource use in three communities (Sama Dua, Menggamat and Badar) within the Leuser Ecosystem, one of the richest expanses of tropical rainforest in Southeast Asia. The research focuses on the interaction of local customary {adat) village regimes, de facto district authority systems, and State policy. The thesis also considers the fate of biodiversity conservation projects that attempted to intervene in these areas.
Customary (adat) institutional arrangements have mediated community access and use of a complex array of resources. These adat arrangements have adjusted to the characteristics of natural resources whose value fluctuates dramatically in response to markets elsewhere. The political, economic and ecological influences affecting these institutional arrangements varied with location and time. In each case local institutional arrangements have proved surprisingly resilient and dynamic, rapidly responding to fluctuating economic and political conditions in complex and locally specific ways.
In the Sama Dua case, adat institutional arrangements have continued to adjust to the changing agro-ecological and economic conditions shaping the conversion of forest into productive agroforests. The forest here was less accessible to outside logging networks and local communities successfully maintained control against outside claims. As villagers have moved back to agriculture following the economic crisis of 1997, adat institutions have become more salient. Adat has also remained important in Menggamat. Here logging networks were able to co-opt community leadership and accommodate local customary arrangements by offering village actors a portion of the flow of benefits derived from logging community territory. In the third case of Badar, where villages were recently settled frontier communities, adat arrangements were less well established. Here, villagers formed a "growth coalition" with logging networks.
The networks of political, economic and social exchange and accommodation evidenced in the second two cases eclipse both State and adat authority structures in governing local forest resources. This suggests that the explanation of environmental change necessarily has to focus on the matrices of power relations characteristic of these areas. In such circumstances, neither adat nor State institutional arrangements constitute viable resource management alternatives on their own. It is district webs of power and interest coalesced around logging and reaching out into the wider society that create the most serious obstacle to biodiverstity conservation, leading inexorably to environmental decline.
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Higgins, John Erwin 1954. "The political ecology of peasant sugarcane farming in northern Belize." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/288803.
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The Belizean export sugar industry is dominated by small family farmers who produce the nation's most important cash crop in terms of area under cultivation, employment, and export earnings. These peasant farmers control both cane cultivation and the harvest transport system and receive the lion' s share of the proceeds from the sale of Belizean sugar. The origins of this anomalous industry can be traced to the regions' long history of peasant resistance to exploitation. Sugarcane was brought to Belize by refugees of the Mayan Caste Wars in the mid-nineteenth century who began producing sugar for the local market using swidden technology. Sugar production was briefly taken over by British plantations; however, the peasants were never fully proletarianized despite attempts to turn them into a plantation labor force. The peasantry's historical resistance to proletarianization is the result of several factors. Colonial officials and capitalists found it difficult to control either the movements or the labor of these independent cultivators. Low rural population density, peasants' refusal to give up subsistence farming, sugarcane's compatibility with swidden farming practices, and the peasantry's politicization all contributed to the dominance of small-farmer cane production during this century. During the 1950s plantation production was resurrected in order to meet the colony's recently acquired Commonwealth Sugar Agreement export quota. Colonial planners assumed that plantations were more efficient and competitive than peasant farmers. Nevertheless, in 1972 the state sponsored plantations were forced to shut down due to competition from independent small cane farmers. Peasant sugarcane farming has proven to be remarkably resilient in the face of crises spawned by chronic fluctuations in the price and demand for cane sugar. Most farmers depend heavily on family labor to minimize their production costs. Because they have minimal capital inputs to production, they can sustain negative profits from cane and still survive by deploying family labor into other income and/or subsistence producing activities. The viability of peasant farming families that allows them to compete successfully with large-scale capitalist sugarcane farmers contradicts the Marxian notion of the inevitability of polarization into capitalist farmers and proletarian workers.
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Dockstader, Sue, and Sue Dockstader. "Engendering the Metabolic Rift: A Feminist Political Ecology of Agrofuels." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12444.
