1. Smallholders, Householders, Robert Netting
- In Smallholders, Householders, Robert Netting provides insight into both smallholder systems of agriculture in pre industrial and traditional areas, as well as large-scale, intensive agriculture systems. He questions the “truths” of Western knowledge that technological and scientific progress are the only way to increase agricultural production. He notes that with every step of forward progress, the amount of energy captured increases as well, which in turn increases environmental degradation. He expands on the notion that agricultural techniques and system vary across cultures as well as the way their population is divided. Netting also describes sustainability and sustainable development and explains the several dimensions within the concept including physical and chemical characteristics. The point of his writing is to explain the different types of agricultural systems widely seen throughout the world, and show theories created regarding sustainability, claiming they must be analyzed on a culture to culture basis. He then proposes possible solutions to large scale agricultural problems. I agree with his claim that there is hope for smallholder systems that rely heavily on labor rather than un-renewable energy, and that this could be a feasible solution to issues concerning environmental degradation. This is very important research as environmental conservation becomes an increasing global issue and experts are constantly looking for new ways to create sustainable development projects
2. The Concept and Method of Cultural Ecology, Julian Steward, From Julian Steward, ed.,
- The Concept and Method of Cultural Ecology explores different adaptations methods used by cultures in a variety of development stages. Steward seeks to explain if societal adjustment to the environment require specific types of behavior or whether there is a wide range of possible adaptations. An important concept he introduces is the culture core- and signifies the societal features that are most closely related to subsistence activities and the economy. These include patterns of social, political and religious beliefs. The main concept in this piece is adaptation and coming to understand the different ways societies adapt to their environment whether that be forced adaptation or technological progress that led the market to adapt. An example of Steward’s mindset is introducing soybeans to an area that previously never grew them. Steward then looks at the adaptations the society must go through once this new product has been introduced, and focuses on the local to global connections like the local traders and politicians. These local global connections are examples of the cultural core. Steward seeks to find patterns across cultures of how they adapt to environmental pressures and the processes they go through to achieve change.
3. A View from a Point: Ethnoecology as Situated Knowledge, Virginia D. Nazarea From Ethnoecology: Situated Knowledge/Located Lives by Virginia D. Nazarea. © 1999 The Arizona Board of Regents. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.
- Virginia Nazarea’s article A View from a Point contains information about the realm of “Knowledge” concerning the environment. She claims that when looking at cultural adaptations to the environment you must take into account the concept of power; who has it vs. who doesn’t. This analysis of power levels includes educational status, monetary status, life experiences, gender, race, etc. She claims that environmental knowledge isn’t distributed equally and this can be seen when comparing developing countries to the developed, as well as the classification system used largely throughout the developing world. She argues that the environmental conversations are widely concerning “getting the story right” when the conversations could include for example, connecting the classification of plants to how to conserve genetic resources of plants. She stresses the point that research perspectives are taken from a subjective point, that no one will be able to achieve a full account, there will always be circumstances and societal factors affecting the point of view in some way. This is important to research because she calls into question the status quo of environmental knowledge, and opens new doors for environmental conservation conversations.
4. How do we Know We Have Global Environmental Problems?: Science and the Globalization of Environmental Discourse
- In this article Peter Taylor and Fred Buttel discuss three main ideas of how mankind first realizes that global environmental problems exist and then how mankind makes sense of these issues. The main arguments include that political and social ideology in the different courses of action regarding global environmental politics are woven into science- not just stimulated by science, and the overarching argument that if global environmental discourse continues to function in the same ways that mankind will likely only be spectators, rather than engaged actors in the shaping of our environmental futures. Taylor uses the example of the long term growth (LTG) study created in the 1970’s to illustrate the exclusion of the political realm when analyzing global limits to growth, The LTG study used a system model that essentially produced two defined results: a technocratic response to environmental problems (everyone must change to avert catastrophe) or a moralistic response (only a governing agency can tell us how to direct changes). These two responses work together forming an alliance, where the technocratic response can be thought of as a policy advisor whereas the moralistic response can be seen as a guide. This moral-technocratic response is still used and reinforced in global environmental discourse today, causing disproportionate issues among third world countries, including the stress placed on the third world for creating emissions, without taking into account the emissions used for survival. This article provides a sociological perspective to global environmental issues, illustrating that they are inextricably bound together. The major takeaway from this research is that current environmental discourse must change because it currently steers away from the differentiated politics and economics of socioenvironmental change.
5. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing.
- Anna Tsing begins the article with an illustration of the destruction of Indonesian rain forests, in order to explain the complexity and “messiness” that globalization creates for mankind. She uses this example to show that the rainforest destruction stimulated from a combination of interconnected variables, and claims that questions of who speaks for nature and the kinds of social justice applicable in the 21st century are central dilemmas to our time. Tsing argues that we must emphasize the unexpected and surprising features of global encounters across difference and use these connections to inform our models of cultural production. In this way mankind can combat the singlemindedness nature used in cultural production by stressing the importance of long distance and cross cultural encounters. Tsing claims that culture is coproduced through friction, which she describes as: “the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference.” She uses the metaphor of a road to unpack friction as it creates avenues that make motion easier, but in doing so also limits where we go. She goes on to argue that using “friction” to describe global connections can combat the lie that global power is a well oiled machine and can create change within the discourse of globalization and global interactions. She claims that mankind should step back and analyze universals as “sticky engagements” rather than absolute truths or lies. I really appreciate Tsing’s analysis and use of the word friction in her article. Using this word and the metaphors with it can create an easier way to grasp the complexities that comprise globalization.
6. Ester Boserup’s theory of agrarian change: a critical review by David Grigg
- In this article, David Grigg is critically reviewing Ester Boserup’s theory of agrarian change, which states pre industry peoples (i.e. population growth) came prior to agricultural intensification, and thus led to an increase in the food supply. Boserup argues that population growth is independent of the food supply, that population growth causes the changes in agricultural methods. Another major tenet of Boserup’s argument is that economic growth is possible using traditional agricultural practices. David Grigg argues that although Boserup’s claims seem rational under certain circumstances, she is making major assumptions in her argument. Major assumptions include: population growth is taken as a given, (without exploring the notion that population may decline and thus cause changes in methods of land use), her theory is confined to pre-industrial communities, therefore excluding profit maximizers, and she assumes that all spatial variations in land use intensity reflect changes in population only, excluding changes in natural conditions. I agree with Grigg in his criticism of Boserup’s theory. The assumptions i noted above, among others he mentions provide sufficient support to debunk her theory of agrarian change. Along with these assumptions, Boserup did not consider access to other forms of labor among these societies and this is a major factor to consider in my opinion. I connected this reading to our recent conversations regarding the rise of consumer culture, which Boserup’s theory also failed to consider. I regard her theory as relevant to a degree when examining specific pre industrial societies, but it is not feasible to explain modern agricultural methods and societies.
7. Bhopal Vulnerability, Routinization, and the Chronic DisasterRavi Rajan
- In this article Ravi Rajan explores the processes that have normalized the Bhopal disaster from public notice, and examines how the disaster transformed from a political issue into a private nonissue today, while also examining the factors that produce vulnerability among nation states who are seemingly stable, and have adequately responded to natural disasters in the past. The accident occurred within a manufacturing plant of a multinational chemical company in India, Union Carbide, whose parent company resides in the United States. The company has disregarded safety measures and violated the 1975 Bhopal development plan by housing such a hazardous industry so close to a densely populated area. Several safety standards were also ignored, and Rajan calls into question the reasoning behind the lack of safety systems set up by Union Carbide, and claims there is a direct correlation between the economic class of the employees and citizens living the area, and the vulnerability to the risks created by the company and lack of safety measures. Once the disaster occurred, Union Carbide enacted a system of erasure and denial for the accident, rejecting any responsibility for the accident and using a “blame the victim” framework, claiming the high rate of mortality was due to high malnourishment in the area, not the chemicals themselves. Essentially this article examines at power structures and vulnerability levels of multinational corporations like Union Carbide, and impoverish citizens of developing nations like those in India. The fact that the corporation had the resources and wealth, while the citizens of the country had no power or wealth to stand up to the corporation, made an accessible exit plan for Union Carbide.
