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Geog 305 intro plus sept 5 and 10 2014
- 1. Political Ecology (Geog305) Week 1. Class 2. Zoë A. Meletis Sept. 5 & 10th, 2014 projectearthblog.blogspot.com
- 2. Introductions • To class members (check; new additions?) • To course outline • To political ecology – Your initial understandings – Those of others • (2012+) Issue to watch: (Public hearings on the) proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Actors involved? Motivations? (agendas? funding? investments?) Costs, benefits, and risks? (geography of these) Discourse and narratives (words and stories; spins?) 2013/4+ (Reactions to JRP’s Recommendations)
- 3. Your suggestions re PE (first class)
- 4. Introduction • What does Robbins say about wilderness? www.destination360.com
- 5. Key themes in Introduction (Robbins) • Viewing wilderness (Yellowstone) • As produced by humans • As a site for investigating how we understand natural/unnatural • As a site for understanding our changing practices and views over time (e.g. fire as desirable or not) • As produced (dynamically) over time, in specific ways and places, with associated cultures and power dynamics • As hiding struggles over land, (water), and resources – Invisible histories? – Invisible people? Invisible politics? – Invisible uses (Canadian examples?) and management
- 6. Power and struggles in YNP ZAM: Social science as ‘mythbusting’ national parks as idyllic places Two quotes at the top of p. xvi (2004 ed.) www.nps.gov
- 7. Cape Lookout National Seashore, Shackleford Banks, and the Promise Land (North Carolina) A peaceful place? Wild horses? http://www.shacklefordhorses.org/stories/water.htm www.travsphotos.com
- 8. Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica http://costa-rica-guide.com/Natural/Tortuguero.html Animals and their rights promoted over people, their rights and cultures A conservation success story AND/OR…
- 9. Examples of your own? Dominant narratives or understandings vs. ‘alternative stories or narratives’ (politics) BC Canada International
- 10. Political Ecology • Your understandings??? • Robbins (Introduction, p. xvi and xvii, older ed.): – Political ecology: “a field that seeks to unravel the political forces at work in environmental access, management, and transformation” – Political actors create the ecology of Yellowstone – “Politics are inevitably ecological and that ecology is inherently political”; “research… can shed light on environmental surprise and dynamism… the practical problems of equity and sustainability…(and) basic questions in environmental science”
- 11. Robbins’ understandings • Politics of environment & nature exist everywhere; they change • Human and non-human realms are intimately connected BUT we work hard to imagine it otherwise (separating the two) • Reacting to and rejecting ‘bourgeois environmentalism’ is not enough. We must recognize its contributions to challenging the status quo, and POPULARIZE POLITICAL ECOLOGY as a way of understanding the world, the environment, and our ways of creating and seeing it.
- 12. Robbins’ understandings • Politics of environment & nature exist everywhere; they change • Human and non-human realms are intimately connected BUT we work hard to imagine it otherwise (separating the two) • Reacting to and rejecting ‘bourgeois environmentalism’ is not enough. We must recognize its contributions to challenging the status quo, and POPULARIZE POLITICAL ECOLOGY as a way of understanding the world, the environment, and our ways of creating and seeing it.
- 13. Blaikie & Brookfield 1987: 17 • “The phrase ‘political ecology’ combines the concerns of ecology and a broadly defined political economy. Together, this encompasses the constantly shifting dialectic between society and land-based resources, and also within classes and groups within society itself” • Neumann 2005, citing various scholars: PE as research agenda, approach, perspective. PE as combined and recombined with: poststructuralist, feminist, Third World, First World, geographical, urban…
- 14. Why popularize political ecology? Quote on p. xvii How? What kinds of research and writings? • http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/director.ph p Book: political ecology as ‘something people do’ “I am not a political ecologist, although I’ve often tried to be one” (xx).
- 15. Robbins’ (prescriptive) book: what should we do? • Shift away from humans destroying nature • Shift away from nature ONLY as a social construction • 1) Shift towards a “production of nature by human and non-human actors, with varying (often serious) normative implications”; • 2) Examine ALL producers of nature; • 3) Move away from “linear ‘chains’ of explanation towards ‘networks’” that are complex, shifting, and have implications; and • Include more explorations of PE of the ‘first World’ (Page xviii)
- 16. Robbins declares his biases He is explicit about his biases • American geographer • Mostly draws up on geography, development studies, anthropology • Leaves out some geographical regions (e.g. Australia); focuses on North American work • Leaves out theoretical contributions (e.g. Francophone PE) • Discusses his own work and the ‘problems’ he’s encountered (personal examples; admissions of mistakes; reflexivity) • Writes about his own opinions and preferences regarding PE research and approaches • Suggests gaps in PE (2004)
- 17. www.mylot.com QUESTIONS WE SHOULD KEEP ASKING (DYNAMISM; CONSTANT NEED FOR REFLECTION)
- 18. • How do we come to know Others? How fair, accurate, and in-depth are our ideas? – Western children and Africa • Wildness (we remove people; we separate urban and rural; we imagine landscapes; we imagine poverty and destruction; we feel hopeless) • How do we understand crises? PEs: wildlife crisis in E. Africa is more political and economic than demographic; Our assumptions are flawed; our imaginaries are inaccurate We isolate problems and peoples (we should NOT!); we ignore people in/on the lands (past and present); we fail to consider implications of actions. We must consider CONTEXT AND POLITICS.