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This thesis analyzes the gendered impacts of plant-based alternatives to petroleum, commonly called biofuels. Synthesizing case studies, scientific research and policies papers, this theoretical work adopts the term “agrofuels” coined by the peasant organization La Vía Campesina to reflect the true nature of these commodities – one of dispossession and ecological destruction. This paper documents the falsity of the claim that the fuels are “sustainable” by presenting facts linking them to deforestation, loss and pollution of water sources, destruction of important biodiversity and the knowledge that maintains this diversity, as well as economic exploitation. Most importantly, I verify that the adoption of agrofuel expansion exacerbates gendered patterns of exclusion and, in most cases, worsens women’s positions within the communities targeted for feedstock production with regard to land tenure, household energy maintenance, independent income and physical integrity.
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Dorjsuren, Amartuvshin. "Political ecology of inequality in tourism development in rural Mongolia." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2014. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/19575/.
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Tourism is often advocated as a means of poverty reduction in the developing world, despite limited evidence about its effectiveness. There is even less research on tourism's wider effects on standards of living and general inequality in developing countries. This study explores the views of different people involved in tourism development about tourism's contribution to quality of livelihoods and standards of living, and about associated equality and inequality, as a consequence of tourism development in rural Mongolia. Use is made of a critical realist stance and three theoretical approaches: a political ecology, an actor-perspective and a capability approach. Taken in combination, these approaches focus on the macro-level structural aspects of tourism and standards of living, the associated micro-level actor relations, and the relations within and among them. The study explores two case study rural areas with substantial tourism elements: the Lake Hovsgol region and the Gobi Desert region, in northern and southern Mongolia respectively. Qualitative methods were used, including 52 semi-structured, face-to-face and focus group interviews with 61 respondents, participant observation, and analysis of government and agency reports. Analysis of the sources was undertaken using a framework approach. The study findings suggest that tourism's contribution to grassroots people's standards of living was substantial and often accounted for more than half of household incomes, despite the short tourist season. Households with below average standards of living appeared to benefit the least from tourism in comparison to households with average and above average standards of living. It is argued that this relates to the lack of capability of many among the less-well-off to become involved in tourism. It was also shown that people held differing notions of tourism's contribution to inequalities. Tourism had varied environmental, economic and sociocultural burdens and benefits, resulting, for example, in water pollution, deforestation, soil degradation and the alteration of traditional patterns of nomadic culture. Tourism also competed with other economic sectors for natural resources. Tourism's burdens and benefits were influenced by the political economy of state governance, taxation policies, party politics and corruption. Many local actors considered that tourism development led by the private sector had only limited benefits for the host population, while private sector respondents considered it had led to substantial economic benefits. Community-based tourism programmes led by International Development Organisations were sometimes considered less efficient and destabilising in the long run as they created relatively low quality and low expenditure tourism. It was found that individual actors exerted agency and found some room for manoeuvre in order to achieve their goals within the structural constraints. Yet modest grassroots people seem to have been bearing a disproportionately large proportion of the problems or costs of the structural forces. They suffered most from low wages and commodity price inflation, limited access to natural resources due to conservation policies, and a lack of information and opportunities. Yet some of these grassroots people exerted much agency, such as through the use of their informal social networks to make the most of the tourism-related opportunities.
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Castro, Fabio de. "Fishing accords the political ecology of fishing intensification in the Amazon /." online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium access full-text, 2000. http://libweb.cityu.edu.hk/cgi-bin/er/db/ddcdiss.pl?9966044.
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Humphries, Kathryn. "A political ecology of community-based forest and wildlife management in Tanzania : politics, power and governance." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/244970.
