Political Ecology Approach Research Articles

Massive Development of Nusantara Capital City in the Perspective of Ecological Politics

The development of the Capital City of Nusantara (IKN) in East Kalimantan is one of the most ambitious projects in Indonesia's modern history. Through a Political Ecology approach, this paper highlights how power and political dynamics shape interactions between humans and the environment and influence policies and practices that impact the exploitation of natural resources. The research method used is descriptive qualitative, with data collection through literature study. The development of IKN is not only influenced by political decisions that often ignore environmental aspects but also by the constellation of government that tends to be authoritarian and unconstitutional. This is reflected in the process of drafting the IKN law, which invited various polemics and questioned its legality. In the end, IKN development has the potential to damage the environment and deepen social injustice due to political practices that are not inclusive and democratic.

River and drain: Ambiguity in the waterways of Accra

This article analyses a range of diverse and often conflicting practices in and around a waterway in Accra, Ghana, emphasising the ambiguity of their politics. Urban political ecology approaches have demonstrated how flows of (waste)water reveal power dynamics across scales. I extend such insights by developing an understanding of practices that are more ambiguous, complexifying otherwise linear dynamics of power. I do this by centring the narratives of those living and working in the waterway. Through providing needed attention to the everyday and micro-level interactions, this approach makes room for situated ambiguities within wider power dynamics. The argument is based on qualitative research along one primary waterway in Accra, along which people live, farm, dump waste and manage flood risk. These diverse practices suggest that, in addition to distributing risks in an often uneven fashion, the waterway also affords connection, solidarity and adaptability across urban divides. I argue that accounting for these practices does not deny the inequalities of the waterway's geography; rather, it encourages the development of a vocabulary to understand situated processes, even where they appear ambiguous. Embracing the ambiguities of the waterway allows us to fully consider the complex forms that power takes in different settings.

To Become an Object Among Objects: Generative Artificial “Intelligence,” Writing, and Linguistic White Supremacy

AbstractThis paper critically explores the implications of generative artificial “intelligence” (GAI) technologies for literacy theory and practice through a case study of the author's use of OpenAI's ChatGPT. The study opens with an overview of recent literature surrounding the pedagogical implications of using GAI with a focus on issues of racial justice, outlining an abolitionist political ecology approach to literacy that extends relational theories of mediation to machine‐aided writing. The framework is then applied to data from a cognitive autoethnography of GAI use over a 6‐month period, which included a digital ethnography of ChatGPT and an extended semistructured “interview” with the GAI chatbot. Racial justice issues were found, especially linguistic and other biases. As such, soon‐to‐be ubiquitous artificial intelligence (AI) technologies require profound reconsideration of the productive value of literacy exploited by GAI, which will inevitably be pursued through an acquiescence or fundamental rupture with the dystopian visions of the technology's creators.

Working (around/within/against) prior appropriation: Diverse hydrosocial practices to secure water for rivers

Water scarcity in the Western US, through the lens of political ecology, can be understood as inextricably shaped by power dynamics, governance structures, and legal practices of resource allocation. Water allocation in the region is determined largely by the legal doctrine of Prior Appropriation, the 'first in time, first in right' principle. However, prior appropriation is fundamentally based in anthropocentric and settler colonial assumptions, and in light of drought, climate change, and shifting social and environmental values, the system has been critiqued as inadequate to meet contemporary water challenges. Despite challenging historical legacies, water managers in the Western US are developing a range of strategies to work around or within prior appropriation to secure environmental flows for rivers and aquatic species. In this article we use political ecology and diverse economies approaches to consider the challenges of, and challenges to, prior appropriation. We examine a diverse set of practices, work-arounds, and creative strategies being used to secure instream flows, and discuss how these strategies affirm or challenge prior appropriation, how they reinforce or challenge inequities, and how they reform or re-envision water allocation in ways that may open up potential for social and environmental justice.