8. The Lawn-Chemical Economy and Its Discontents Paul Robbins and Julie SharpFrom
- This article aims to explore the conflict of banning chemical applications that the chemical industry is fighting to maintain, and to examine whether it is the supply or the demand that drives up the application of lawn chemicals throughout the U.S. and Canada. Throughout the article Paul Robbins argues that it is now the supply of lawn chemicals that keeps the industry growing, that the post WW2 era saw a rise of the use of lawn chemicals, and this trend has continued since. Robbins argues that pressures to keep a tidy lawn are most evident at a local scale, where the economic factors of urban development assures a steady supply area that normative lawn aesthetics can be enforced. I see this in most suburban neighborhoods now, including my own, with homeowners associations’ deeming regulations on grass length and yard upkeep. Although there is increasing demand for lawn chemicals that users admit could be harmful to the environment, Robbins points out that when regulations are passed to ban or limit lawn chemicals, the chemical industry responds in protest, not the chemical users themselves. This supports the argument that supply drives the chemical lawn industry rather than demand. While although the agrochemical industry has declined greatly through the 21st century, lawn chemicals have increased and since this industry is greatly constricted in modern times, the supply of these lawn pesticides and fertilizers are driving the chemical demand. I agree with Robbins’ argument that the chemical industry has manifested itself to be profitable to middle class affluent Americans’ through the pressure to use lawn chemicals to achieve social status.
9. Carrying Capacity’s New Guise by Lisa Cliggett [Moodle–supplemental file]
- In this article Lisa Cliggett discusses the use of the phrase carrying capacity, as it has left the academic realm of conversation and become a way for the general public to understand “the natural explanation for the balance between nature and human populations.” Cliggett proposes we reframe this concept as a “folk model”, in order to use the concept to continue the conversation on ecological relationships and environmental conservation but also to recognize that the complexity of the human environment relationship is ignored in formal applications of carrying capacity. Cliggett delves into the history of the concept, which began as a mathetmatical equation to relate the resources available in a specific area to the populations of particular animal species. Cliggett argues that using the concept in this way excludes important processes like the influence of external forces on environmental change, an example of this could be the immense failure of structural adjustment policies by the World Bank. Although the concept is flawed, Cliggett agrees that the concept broadly expresses that population and natural resources are linked. I really appreciate Cliggett’s central argument of the influence of external forces on the environment and her call to include these forces when analyzing carrying capacity, and that although the framework for carrying capacity is flawed, it can help us ask important questions about the environment and natural resources like how farmers react to international forces, and under what conditions will farmers resist overextraction.
10. Escobar, A. (2006). Difference and conflict in the struggle over natural resources: A political ecology framework.
- Escobar argues that it is useful to think about environmental issues under three interconnected categories: economic, ecological, and cultural, because most conflicts over natural resources involve all three simultaneously. Furthermore, globalization has not led to a “flattening of differences,” homogeneity has occurred through dominant cultural forms seen today, but differences are still apparent. A question that is becoming more relevant in the context of globalization, culture, and development is how to achieve equality while still respecting differences. Escobar notes the tendency of elite, rich groups to control the world’s access to resources increases the more diversity is affirmed especially within subordinate groups that constitute the world’s majority. While economic distribution conflicts have been studied in relation to social power, the economical dimension ignores the ecological and cultural influences of distribution and equality in general. This is important to think critically about, as there are values of nature that cannot be assessed by market prices, for example when communities consider nature as sacred and uncommodifiable. Furthermore, unequal economic distribution ignores cultural processes at the base of a human’s relationship to the natural world. Many communities signify their natural environment, then utilizing it, which differs greatly from the capitalist ideas of seeing nature as a resource external to humans in which can be utilized in any way they see fit. Escobar argues for a new way of thinking about the relationship between difference and equality of access across ecological, economic, and cultural distribution conflicts, as the standard neoliberal doctrine cannot accommodate these demands. In closing, Escobar calls for an understanding of equal distribution as the search for a “shared sense of peace and justice.” In my opinion, the article really emphasizes the need for balance among the three categories of economic, ecological, and cultural, stressing the importance of each concept within natural resource issues, a “plurality of knowledge.”
