Political Ecology Perspective Research Articles

Energy transition or energy diversification? Critical thoughts from Argentina and Brazil

This paper aims to analyze the implications of the energy transition policies in Argentina and Brazil. The paper's goal is to illustrate that the two countries are undergoing a transformation of their energy systems toward greater diversification of the energy supply and probably, not a socially inclusive one. Based on data on national energy policies, the evolution of the energy supply mixes over the period 1990–2020, and access to electricity by the households at the national level, the paper offers a critical reading of how the two countries faced the challenges posed by the present process of energy system transformation. The paper adopts a political economy and political ecology perspective employing the notion of just energy transition (JET) to illustrate the contradictions and tensions of the latter approach analyzing quantitative data related to the transformation of the energy system and energy poverty in both Argentina and Brazil.

Wastewater and wishful thinking: Treatment plants to “revive” the Santiago River in Mexico

This article grapples with issues of urban wastewater sanitation in one of Mexico's most polluted river basins, through an analysis of a river restoration project centered on the construction of municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Taking an ethnographic approach to the study of infrastructure, the main argument is that, beyond their possible contribution to reducing pollutant loads, in this context municipal WWTPs can best be understood through the concept of “duplication,” whereby the infrastructure works serve as a vehicle for the transfer of public resources to the private sector, through construction and operation contracts. At the same time, these plants also fulfill objectives related to their symbolic value, in this case as indicators of a commitment to resolving one of the state's main socio-environmental conflicts, while studiously avoiding its root causes, including industrial pollution sources. From an urban political ecology perspective, the paper also examines how investment in wastewater treatment infrastructure in the basin continues to reinforce social and environmental inequities, particularly for peri-urban communities along the Santiago River.

The socio-spatial effects of Circular Urban Systems

This article shows what kind of urban spaces are produced by circular systems. The focus is on the socio-spatial dimension of closed material loops in two neighbourhoods (e.g., reuse of grey water, recycling of waste, provision of renewable energy). Although the Circular Economy (CE) narrative is increasingly part of urban transformation policies, there are considerable implementation gaps in how regenerative or self-sufficient systems are operationalised in practice. I argue that the application of circularity principles in the urban context requires conceptual clarification to be useful for urban theory and praxis. Therefore, I provide a political ecology perspective of circular urban systems by analysing two cases: Block 6 in Berlin and Schoonschip in Amsterdam. I explain how such systems were established, who benefits from them, and what kind of socio-spatial conditions they produce. Methodologically, I use several qualitative research methods in the framework of a case study analysis. The results show that the incremental and publicly financed low-tech development of circular systems is socially compatible while privately funded high-tech developments result in stronger levels of sustainability but are reserved to a small exclusive group of people and provoke gentrification processes.

DINAMIKA AKSES PENGUASAAN TANAH, SISTEM USAHA TANI, DAN PILIHAN KOMODITAS: STUDI KASUS DI KAWASAN HUTAN GUNUNG KALEDONG

This paper, departing from the results of preliminary research conducted since the end of 2020, using a political-ecological perspective will explain the dynamics of farmers to control land in areas that are included in the 'forest area' in Kawa-san Mount Kaledong ( West Java) and the dynamics of changing land use in the area – from tension to 'cooperation'. In addition, this paper will also explain the forms or patterns of farming/production systems that take place due to the development of the value of coffee commodities. The first proposition departs from the argument that the dynamics of access to tenure and land cultivation have consequences on production relations and social organization of production (planting system) where the choice of commodity is a determining factor in these dynamics. The second proposition is that coffee has a high economic value, although it opens up opportunities for farmers to cultivate a number of lands within the 'forest area', leaving farmers involved in farming without the freedom to manage all factors of production. So it can be said that they are not in a position as “independent farmers”, but only as small commodity producers, while the largest economic control lies with non-farmer actors.