Full textAbstract:
My research is focused on investigating the socio-political processes taking place within Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in Tanzania. I draw on a political ecology approach in an investigation of the politics of struggles over natural resources, their management and the benefits that can be derived from this. I bring together theories of policy processes, African politics and scale into an examination of power within two case studies of CBNRM from the wildlife and forestry sectors. I carry out a comparative analysis of these case studies, employing a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participatory activities, participant observation and document analysis. My research is clustered around three core themes. Firstly, I trace the process of policy reform that introduced CBNRM in both the forest and wildlife sectors, and examine the differences between the governance systems prescribed in policy as a result of these processes. The contrasts between the two sectors in Tanzanian CBNRM are important and multiple. Different policy pathways were adopted, relating to the distinct political economies of forest and wildlife resources and their politicisation within the context of power devolution for CBNRM. The prescribed governance systems in the two sectors contain important differences in the processes by which local communities can apply to participate in CBNRM, the mechanisms of revenue distribution, and the ways in which power is devolved to the local level. Secondly I examine the implementation of these prescribed governance systems and their performance in reality through an exploration of the configurations of power set out in CBNRM, and the struggles that take place around these in ‘politics of scales’ as actors attempt to benefit from CBNRM. I examine the ways the governance systems have been adopted and adapted from those set out in CBNRM policy. I argue that the distinctions between the prescribed governance systems in the two sectors produce separate contexts of re-configuration into the performed governance systems within the case studies. However, I also argue that while the contexts are specific to each sector, both the case studies revealed the same underlying socio-political process of struggles over power to both manage and benefit from natural resources. These struggles to control and benefit from CBNRM are closely linked to the unequal distribution of benefits that were witnessed in both case studies. Finally I examine the performance of CBNRM as an integration of systems of power set out in policy and hidden, often unacknowledged, local contours of power. I address the themes of how the reality of CBNRM differs from that set out in policy, examine the processes ongoing within the projects that permit and maintain elite capture and unequal distribution of benefits, and investigate the socio-political processes of corruption taking place within devolved environmental management. I argue that the struggles over power, combined with hidden aspects, especially neopatrimonialism, local moral economy and the cultural context of corruption, are central to these unequal outcomes and the capture of benefits by a small group of individuals. My research highlights that power, the politics of its devolution to the local level, the struggles that take place around it, and its subtle, hidden forms, lie at the heart of gaining further understanding of the ways in which policies develop, the unexpected outcomes they produce and the inequalities these often entail.
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Neil, Suzanne Chambliss. "The development of high definition television : an ecology of games." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62476.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-246).
This study is an analysis of the forces that shaped the overall character of a new US television system, high definition or HDTV, between the early 1980s and 2010, with a primary focus on the period leading up the Federal Communications Commission decision on the new standard in 1996. The study tries to answer the question: how did we get the system we got? The analysis uses the model of an ecology of games that Norton Long developed and William H. Dutton refined. It shows that two camps, or "games," competed to define the new system. One game, consisting of the traditional television broadcast industry, saw HDTV as a standalone system, at first using the traditional analog technologies and then, midway through the process, switching to digital technologies. The second game, consisting of a lose group of academics and computer company representatives, saw HDTV as part of the emerging digital network. The result of the analysis shows that although the FCC was the legitimate forum for determining the standard, the technological system that finally emerged was the result of unplanned, uncoordinated political, social, and market forces.
by Suzanne Chambliss Neil.
Ph.D.
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González, Hidalgo Marien. "Emotional political ecologies. The role of emotions in the politics of environmental conflicts: two case studies in Chile and Mexico." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/457867.
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Esta tesis explora el papel, usualmente ignorado o subestimado, que las emociones desempeñan en los conflictos ambientales. Como varios estudios han mostrado recientemente, considerar las emociones en el análisis de los conflictos ambientales facilita la comprensión de cómo se estructura el orden socioeconómico, cómo se construyen las subjetividades políticas y cómo se producen las movilizaciones sociales. Sin embargo, todavía necesitamos comprender mejor, conceptual y empíricamente, las relaciones entre emoción, poder y conflicto ambiental. Esta tesis define inicialmente un marco teórico para la consideración de “lo emocional” en ecología política (lo que llamo Ecologías Políticas Emocionales, EPEms), revisando bibliografía en ecología política feminista, geografías emocionales, antropología social y cultural, psicología social y sobre movimientos sociales. Mi revisión señala que las EPEms necesitan emplear un marco multidimensional que capture las dimensiones psicológica, “más-que-humana”, geográfica, social y política que se entrecruzan en las subjetividades en los conflictos ambientales. Mi revisión también define los vacíos en la literatura identificados en esta tesis: la necesidad de considerar las "emociones negativas" como la rabia o el trauma presentes en los conflictos ambientales, así como explorar las posibilidades de “sanación”.