Evaluating a forestry partnership between a private company and local people in East Kalimantan, Indonesia: a political ecology approach

Evaluating a forestry partnership between a private company and local people in East Kalimantan, Indonesia: a political ecology approach

The Don Sahong Dam in Laos: Political Ecology, Infrastructure, and the Changing Spatialities of Impacts on Fish and People

The Don Sahong Hydropower Project (DSHPP), located in the Khone Falls area of Khong District, Champasak Province, southern Laos, near the border with Cambodia, has been amongst the most controversial hydropower dams in the Mekong River Basin. Despite considerable regional and international opposition, the dam was finally constructed, becoming commercially operational in 2020. In 2011, I expressed serious concerns about the project's potential impacts on long-distance migratory fish and associated fisheries, especially fish that migrate from Cambodia and Vietnam up the Mekong River to Laos and Thailand. However, my concerns have somewhat changed along with the circumstances, although they continue to focus on dam impacts on migratory fish. I am now particularly concerned about the indirect impacts of the DSHPP on the fishing livelihoods in the Khone Falls area, and the impacts of the dam on fish larvae and fish passing through the dam's turbines when migrating downstream. Using a political ecology approach, this paper considers how infrastructure, in this case a large hydropower dam located on the Mekong River, has altered the spatialities associated with the project in particular ways.

“An Un(Even) Playing Field? A Political Ecology of Tourism Impacts in Upper Mustang, Nepal”

ABSTRACT Before the onset of the COVID-19, tourism was one of the world's largest industries; as the pandemic wanes, recovery in the tourism industry is anticipated. While scholarly research on sustainable tourism has expanded, local perceptions of tourism impacts are comparatively understudied. Additionally, the role of power relations in tourism dynamics have been poorly theorized. As a geo-politically sensitive border region, only opened to foreign visitors in 1992, Upper Mustang, Nepal, is an ideal region to explore the dynamics. Using a political ecology approach, this paper examines core facets of tourism impacts and benefits, while incorporating history-driven power relationships. Results from 116 interviews in 24 villages show that perceived impacts of tourism were primarily dictated by geographical location, specifically communities’ centrality to trekking routes and level of interactions. This uneven distribution of tourism benefits can be attributed to power relationships emerging from historically established social structures that predate tourism itself.

Kearifan Lokal Dan Pendekatan Dalam Pemanfaatan Sumber Daya Alam Untuk Ekonomi Desa Sesaot

Local wisdom is a cultural heritage that has been acquired and passed down from generation to generation in a community or society. Local wisdom includes knowledge, values, technology, practices and skills possessed by the community in utilizing the natural resources around them. Wise and sustainable use of natural resources is important in the context of village economic development, especially in Indonesia which has abundant natural wealth. Research Method Observer as an instrument (human instrument) This means that the researcher himself has the function of determining the focus of the research, selecting informants as data sources, carrying out data collection, analyzing data, and making conclusions about his findings. The research results show that local wisdom in the use of natural resources for village economic development, especially in Sesaot Village, West Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. Local wisdom is a cultural heritage that includes knowledge, values, technology, practices and skills passed down from generation to generation in a community. Wise and sustainable use of natural resources is important in the context of village economic development in Indonesia which has abundant natural wealth. The local wisdom approach in the use of natural resources includes the knowledge, practices and expertise possessed by local communities. In Sesaot Village, the community has long developed local wisdom in utilizing the natural resources around them, including in managing forests using a customary system that has existed since their ancestors. By optimizing local wisdom, communities are able to utilize natural resources sustainably while preserving nature through environmentally friendly practices. Utilization of natural resources for village economic development provides many benefits, including increasing income, creating jobs, developing industry, strengthening the local economy, and improving the quality of life of village communities. Political ecology approaches, human welfare ecology, and anthropological perspectives are used to understand and apply local wisdom in environmental management and village economic development

Traditional knowledge in the approach to sustainability: Making sense of Bhutanese gross national happiness and Buen Vivir in Bolivian constitution

In the past few decades, due to the global environmental crisis humanity is facing, a sudden growth in environmental policies and sustainability strategies has been registered. This article discusses two of such policies, namely that of Gross National Happiness (GNH) in the Himalayan country of Bhutan and the inclusion of the concept of Buen Vivir (BV) in the Bolivian Constitution, through a critical analysis—based on political ecology approaches—of their implementation within state policy and their wider implications within the global discourse on the so-called “sustainable development” paradox. This paper highlights the role that the aforementioned policies might play in the path to decolonisation, seeing as how they draw inspiration from their own local contexts and values instead of those provided by the Global North, more specifically focusing on their ancestral and traditional knowledge to supposedly guide the countries’ policy-making process. Although several points of criticism are identified in both policies, innovativeness is detected in their potential to offer alternative views on human wellbeing, both for global southern and global northern contexts, as their original intent would be to remarkably operate outside of the Western framework of development based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and economic growth. GNH appears to be mostly oriented toward supporting political national budget discussion and allocation, while BV acts at a higher level (constitutional), thus also inspiring overall politics.