11. Gender and the Environment by Rocheleau et al.
In gender and the environment, Rocheleau discusses the major schools of feminism activism pertaining to the environment, and the theories each school presents as to women’s role in the environment. The five schools are ecofeminists, feminist environmentalists, social feminists, feminist poststructuralists, and environmentalists. Each school works on diferent yet intertwined frameworks and blends together to form the framework for feminist cultural ecology. The main themes of feminist cultural ecology are gendered knowledge, gendered environmental rights and responsibilities, and gendered environmental politics and grassroots activism. For my e-portfolio, the two most relevant schools of feminism pertaining to the environment are socialist feminism and environmentalism. In socialist feminism, they focus on the incorporation of women into the political economy of their society, framing men and women’s roles as production and reproduction in economic systems. This way, women are viewed as having different roles than men, but not inferior by nature. In the school of environmentalism, they argue that women should be treated as both participants and equal partners in the protection and conservation of the environment. This is directly connected to my overarching theme of global power structures and environmental management, as women are largely left out or seen as unfit to be included in the conversation of environmental protection or conservation. It is also important as we have discussed throughout the semester, to create a shift in values away from creating negative gender roles associated with women’s role in society and more specifically in the political economy. In the broader theme of feminist cultural ecology, gendered knowledge and gendered environmental politics are especially connected to global power structures of environmental management. These theme of gendered knowledge involves local perspectives through local women’s knowledge of the environment, because of so many cultural roles placed on women to provide health, security, and wellbeing to their families, thus women directly rely on the environment for day to day life. Furthermore, gendered environmental politics is concerned with women’s collective struggle over natural resources, which can be viewed as national or global in nature.
12. Ethics Primer by Richard McNeil
In this brief overview of ethics, McNeil discusses different ethical theories and their implications for environmental and natural resource concerns. He makes sure to note that many people incorporate several ethical theories into their argument, it is rarely strictly one ethical theory all of the time. There are several major theories listed, but I will focus on rule based theories and consequentalism. Although some of my ethical beliefs fall outside of these two categories, they pertain the most to both my topic of global power structures of environmental management, and my own conservation beliefs. In consequentalism, you would choose the option that brings the most good or happiness to the most people. This theory is based off of the economic principle of utility, and I believe it can be useful in specific environmental contexts. Rule based ethical theories are also important, as they create a clear starting point and are based off of established rules. A downfall to rule-based theories though, is the fact that it is insensitive to consequences, that the rules have no exceptions, no matter the circumstance. This is a major issue as environmental problems are complex and situational, so blanket policies often fail when used for environmental reasons. A combination of these theories though, and a beneficial mix of hard rules and bringing the most good to the most people is formed, analyzing environmental concerns from several perspectives. McNeil also introduces moral dilemmas that arise when understanding ethical theories and an important one to note is the dilemma between short term and long term interests when pertaining to environmental management.
13. “Rural Household Demographics, Livelihoods, and the Environment”Alex de Sherbinin, et al.