Beyond Scarcity: An Assessment of Water Management in Egypt from A Political Ecology Perspective

Water management constitutes a challenge for contemporary Egypt, as the country faces a water shortage that, in certain areas, might endanger the basic needs of people in the dry season. This article seeks to understand the origin of water problems, and argues that beyond existing scarcity due to environmental challenges, current sociopolitical conditions play a significant role. Egypt is socially, economically, and environmentally in a difficult position to be sustainable. The paper utilizes the political ecology approach to shed light on the nexus between the fields mentioned above and tries to create an integrated and comprehensive strategy to analyze the water problems and possible solutions for contemporary Egypt. SWOT analysis helps evaluate the existing conditions (strengths and weaknesses) and potentialities (opportunities and threats) for the Egyptian agriculture and water management sector. Three different angles are utilized during the analysis: the infrastructural background (the economic aspect), the institutional basis (the political aspect), and the international impacts (the environmental aspect) that affect water policy. Regarding the mounting challenges, a slow change of the system is expected, but negative changes in the natural environment could accelerate pressure on Egyptian society and government to adjust. However, the support of international partners to maintain a politically and socially stable Egypt contributes to maintaining archaic political-economic structures that are unsustainable.

The secret and gendered lives of the underground

The underground—for decades the invisible ‘other’ of landscape and terrain in geography—has emerged in political ecology literature as the source of ‘stuff’, or material things, resources and commodities that are not deemed intrinsically valuable until extracted. As a corrective, this paper offers a feminist political ecology perspective that brings subaltern women’s voices to the forefront, and argues that the underground is co-constituted as a gendered space by gendered humans. As evidence, I take the readers on a journey into the belly of a coalmine where humans labour, and bring out women’s voices that narrate their experiences and imaginations to create the underground as a space teeming with social life. These alternative and gendered narratives reinstate the diverse, complex, and secret lives of this netherworld, draw attention to the politics of imagining space, and potentially shift geographers’ focus to interpreting the underground as a gendered social space.

Antropologi dan Persoalan Perubahan Iklim: Perspektif Kritis Ekologi Politik

Climate change could cause devastating impacts on Indonesia. The sea-level rise triggered by anthropogenic climate change, for example, will be affecting coastal infrastructure since Indonesia is ranked as the second country with the longest coastline in the world. Moreover, more than 100 million people (or about sixty percent of the total population in Indonesia) who live along Indonesia's coastline area would also be affected by sea-level rise. It is obviously clear the significance of social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of climate change problems. Therefore, for anthropology, climate change should be one of the important research subjects that need our attention. And yet, anthropological study on climate change is still limited in Indonesia. My intention is to explore the theoretical approach that Indonesian anthropologists used to study climate change issues. Based on the number of existing studies, Indonesian scholars tend to use cultural ecology and cultural interpretation as the common theoretical approach in their study of the subject. Meanwhile, the critical anthropology perspective has been the least known perspective used by scholars in Indonesia. For this reason, my objective is to introduce political ecology as part of the critical anthropology approach as the theoretical option available in the study of climate change issues. Based on the literature study, I provide a brief introduction to the emergence of the political ecology approach in the study of human-environment interrelationship and how climate change problems were viewed from the political ecology perspective. The article also discusses possible research questions and issues that could be generated using the political ecology framework.

Livelihoods matter – A comparative political ecology of forest use on Hispaniola

Forests provide grounds for human well-being through direct material, indirect environmental, and immaterial contributions. Here, we analyze the example of Hispaniola to understand reasons for (un)sustainable forest use. We pursue a dynamic comparative case study of the island's two countries from a political ecology perspective. From the literature, we derive a set of socio-economic hypotheses for the cause of de- and reforestation. Methodologically, we combine historical analysis and longitudinal comparisons with institutional analysis. We find that it was a governance mix of economic incentives, civil society driven initiatives, and alternative sources of energy that made the difference between reforestation in the Dominican Republic and deforestation in Haiti. We do not find evidence that it was population density or education levels that caused the difference. Colonial history can explain older differences but not divergent trends that started in the 1980s. Our findings suggest that if people shall stop overusing forests, they need alternative opportunities to maintain their livelihood and show how this has been accomplished in the Dominican Republic.