Traditional knowledge in the approach to sustainability: Making sense of Bhutanese gross national happiness and Buen Vivir in Bolivian constitution

In the past few decades, due to the global environmental crisis humanity is facing, a sudden growth in environmental policies and sustainability strategies has been registered. This article discusses two of such policies, namely that of Gross National Happiness (GNH) in the Himalayan country of Bhutan and the inclusion of the concept of Buen Vivir (BV) in the Bolivian Constitution, through a critical analysis—based on political ecology approaches—of their implementation within state policy and their wider implications within the global discourse on the so-called “sustainable development” paradox. This paper highlights the role that the aforementioned policies might play in the path to decolonisation, seeing as how they draw inspiration from their own local contexts and values instead of those provided by the Global North, more specifically focusing on their ancestral and traditional knowledge to supposedly guide the countries’ policy-making process. Although several points of criticism are identified in both policies, innovativeness is detected in their potential to offer alternative views on human wellbeing, both for global southern and global northern contexts, as their original intent would be to remarkably operate outside of the Western framework of development based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and economic growth. GNH appears to be mostly oriented toward supporting political national budget discussion and allocation, while BV acts at a higher level (constitutional), thus also inspiring overall politics.

Prospects of equitable and sustainable seaweed aquaculture: a case study of changing gender and socio-economic relations in Maullín, Chile

This article examines the development of marine tenure in the Maullín River, Chile. It starts with the emergence of artisanal red algae (Gracilaria chilensis) gathering and the changes resulting from the governmental ad hoc allocation of small-scale aquaculture concessions. We aim to track this transition, its drivers, effects on the work organization, gender relations, market relations and the sustainability/equity challenges currently confronting the community. We use a feminist political ecology approach to direct our multi-method data collection strategy and to analyse the empirical material. The State by enabling local tenure for the development of marine aquaculture concessions played an influential role in Maullín community attaining de facto territorial tenure. This led to the establishment of residential aquaculture communities while facilitating the integration of women in aquaculture activities. We see both steps as positive economic and social development opportunities in Maullín. While marine tenure has provided livelihood chances, low prices caused by the producers’ disadvantaged market position and the lack of supportive alliance building pose ongoing problems. We conclude that these factors are serious challenges to the sustainability of aquacultural livelihoods at Maullín River. While the case depicts aspects of women’s empowerment such as their engagement in developing potential post-production innovation ideas, entrepreneurial abilities to conduct market transactions as well as their better competence in literacy, math and financial expertise, there is still a long way to reach gender equality in the male-dominated aquacultural sector.

Valuing conservation and socio-environmental services on an Amazon frontier: the Extractive Reserves of the Terra do Meio

In the Brazilian Amazon, forest conservation has relied on the presence of 'traditional communities' and Indigenous peoples to secure legally demarcated protected areas from deforestation and biodiversity degradation. Facing pressures for land-use change from a rapidly encroaching frontier of resource extraction and commodity production, there is no guarantee that Indigenous peoples or traditional communities will continue to occupy these forests or continue to fulfill the role of forest protectors except under certain conditions. In this article, we detail the case of the extractive reserves of the Terra do Meio and consider what conditions would be needed for traditional communities to continue to occupy and protect protected areas. Employing an agrarian political ecology approach, we draw on years of ethnographic research in this area to argue that forest peasant livelihoods, which revolve around the forest areas of use, produce both ecological and cultural diversity in the forest. We term this socio-ecological arrangement the productive system of the colocação, the system and geographies of forest peasant livelihoods that upholds and is upheld by diverse socio-ecological relationships. Contemporary forest conservation regimes, however, have largely failed to incentivize and value these forest peasant livelihoods in ways that would sustain them in the face of commoditizing frontier pressures. Any mechanisms that pay for forest conservation should remunerate communities for their entire socio-ecological relationships, those relationships that are upheld through forest peasant livelihoods, not simply their products. We propose an approach to valuing forest communities' socio-environmental services, and we argue that such valuation would be more effective for conservation and cultural/ecological diversity than existing proposals for payments for ecosystem services (PES).