In this piece, Sherbinin focuses on the microdemographic dynamics of rural smallholders based on recognizing three things: they are important participants in natural resource use and landscape change, rural peoples account for over 50% of the developing world population, and that policy interventions targeted at rural peoples and their environments must be based on the understandings of how these variables are linked. He takes the framework of the livelihood approach, in which a household has been defined as: “a site in which particularly intense social and economic interdependencies occur between a group of individuals.” He emphasizes on the capabilities of the rural poor, claiming that even the poorest have wealth in at least some forms of capital. These different forms include: natural capital, social capital, human capital, physical capital, and financial capital, all referring to different ways in which capital can be attained. He further argues that although everyone has the capability to aquire different forms of capital, the ability of the household to utilize capital is based on a variety of factors, most importantly global changes that affect the local environment. Throughout the article, Sherbinin analyzes rural livelihoods concerning the environment in relation to fertility, morbidity and mortality, migration, and household life cycle. I will focus on migration, as the global power structures of environmental management play a major role in migration opportunities. Global power structures of environmental management heavily influence the rate and types of migration that occur globally. For example, a transnational corporation decides they want to open a plant in rural India. Once the land is bought, representatives will go into the communities and effectively kick out residents of the community, displacing thousands of people at a time. Furthermore, when focusing around the political ecology of environmental concerns, the recent and disastrous migration of refugees from the middle east show how environmental destruction from war can displace millions of people at once. Because there are so many types of migration (temporary, cyclical, permanent), and there are so many variables that go into why someone migrates (war torn country, economic stability, etc), it is difficult to adequately address environmental concerns surrounding migration.
14. The Nature of Gender: Gender, Work, and Environment (2006) Andrea Nightingale
In this article, Nightingale argues for a reconstruction of the word gender, as she presents gender as a process by which subjectivities are produced and shift over time and space rather than inherently situated within the powers of social structures. Nightingale is specifically interested in analyzing when and how gender (as well as other forms of difference) is introduced into environmental situations, She makes sure to note that gender isn’t constant, and is fluid in environmental issues through discourses of gender, work, and the performance of subjectivities. Nightingale introduces several common feminist ways of thinking about gender and the environment including the essentialist belief as well as political ideology feminism. Nightingale argues that while the essentialist view (claiming women have a biological, inherent connection to nature) is beneficial, it also ignores conversations from the multitude of contexts involved in gender and the environment like other class, and race. In relation to political ecology, Nightingale claims that all environmental actions are embedded within social fields of power and political economy, thus gender and other aspects of social difference need to be understood to analyze how environmental issues become environmental in the first place. Her central themes revolve around the incorporation of gender into environmental conversations, claiming feminist literature provides an way to further understand how subjectivities through social inequities are both constituted and produced through environmental problems. This article further emphasizes the complexity of the power struggles that occur in environmental management and the great need for other variables like gender to be taken into account when creating environmental policies and programs, especially for the developing world.
15. Neoliberal Conservation: A Brief Introduction by Igoe and Brockington
In this introduction, Igoe and Brockington present the major features of neoliberal conservation and discuss assumptions surrounding the debate on whether it is beneficial or not. Their central motivation behind their work is to emphasize that the social side of conservation should be as empirically driven as the ecological side. Furthermore, they argue that equal conservation can only be achieved if the current rigid technocratic solutions surrounding conservation shift to more fluid, flexible mechanisms of solutions that respond to changing environments and scenarios. Several popular concepts within neoliberal conservation include: deregulation, territorialization, and commodification. While neoliberal conservationists argue that neoliberal mechanisms are inherently beneficial, Igoe and Brockington debunk these assumptions, and claim that “reregulation” is a better term to use. While deregulation scales back the power of the state under the assumption that corrupt governments will lose their majority power, and people’s’ livelihoods will improve, reregulation utilizes the state to transform previously untradable goods into tradable commodities. Another facet of neoliberal conservation is territorialization, in which demarking of territories within states are done to control people and resources, and has increased under neoliberalization with the increase of protected areas globally. As Igoe and Brockington show, territorialization has caused a few large NGO’s to be created, controlling billions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands worldwide. In many cases, these organizations become so large that their interests become too closely aligned with corporate interests rather than looking at the needs of the local communities they aim to help. Another issue within territorialization and the rise of NGO’s is the exclusiveness these companies have. Many local actors are left out of NGO policy conversation because it is so tightly controlled by a few elites. This notion directly plays into power structures of environmental management as corporate power is a recurring theme throughout the e-portfolio. Igoe and Brockington provide further discussion on the negative implications of neoliberal conservation and the current global power structures of environmental management.