Conflicts over Land as a Risk for Social-Ecological Resilience: A Transnational Comparative Analysis in the Southwestern Amazon

People in the department of Madre de Dios/Peru, the state of Acre/Brazil, and the department of Pando/Bolivia experience similar conflicts over land, land use, and access to resources. At the same time, each conflict reveals distinct characteristics and dynamics, arising from its history, legal regulation, institutional (in-)capacities, and culturally diverse local populations. The aim of this paper is to better understand the main drivers of social-ecological conflicts over land in and around three protected areas in this transboundary region, known as MAP, and to analyze how (environmental) institutions influence these drivers. The paper is based on a literature review and expert interviews; it focuses on conflicts around (1) gold mining in Madre de Dios, (2) extensive cattle ranching in Acre, and (3) access to communal land in Pando. Using theories of conflict research, expanded by a political ecology perspective and insights from stakeholder and expert interviews, we find that the major conflict drivers are (1) land tenure and access to land and natural resources, (2) identity and lifestyle driven transformations, (3) state and market driven agendas, and (4) networked illegal and criminal activities. Through a comparative conflict analysis, we develop four recommendations to strengthen the creation of reflexive institutions that may be able to foster social-ecological resilience in the region: (1) The clarification of responsibilities between governance institutions and their financing; (2) the awareness raising for existing power structures and opening spaces for enhanced local participation; (3) the breaking of corruptive cycles while developing economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable livelihood opportunities; and (4) taking the continuous reproduction of illegal activities into account while clarifying responsibilities, raising awareness, and breaking corruptive cycles. The results of our research therefore not only contribute to a better understanding of conflicts in the MAP region and the wider scientific literature on social-ecological conflicts and governance, but it is also the first paper that identifies entry points and prerequisites for the transformation from reactive to reflexive institutions in Amazonian societies.

The Water-Energy-Food Nexus Beyond “Technical Quick Fix”: The Case of Hydro-Development in the Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

This paper builds upon empirical material from a case study of two dam sites in Ethiopia to revisit nexus narratives from a political ecology perspective. The two dams on tributaries of the Upper Blue Nile are examples of the success of hydro-development in increasing food and energy production, but at the same time they are evidence of the controversial effects these developments have on local populations. The paper argues that conventional nexus thinking has often been too water- and economy-centric, and too much focussed on a “technical quick fix” instead of a holistic approach. The paper calls for a broadening of nexus perspectives in order to better acknowledge the social complexity of hydro-development in local contexts, to understand the political construction of scarcity, and to combine different knowledges at the science-practice interface.

Planning for Livelihoods Under Hydrosocial Uncertainty in Periurban Pune

Periurban farmers in India are operating in fast-paced transformative environments of uncertain, quickly changing hydrosocial landscapes while simultaneously responding to different urban, rural and periurban demands. The urge is growing toward a more sustainable, integrative agricultural transformation, in which local stakeholders have more agency to control their own development. Yet, farmers are mostly passive in the process of shaping periurban futures as they face challenges in dealing with growing uncertainties in their hydrosocial environments. From a political ecology perspective, the concept of the hydrosocial cycle helps in understanding these uncertainties and their impacts on farmers' livelihoods and in classifying water-society dynamics. We adopted this concept to critically assess different perceptions of uncertainties based on the effects of uneven hydrosocial development. Extending beyond this analysis, we then followed a multi-perspective, scenario-based planning approach to show a methodology to support farmers in adapting and planning accordingly. We applied a modified Delphi method that combines local knowledge of actors from the village Paud in periurban Pune (India) with the expertise of Indian and international experts. We used the method to determine actions and institutions for different future scenarios and to understand which drivers and signals interfere and affirm each scenario's feasibility. From both bodies of knowledge, we could identify one realistic preferred/business-as-usual scenario and two alternatives with eight different drivers that cause complex, hydrosocial uncertainties. Both bodies of knowledge suggest that farming will continue to be an important water-based livelihood in Paud in the future. Yet, we were able to contrast different mechanisms involved in the future thinking of actors and experts. This research contributes to understanding possible processes of adaptation through co-creation of knowledge. The applied methodology can enable farmers to reflect on possible futures, activate their available capabilities, and may facilitate more sustainable and adaptive decision-making. After further refinements, the method employed could in future be useful for policy making and planning.