Examining the role of the diaspora in addressing the interconnections between human health and environmental change: The case of northern Senegalese communities

Diaspora communities are a growing source of external assistance and resources to meet unmet needs and to strengthen existing health systems in their home countries. Although a growing number of articles have been published in this realm, very few have looked at diaspora communities’ role and the place translocal communities give to health (care) in the various remittance dynamics, whilst including power relationships and environmental change. This article examines the motivations and practices through which Senegalese diasporas engage with the health system in their origin country and what barriers they face in their interventions. The results of the migration-environment-health nexus are critically discussed with a political ecology approach. We found that households and villages with a critical number of members abroad, and with strong political and/or international networks, are better off and less exposed to health risks in the face of adverse extreme climate impacts.

The Spatial Politics of the Tonle Sap: A Multi-Scale Analysis of Conservation and Development Challenges

Key resources of Tonle Sap Lake are fish, biodiversity and natural resources. Its governance has been casted as a central pillar in the development of Cambodia. Although there are considerable literatures and documents, supporting the protection and conservation of the lake, there are also policies and development frameworks promoting hydropower investments and infrastructure developments, affecting the TSL. Accordingly, this study questions how the water, fishery, and biodiversity and infrastructure developments are embedded in the conservation and developments of TSL. In answering this question, the study conducts the literature reviews and case studies in the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserves, employing the political ecology approach. It concludes that TSL is food producing engines of Cambodia, the heartbeats of the Mekong River Basin, and a global biodiversity hotspot. The protection and conservation of the lake bring benefits to all at national, regional and global levels, but the complex interplay of actors, arranged at various scales and levels, has collectively created the challenges facing the lake, giving rise to confrontation between the conservation and hydropower, questions about the long-term sustainability of its resources and the livelihoods that depend upon it.

Alter-nation? Factions, Coalitions and Environmental Governance in the Context of Contested Post-apartheid Local State Democratisation

Many African states have become electoral democracies, but others are still run by electoral authoritarian regimes, and/or exhibit procedural but not more substantive emancipatory extensions of rights and functions. In such contexts, alternation of power, or electoral turnover, has been recognised as a key signifier of successful democratisation. South Africa’s post-apartheid democratic transition was widely lauded as a textbook case, yet declining support for the political incumbent, factionalism, the phenomena of “state-capture” and the decline of state-owned entities has raised questions about the promises and challenges of post-African National Congress (ANC) hegemony. Limited research in South Africa (SA) focuses on the influence of political contest — including alternation, coalition formation and factionalism on municipal Environmental Governance (EG). Accordingly, we provide an analysis of political contest in both single and coalition councils between 2016 and 2021 in the of the Endumeni Local (ELM) and uMzinyathi District (UDM) municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), SA, focusing on environmental governance implications. The study was theoretically framed by a broad Political Ecology Approach (PEA). A mixed-method research approach consisting of qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques was utilised. The findings revealed contested politics and instability in both single and coalition councils, regardless of who governs. and this predominantly constrained, but in few instances enabled EG. This complicates narratives of alternation and coalition politics and points to the broader and ongoing need for council policy reform, local council stability, municipal competence and accountability.

Urban Political Ecology in Mexico: Metabolism, conflicts, and the need for transformational pathways in the Valley of Mexico, Guadalajara, and Monterrey

This article analyzes urban socio-ecological conflicts in the Mexican metropolitan areas of the Valley of Mexico, Guadalajara and Monterrey from an Urban Political Ecology (UPE) approach. We identify the main triggers of such urban socio-ecological conflicts and the causal links between actors, resources and spaces which make up the uneven production of urban space. This focus includes unequal access to resources, uneven distribution of environmental impacts, and the rise of contestation. We outline UPE theoretically and conceptually, and delineate what is meant by urban socio-ecological conflict. UPE is then contextualized within Mexico's contemporary urbanization process as a prelude for characterizing case studies (including their metabolic profiles) and the analysis of prevailing socio-ecological conflicts. For the latter, we identify the main urban conflicts in the years 2012 and 2022, highlighting some of the main characteristics, similarities, and discontinuities across three metropolitan areas. In the face of an increasing metabolism of contemporary urbanization, we conclude with a brief consideration of the potential role of socio-ecological conflicts for enabling alternative forms of urban space production, particularly through the agency of social movements, including their capacity to propose and build "urban spaces of hope."

