L’ecologia politica come campo di riconcettualizzazione socio-ambientale: governance, conflitto e produzione di spazi politici

Abstract

Relations between human society, nature and the environment have long played a key role in the geographical debate. In this framework, political ecology has become a critical research field integrating heterogeneous theoretical and epistemological perspectives with socio-political and territorial knowledge, practices and experiences. While for a couple of decades this field has played a considerable role in international geographical literature, in the Italian debate it is still marginal. This contribution therefore aims to provide a framework for reflection and synthesis on how political ecology, through concepts and interpretative keys, contributes to re-discussing socio-environmental relations, highlighting their metabolic, political and conflictual nature, and proposing alternative future scenarios. Specifically, in the framework of global environmental governance and the contemporary ecological crisis, the focus is on socio-environmental conflict, in dialogue with post-politics theory, as a process of production of new spaces oriented to the repoliticization of environmental issues, the reconfiguration of socio-ecological relations and the claim of socio-environmental justice.