The view from the volcano: an appreciation of the work of Piers Blaikie

Abstract

Piers Blaikie’s contributions to key intellectual developments in political ecology over the past two decades are examined in terms of a study of the agricultural transformations that followed the deadly 1994 eruption of Merapi Volcano in Central Java. The study begins with a description of Mt. Merapi, the study village Turgo, and its inhabitants’ beliefs concerning volcanic hazard. Next to be discussed is the 1994 eruption, the post-eruption shift from a system wherein livestock supported subsistence agriculture to one wherein agriculture supports market-oriented livestock husbandry, and the factors responsible for it, including demographics, politics, and the global economy. These data are then further analyzed in terms of the work by Blaikie and his contemporaries on regional analysis – focusing on cross-scale relations, spatial contradictions, and spatial ‘fixes – and practice – focusing on the structural properties of everyday activity, human agency, and vernacular understandings of this. The analysis concludes with a discussion of changing approaches to power and politics within political ecology. Whereas Blaikie initially worked within a classic neo-Marxist framework, his work also points toward a more Foucaultian vision of the way power works, though he has remained wary of analytical positions that promote dis-engagement with real-world issues.