Contested firewood collection in Burkina Faso: Governance, perceptions, and practices

This qualitative study explores how forest governance is perceived and embodied in everyday firewood practices in two rural villages in Burkina Faso. The study specifically looks into women’s and forest guard’s perceptions of firewood collection, access to wood, and the state regulations in place. Such exploration is helpful for showing how women who rely on firewood for their livelihoods respond to and perceive regulations, the synthesizing efforts, and the environmental impacts of firewood collection. To situate the interrelations of forest institutions, perceptions, and practices, the study draws on a critical institutional and feminist political ecology approach. Such an approach sheds light on how firewood governance in Burkina Faso excludes women from deciding over a resource they rely on for everyday life. Moreover, the approach helped illuminate how management by control, monitoring, and sensitizing efforts have a questionable impact on deforestation in forest commons.The study departs from that firewood practices as shaped by institutional complexity and historical, cultural, and taken-for-granted ways of doing, and this impacts how forest governance plays out on the ground. By exploring the discursive and the actual practices, the study contributes insights into the discrepancies between forest law enforcement and women’s perceptions of firewood collection. Such analysis advances understanding of how forest governance in Burkina Faso is embodied and internalized in how people relate to and use firewood and the complex and varying ways firewood practices are formed. The findings suggest that women should be included in forest management, receive technical training in forest practices, and that attention should be directed toward decreasing firewood dependence.

A situated urban political ecology of plastics recycling in Bangkok

Calls for better municipal waste management practices that are in line with the principles of ‘circular economy’ and ‘circular cities’ abound in many parts of the world including Thailand. Our research aimed to understand how waste pickers in Bangkok currently operate as key actors in the recycling economy, given the lack of state funding and infrastructure for operationalizing circularity, using a situated urban political ecology (SUPE) approach. We conducted surveys and walk-along interviews with waste pickers in two districts of the city. This was supplemented by desk reviews and key informant interviews. Mainly, walking with waste pickers in their daily work routes threw light on the embodiment of waste metabolisms and everyday practices in accessing and metabolizing waste. We find how waste economies were sustained despite policy neglect through fluid relationships between humans and non-humans that operate within a messy, contested urban space. Negative affect and corporeal harm characterized such a metabolism. Characterization of power in urban political ecology can be strengthened by locating diffuse forms in which power is enacted and by looking at the political dimensions of affect. Unexpected alliances between actors posited counter-narratives to powerful instruments of regulation and global waste flows. Through the results presented in this paper, we call for UPE scholars to draw from (a) embodied and situated processes and practices in the transformations of socio-natures and (b) spatio-sensorial methods that can trace circulations and metabolisms of socio-natures. We suggest that such a SUPE can underpin grounded projects of bettering human-environment relationships in the age of planetary crisis.

Corrupting climate change institutions from the inside Systemic Collusion in the Peruvian Forest Governance

This article aims to contribute to the literature on natural resource corruption by analyzing the subnational political economy behind the little enforcement of anticorruption policies. Building on the political ecology approach to corruption, this article focuses on how economic and political interest colludes in a hybrid or ambivalent system that reproduces over and over corrupt practices. Zooming on the subnational case of Ucayali, we find four main factors contributing to understanding the poor enforcement of subnational governments of new forest regulations to reduce deforestation. The first one is infrastructural capacity, which is essential to understand the issue at hand, but it alone is insufficient to comprehend the systemic corruption in the forest sector. A second factor is the decentralization process and the subnational political economy. Our analysis shows the importance of economic and political dynamics at the subnational level in shaping national anti-corruption and deforestation reforms. A third element to consider is the divergent perspectives on the development of the Amazon. While in Peru, the environmental sector has witnessed significant growth at the national level, it still holds limited political influence. Conversely, positions advocating for economic activities that adversely impact the Amazon forest, such as extensive agriculture, exert more control over the region. A fourth factor is the historical marginalization of indigenous groups, who can serve as valuable allies in driving reforms.

Towards a greener future? Environment and economic recovery in old industrial regions

ABSTRACT The paper focuses on how the environmental assets of old industrial regions were commodified and channelled in new productive processes , along with domesticating and distributing old and new negative externalities and risks unevenly in spatial and social terms. We adopted a political ecological approach to grasp how the emergence and dynamics of agency in such spaces are related to the mobilization of environmental resources, how peripheral industrialization is linked intimately to ecological exploitation jeopardizing the sustainability of old and new trajectories and how such processes are embedded in the ecological ‘lock-in’ position of OIRs. Our analysis rests on Hungarian case studies which produced empirical results and theoretical lessons beyond this context, for further studies in peripheral industrial regions.