Movement, Settlement and Land-use by the Akamba of Machakos County up to c.1895 in Kenya.

This article is an introduction to the environmental history of Machakos County. It creates a background to an investigation of the impact of colonial rule on the County’s environmental history. The theoretical perspective of political ecology was applied in the understanding of the relationship between the Machakos Akamba and their environment in the pre-colonial period in this article. Political institutions developed by the Akamba were patterned according to land-use systems. Data for the article was drawn from both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources included archival records at the Kenya National Archives and oral interviews. Secondary data was collected using both unpublished and published works. Descriptive data analysis using qualitative methods of content analysis was applied. In analysing the pre-colonial history of the Akamba the study concluded that the community remained in contact with other communities, especially the Maasai and Kikuyu and later with the Swahili and Arab traders. The entry of colonial rule altered these relations. This led to changes in the social organisation and adaptation to environmental conditions through the acceleration of trade, migration and raiding activities. As the community was still adapting, colonial rule halted the re-organisation process of the community’s socio-political and economic systems. The study’s recommendations are directed to an examination of the establishment of colonial rule in Machakos County and its impact on environmental change and adaptation.

Metabolic Flows of Water in İstanbul in the Nineteenth Century: Tap Water, Waste, and Sanitation

Considering the age of socio-ecological crises in which we live, the urgency of understanding the complicated relationship between society and nature is apparent. To achieve this, unfolding the urban metabolism of cities through metabolic flows from the perspective of urban political ecology will grow increasingly essential in the future. This paper aims to explore the concept of urban political ecology as a perspective for understanding emergence of a new urban metabolism in İstanbul in the nineteenth century through metabolic flows of water. The context of “metabolic” emphasizes labor as an agent for the very production of nature as urbanized nature through tap water, waste, and sanitation. It shows the transition and the conflict between the labor-intensive urban metabolism and capital-intensive urban metabolism of İstanbul, which started in the nineteenth century. The metabolic flows of water in terms of infrastructure were affected by the first impacts of foreign capital investments and capitalist relations.

Sunlight and free markets: an urban political ecological perspective on social housing in Victorian London (1850–1914)

AbstractUrban political ecology (UPE) provides an appropriate framework to consider the ways in which natural elements and concepts of nature have been incorporated into built environments, because of its emphasis on and elaboration of the concept of socio-natures and its focus on how the costs and benefits of these natural elements are apportioned between people of different classes in cities. This article considers how reformers’ ideas about nature shaped the kinds of social housing they developed in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London.

The urban political ecology of fog oases in Lima, Peru

Despite providing important ecosystem services and having a unique ecological value, the fog oases scattered around the City of Lima, face various human-imposed threats, with informal urbanisation and land-trafficking being the main drivers of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. As a response, local communities organise themselves to protect their fog oases by means of promoting ecotourism. The paper adopts an urban political ecology perspective to demonstrate that the different claims on the land which fog oases occupy reflect poor urban planning and the under- developed legal framework and, as such, they are inevitably intertwined with the wider structures of power across the city. Drawing from interviews with key stakeholders and various available documentation, the paper analyses the operations of local tourism organisations in Lima and finds that, although they strengthen local governance and contribute to the conservation of fog oases, they are constantly confronted with various formal and informal hurdles.