- 19. The (proposed) pipeline in the news (2012) • Actors (and their motivations/agendas) – International influences? – Local powers • Resources • Costs and benefits • Risks • Discourse and narratives – False dichotomies? • Imaginaries • Flawed assumptions • Neutral or normative? – Think like a political ecologist www.corpwatch.com
- 20. Mt. Polley mine (Imperial Metals, BC, & UNBC) • http://filter-- blog.blogspot.ca/2014/ 08/mount-polley-gold-and- copper-mine.html • https://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=hhDehsYq oVo
- 21. Political ecology: independent trains of thought coming together in late 1980s Many definitions; many foci Contextual approaches Consideration of politics Challenging apolitical ecologies: (ecoscarcity and limits to growth; diffusion; valuation; modernization) WHY challenge these? HOW?
- 22. Themes in definitions & goals (6;7) • Political economy & ecology • Actors and relationships • ‘Shifting dialectic’ between humans, environment, and resources • Power and forces at work • Bio-cultural/humans and nature • Tensions, crises, contradictions and how we create/produce/frame/discuss these • From local to global (various scales) • Political circumstances create degradation
- 23. PE as mainstream? • Savvy UNBC students seem to think that government decisions are NOT based on the best available neutral science… • Where did you get the idea that this was the case? When did you decide this? • Can you think of examples where the science seemed ‘more neutral’ or ‘less political’? Why was this the case?
- 24. PEs challenge apolitical ecologies Ecoscarcity and limits to growth • PEs argue: – Population growth does not explain scarcity • What does? – Resources are constructed rather than given • How? – Famine and starvation are not natural – Limits portrayed as apolitical are NOT apolitical – Crude Malthusianism remains popular and thurs remains a PE target
- 25. PEs challenge apolitical ecologies • Modernization theory • PEs argue: • Adopting ‘modern’ techniques of management, exploitation, and conservation is NOT what’s missing in many places, NOR is it the solution • Western (cookie-cutter) solutions will NOT work everywhere and are NOT appropriate everywhere • Global North does NOT always know best; it has a track record of mixed success • Market-based approaches are NOT apolitical (p. 11)
- 26. How is PE different? “It is not so much that political ecology is ‘more political’ than those other approaches to the environment. Rather it is simply more explicit in its normative goals and more outspoken about the assumptions from which its research is conducted” (Robbins 2004: 11)
- 27. What are the politics and goals of Eco-scarcity and limits to growth? Modernization theory? www.honeymoonslblog.com
- 28. In the next few weeks…. Dominant narratives, & critical tools (incl. COMMON PROPERTY) • The degradation and marginalization thesis • The environmental conflict thesis • The conservation and control thesis • The environmental identity & social movement thesis • Smaller arguments about: community collective action; roles of human labour; risk; environmental perceptions; corruption; knowledge and power
Editor's Notes
- http://coresound.com/our-communities/promise-land/ Promise’ LandThe Promise’ Land was developed as part of the Sheppard Point Land Company property, later to become Morehead City, named for Governor John Motely Morehead. During the 1880s and 1890s, fishermen bought land and began to move from Shackleford Banks, after a series of hurricanes. Houses were disassembled and floated across the sound and reconstructed in the Promise’ Land.The story relating to the term “Promise’ Land” associated to this part of Morehead City has many variations, but most agree that it was the safe high ground (as compared to storm-wretched Shackleford) that made it seem like a “Promised” Land for Banks residents. The reference to the hymn by the same name is also part of the tradition.The boundaries of the Promise’ Land are somewhat sketchy but are generally between 12th - 15th and Evans St to Bogue Sound.The Promise’ Land remained a community of fishermen and boatbuilders until the very recent past.The Promise’ Land was home to Kib Guthrie’s Store, the center of activity. It was run by Kilby “Kib” Guthrie, Jr. It leaned to the left quite severely and was torn down after he died.Gretchen Guthrie Guthrie’s Carteret Love Song, a collection of poetry and prose, tells of the close cultural connections between Shackleford and the Promise’ Land.
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- DRAW VENN DIAGRAM ON THE BOARD Env determinist Social constructivist Political ecologist
- Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipelineFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaBaku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline Location of Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline Location Country Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey General direction east–south-west From Baku (Sangachal Terminal), Azerbaijan Passes through Tbilisi, Erzurum, Sarız To Ceyhan, Turkey Runs alongside South Caucasus Pipeline General information Type oil Partners BP, SOCAR, Chevron, Statoil, TPAO, Eni, Total S.A., Itochu, Inpex, ConocoPhillips, Hess Corporation Operator BP Commissioned 2006 Technical information Length 1,768 km (1,099 mi) Maximum discharge 1 million barrels (160,000 m3) of oil per day The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline is a 1,768 kilometres (1,099 mi) long crude oil pipeline from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It connects Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan; Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia; and Ceyhan, a port on the south-eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, hence its name. It is the second longest oil pipeline in the former Soviet Union after the Druzhba pipeline. The first oil that was pumped from the Baku end of the pipeline on 10 May 2005 reached Ceyhan on 28 May 2006.[1][2]