Los capítulos empíricos de esta tesis se desarrollan mediante una metodología de investigación común, adaptando estrategias habituales de investigación en ecología política - estudio de caso con énfasis en métodos etnográficos - para captar "lo emocional". En el primer caso empírico, analizo el desarrollo histórico y contemporáneo del extractivismo forestal en el sur de Chile, en territorios indígenas Mapuche. Mi análisis muestra que la industria forestal avanza asegurando el control del territorio mediante intervenciones disciplinarias, con el objetivo de gobernar subjetividades para que los sujetos colaboren en el proyecto extractivista. Sin embargo, individuos y comunidades interfieren en este proyecto: sus reivindicaciones de soberanía les permiten ejercer control sobre su propio proceso de subjetivación. En este proceso, destaco el papel de la expresión colectiva de emociones "negativas" como la rabia y el dolor, que considero recursos cruciales que ayudan a las comunidades Mapuche a mantener la resistencia. En el segundo caso empírico exploro las formas en que la práctica psicoterapéutica permite entender mejor los procesos de subjetivación indígena y campesina en conflicto, analizando talleres basados en Terapia Gestalt organizados por una ONG en el sur de Chiapas, México. La evidencia empírica sirve para discutir el papel de las intervenciones terapéuticas a la hora de facilitar la reflexividad individual-colectiva y la participación en asuntos comunitarios. Mi análisis también establece que las “intervenciones sanadoras” necesitan abordar explícitamente cuestiones estructurales de poder para ir más allá de una reflexividad des-contextualizada y des-politizada.
Mi investigación permite discutir el trabajo político de las emociones en los conflictos ambientales, destacando tres formas simultáneas y contrapuestas en que las emociones interactúan en los conflictos ambientales: gubernamentalidad emocional, opresión emocional y movilización emocional. Esta interacción muestra una ambivalencia, es decir una tensión constante entre el papel de las emociones como canales para la subversión del poder hegemónico y su papel en la reproducción del mismo. Sostengo que considerar "lo emocional" como un espacio de poder y conflicto ofrece oportunidades a los movimientos socio-ambientales para abrir espacios de re-articulación de las relaciones de poder dentro y fuera de los movimientos, así como a la investigación en ecología política, expandiendo el análisis del desarrollo de los conflictos en las esferas privadas/públicas, individuales/colectivas y considerando posiciones inestables y contradictorias en los puntos de vista de diferentes actores sociales. La investigación en el marco de las EPEms que desarrolla esta tesis puede servir de base para futuras investigaciones interesadas en revelar y transformar las sutilezas de las relaciones de poder y los desafíos que implican los conflictos ambientales.This thesis explores the usually unseen and undervalued political work that emotions do in environmental conflicts. As several feminist and affect political ecologists and geographers have begun to discuss, analysing the role of emotions on environmental conflicts can enable a better understanding of how social and economic orders develop, how political subjectivities are built and how and why social mobilisations take place. However, we still need to better understand, both conceptually and empirically, the relations between emotion, power and environmental conflict. This thesis first draws a theoretical framework for the consideration of emotion in political ecology (what I name Emotional Political Ecologies, EmPEs), reviewing work in the field of feminist political ecology, emotional geographies, social and cultural anthropology, social psychology and social movements. This critical literature review indicates that EmPEs need to employ a multi-dimensional framework that captures the psychological, more-than-human, geographical, social and political dimensions that intersect subjectivities in environmental conflicts. My review also defines the research gaps addressed in this thesis: the need to engage with “negative emotions” – such as anger or trauma – present in environmental conflicts, as well as to further explore the political ecologies of “healing”. The empirical chapters of this thesis are organised under a shared research strategy, adapting established political ecology research strategies – case study method with an emphasis on ethnographic methods – in order to grasp “the emotional”. In the first empirical case of this thesis, I analyse the historical and contemporary development of forestry extractivism in southern Chile, specifically in and around indigenous Mapuche territories. My analysis shows that commercial forestry advances by securing land control through