Resource Ecologies, Urban Metabolisms, and the Provision of Essential Services

ABSTRACT This short commentary starts from the observation that, until recently, most research addressing infrastructures within urban studies has largely downplayed crucial environmental resource issues. While urban and broader inequalities in and through the distribution of resource flows have been examined, especially within an urban political ecology perspective, other issues, fundamentally associated with resource qualitative and quantitative limitations, largely have not. We therefore argue in this paper that resource issues, broadly construed, can and indeed should be explicitly addressed within an extended conceptualization of (urban) metabolisms. This leads us to re-envisage the frameworks through which urban infrastructures and the provision of essential services should be analyzed. We thus advocate for an update of the urban political ecology agenda that brings resource issues, in their material, political, and spatial dimensions to the center of scientific attention.

Market Pressure Based on International Food Standards in Export-Scale Urban Farming: Political Ecology Perspective

Urban farming has been transformed into urban agricultural activities oriented towards optimizing economic benefits through export market involvement. However, the expansion of the market has consequences for farmers. The involvement of urban farmers in export trade causes market pressures that affect agricultural production practices. This research used qualitative research methods. There were 27 informants in this study. Researchers collected data to determine market pressures faced by export-scale urban farmers in Bandung Metropolitan. Data collection techniques used in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation. The results showed that the market had put pressure on export-scale urban farmers in Bandung Metropolitan to meet international food standards. The mechanism was constructed to encourage farmers to adopt more environmentally friendly agricultural practices. However, international food standards are mandatory for export requirements. It meant that urban farmers still interpreted implementing international food standards as an administrative formality, not as a scheme of critical reasoning about environmental problems due to intensive agricultural practices. Therefore, market pressure by international food standards implementation is paradoxical and ineffective because farmers interpreted it as meeting export requirements rather than as awareness of farmers' environmental responsibilities to deliver healthy and environmentally friendly products.

Hydroterritorial Configuration and Confrontation: The Daule-Peripa Multipurpose Hydraulic Scheme in Coastal Ecuador

There is a forceful new impetus toward mega-hydraulic projects in Latin America, which are booming but also highly controversial. They bring benefits to some social groups while many others are negatively affected. Technocratic discourses are dominant in the region; they strategically mobilize institutions, infrastructure, money, and knowledge to present particular hydrosocial territorial imaginaries—such as multipurpose dams—as natural, universal, and politically neutral. Meanwhile, affected local communities commonly envision and practice different discourses, values, and worldviews, based on contextualized notions of well-being and territoriality. Using a political ecology perspective, this article examines how the Daule-Peripa mega-hydraulic scheme—Ecuador’s “hydraulic heart”—has de- and repatterned the territory, producing new hierarchical relations and unequal distribution of socioenvironmental impacts. Though political discourses have changed throughout state-centralist and neoliberal époques, governmental policies and practices have continued and renewed their defense of mega-hydraulism. In turn, affected communities and families, through everyday territorial politics, respond and aim to rearrange the hydrosocial network in order to regain control over water, land, and territorial services.

La participación de las mujeres zapatistas y el territorio desde el enfoque de ecología política feminista

Zapatismo is a social movement on which there is an extensive literature, mainly focused on the gender issue. However, analyzes of the territory from the perspective of feminist political ecology are uncommon. Therefore, this research combined this approach and a qualitative methodology to meet the following objectives: (a) Describe the participation of Zapatista women in a Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Municipality (MAREZ), (b) Analyze their proposal for an ecologically viable livelihoods, (c) Investigate access to the territory and its control for women based on Zapatista autonomy. The outcomes suggest that there are advances, contradictions, and challenges in the participation of women. The Zapatistas build territories from rivers, gardens, acahuales, and mountains, whose access and control are influenced by gender roles and, therefore, women seek to transform. For instance, agroecological options achieved the ecologically viable livelihoods and have changed gender relationships in the study communities. In conclusion, the construction of the Zapatista territories is in dispute with other actors and has made it possible to promote the participation of women in this process.

Spatial transformation and Chinese environmental governance innovation from an urban political ecology perspective: An analysis of Shenzhen’s evolving waterscape

Spatial transformation and Chinese environmental governance innovation from an urban political ecology perspective: An analysis of Shenzhen’s evolving waterscape