Cultural geography, political economy and ecology

Abstract

The ecological point of view is not a dogmatically negative valuation of the human/environment relationship. It is at first a critical assessment of the triangle humankind/its activity/its environment, along time, space, and productive relations. Thus, an ecological history of space is possible. Each model of development, before and within capitalism, fosters its own ecological crises and its own movement of resistance. The main focus of struggle has changed along the history of capitalism, according to its model of development. The present period offers a dramatic piling up of ancient and new crises. But social struggles are not only ‘against’ but for’ something. Here again, the positive content of urban struggles has changed according to the model of development. More and more, it appears that their content is about relations between people, the meaning of their activity, their responsibility towards the others. Thus, about political ecology.