disciplinary interventions, which aim to govern subjectivities and create subjects that can help secure capital accumulation and extractivism. Nevertheless, individuals and communities get in the way of this project as they mobilise sovereignty claims that permit them to exercise control over the process of their own subject-making. My analysis highlights the emotional dimension of the process of political subjectivation, especially via the collective expression of “negative” emotions such as anger and sorrow, which I find to be crucial resources that help Mapuche communities maintain resistance. In the second empirical chapter of this thesis, I explore the ways in which psychotherapeutic practice sheds light on indigenous and peasant subjectivation processes through analysing the Gestalt Therapy workshops organised by a local NGO in southern Chiapas, Mexico. Empirical evidence serves as the basis from which to discuss the role of psychotherapeutic practice in facilitating individual and collective reflexivity, and in fostering political fellowship and participation in community matters. My analysis also establishes that “healing interventions” need to explicitly engage with structural issues of power in order to move beyond de-contextualised, and thus depoliticised, reflexivity. My research serves to discuss the political work of emotions in environmental conflicts, highlighting three simultaneous, contradictory and creative ways in which emotions interplay in environmental conflicts: emotional environmentality, emotional oppression and emotional environmentalism. This interplay highlights a constantly unresolved tension between the role of emotions as a channel for the subversion of hegemonic power and, conversely, their role in reproducing hegemonic power dynamics. I argue that considering “the emotional” as a space of power and conflict offers opportunities for socio-environmental movements to open spaces for re-articulating power relationships inside and outside movements, as well as for political ecologists to further consider the private and public, the individual and collective spheres of environmental conflicts and the unstable standpoints of the different social actors participating in conflicts. Further exploring the field of EmPEs can inform political ecological analysis aimed at unpacking and transforming the subtle power relationships and challenges that environmental conflicts involve.
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Seo, Wang-Jin. "Political ecology and environmental justice analysis of information and communication technology." Access to citation, abstract and download form provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company; downloadable PDF file, 273 p, 2010. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1993336291&sid=7&Fmt=2&clientId=8331&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Rossi, Pierre. "The political ecology of ethnicity : the case of the South Tyrol." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/29209.
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Unlike ethnies defined by genotype, religion or socio-cultural traits, ethno-linguistic groups require a structural basis that is territorial. Only in such a context can they exist and survive. The coexistence of three distinct ethno-linguistic groups - indigenous Germanophones and Ladins and recently-settled Italophones - in the South Tyrol is proof of this. This structural imperative stems from the societal changes of the last few centuries which made capitalist relations of production and statist institutions the dominant structural bases of social organization. The changes reshaped infrastructural mechanisms of social organization, their structured properties and the superstructural knowledge that guides human agency in instantiating such properties.
The consequences for the South Tyrol and its peoples were their subordination to external centres. Under fascist rule this subordination created a bifurcated spatio-functional order which, under conditions of democratic rule and political autonomy, enabled the indigenous periphery or complementary region to assert its centrality vis-a-vis the territory's Italophone-controlled vital centre by using autonomous political institutions located in the same vital centre.Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
Graduate
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Cochrane, Regina M. "Feminism, ecology, and negative dialectics, toward a feminist green political theory." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0022/NQ39260.pdf.
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McFall, Ann Patricia Radford. "Spanish Greens and the political ecology social movement : a regional perspective." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6443.
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The present study sets out to challenge a common assumption that Green politics is virtually non-existent in Spain. This assumed state of affairs has been attributed to a number of factors including a materialist society which prioritises economic growth, Spain’s political culture and, finally, the country’s electoral system. The result, according to the few scholars who include Spain in their studies, is a country with a weak political ecology social movement (PESM) and a Green party that enjoys only ‘trivial support’ (Mair 2001:103). As will be demonstrated, such assumptions are based on an insufficient knowledge of political ecology in Spain. The lack of knowledge has resulted in Spain’s green movements and parties being routinely misinterpreted and, indeed, overlooked. The first and most glaring misconception is many scholars’ persistence in referring to the ‘Spanish Green party’ as if a single party existed. In fact, the ‘Spanish Greens’ comprise not one national party but a variable and variegated number of different political parties, a few of which have certainly achieved a measure of electoral success (depending, of course, on how success is defined). Furthermore, it will be shown that reasons often given for the failure of the Green parties – such as the country’s alleged lack of interest in environmental matters – overlook other more pertinent factors such as, for example, tensions between the Spanish Greens and the environmental movement organisations (EMO), the nationalist factor and continuing tensions between the ‘green-greens’ and the ‘red-greens’. Despite numerous problems at party level, the present study will show that Spain’s PESM is as vigorous as – though different from - that of other countries which are reputed to be environmental leaders. To pursue this argument, the thesis will provide an overview of Spain’s Green parties, setting these within the cultural and historical context of the broader PESM to which they belong. Drawing on territorial politics literature, the thesis will, in particular, demonstrate that the territorial dimension – that is, Spain’s division into 17 autonomous regions – has been one of the neglected but determining factors contributing to the problems besetting the Spanish Greens. It will also be argued that, in its own way, the efforts of Spanish ecologists have undoubtedly contributed towards the ‘piecemeal’ greening of Spain. The arguments are further developed through two in-depth case studies focusing on political ecology, and more particularly Green parties, in two of Spain’s regions, Catalonia and Andalucia.
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Torres-Abreu, Alejandro. "The political ecology of demand : managing water stress in Puerto Rico." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.538613.
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Mehta, Lyla. "Contexts of scarcity : the political ecology of water in Kutch, India." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.263870.
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Moreano, Venegas Melissa Eugenia. "The political ecology of Ecuadorian environmentalism : buen vivir, nature and territory." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2017. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-political-ecology-of-ecuadorian-environmentalism(23fbe211-0c26-4976-9514-4cf4aa5b8fb4).html.
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This thesis examines the notions of buen vivir, the rights of nature (pachamama) and territory in Ecuadorian environmentalism, a country where the institutionalisation of the terms appeared as a political opportunity to construct a decolonial future that is based precisely in a reconfiguration of the nature/human relationship that might include the communitarian form of life depicted by the collective territory. To which extent those newly ideas help or hinder to construct alternatives to green capitalism is the key interest of this research. The theoretical framework combines the ample field of political ecology with critical geography. The empirical research included in-depth interviews, documentary revision and participant observation at three research foci: state-related environmental activity, non-governmental environmental action and local community-based ecologism – that, in aggregate, comprise Ecuadorian environmentalism. The three empirical chapters of this thesis address each one of those research foci (Chapters 5-7). Chapter 5 tackles the Programa Socio Bosque, a governmental program of payment for conservation that contributes to transform buen vivir and the rights of nature into a renewed sustainable development. For that, the program maintains the human/nature divide and contributes to the territorial ordering that allows the production of nature for the capitalist market. Chapter 6 analyses extensively the diverse actors of non-governmental environmental organizations, revealing that for mainstream environmentalists, buen vivir and the rights of nature are a version of sustainable development, while critical ecologists fail to formulate a political alternative, as there is a dominance of the anti-extractivist discourse and a tendency towards essentialism of the indigenous world. However, indigenous comprehensions of socionatures and territory contained in the proposals for forest conservation of some indigenous organizations propound an alternative to stateled green capitalism. Chapter 7 discusses place-based environmentalism of the indigenous Tola Chica community. A close look to the vital experience of the community revealed how buen vivir and pachamama are connected to territory. The collective production of territory and nature is then highlighted in order to frame a more creative response to green capitalism. The final chapter will conclude the main findings of this PhD and set possible lines of future investigation on the topic. In doing that, the research aims to contribute to a Latin American political ecology that draws upon decolonial studies, via an in-depth case study and social movements’ experience.
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Scales, Ivan Richard. "Forest frontiers : the political ecology of landscape change in western Madagascar." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.612306.
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