16. The Invisible Giant by Brewster Kneen
This piece focuses on the transnational corporation Cargill, which is the largest private company in the U.S. Keen discusses different aspects behind the company’s rise to fortune, and how in some ways, their global reach can be resisted, as illustrated with the example of Japan. One major way Cargill has become so successful is through the major export-subsidy programs funded by the U.S. government over the last fifty years. Kneen notes that Cargill’s use of the millions of dollars in subsidies is largely invisible to the general public because a lot of the money is tied up in nonprofit foundations, which we learned in an earlier article that is a highly exclusive, elite group of organizations. Furthermore, Cargill will use a “revolving door” approach, periodically sending senior executives to work in government advisory or policy positions to manipulate policy creation. Some have called this structural corruption, citing the large amount of former Cargill employees that are now working for the USDA. Because of Cargill’s global reach, the corporation has also created “beachhead projects” that involve little or no capital investment, (for example: hybrid seeds for farming) and have created a mass dependency across developing countries for the seeds. The last section of the article focuses on an example of a society resisting Cargill, as Japan did when they banned the import of Cargill products. This shows that collective resistance can influence the all mighty powerful corporation. This is an extremely important piece to include in the e-portfolio because it further analyzes the power and corruption of transnational corporations, providing another case study next to the Bhopal disaster. While the Bhopal article analyzes the processes global corporations use to thwart responsibility, Kneen delves deeper into the production of power and the processes corporations like Cargill use to sustain their power in the global society.
17. James Garrier- Protecting the environment the natural way: ethical consumption and commodity fetishism
In this piece, Garrier argues that although the idea of ethical consumption sounds good in conversation, we need to move away from the focus on commodity fetishism, namely ignoring the various labor and environmental effects that are created in the production of objects. While ethical consumers believe they are benefiting the environment by trying to “buy green,” they are still ignoring the contexts in which they are produced. Essentially, ethical consumers will attempt to buy objects that meet their moral criteria, and companies will manipulate the way their products are presented to cause the consumer to believe it is a “green” product. An example Garrier uses is the environmental destruction that comes with areas of ecotourism, while many ecotourists believe that is a “green” alternative to traditional tourism. Thus, parks will advertise themselves in ways that ecotourists want them to be, presenting themselves as environmentally concerned and just. This piece is important to consider when dealing with global power structures of environmental management because this provides another angle to analyze the contexts in which power structures play a role. In this piece, the consumers have the power to demand changes out of production companies, but the fetishization of commodities illustrates how our criteria of being environmentally friendly can be clouded by the overall moral judgements of the society.
18. What is Degrowth? By Demaria, et al
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21. Gupta, A. D. (2011). Does indigenous knowledge have anything to deal with sustainable development? Antrocom Online Journal of Anthropology, 7(1), 57-64. doi:11/29/15
- In this article, Gupta argues that indigenous knowledge is still extremely function and heavily “value-loaded.” He argues that the pitfalls of a unidirectional and unequal development of the global market can be mitigated with incorporating the use of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) through biodiversity management at a community-specific level. While Gupta notes that IKS are unequally distributed, in specific societies the IKS can mirror the actual knowledge base of the community. While many anthropologists argue that emphasizing IKS in sustainable development is blindly assuming indigenous knowledge is true; the IKS can be helpful in creating a two-way street between modern and traditional systems of knowledge, that can ultimately lead to a more sustainable world. Furthermore, IKS are extremely relevant to the sustainable development conversation, as indigenous communities have been adapting to their availability of resources for centuries, having a sense of resource preservation and feedback mechanisms within each knowledge system. Finally, it is recognized that unidirectional global development may positively benefit certain areas of the world, but at the cost of the rest of humanity.
22. Rosy SY (2015) contributions of anthropology in bringing forth local perspectives and challenges in development processes. anthropol 2:140. doi:10.4172/2332-0915.1000140.
- Development in the larger context can be seen as a mechanism of globalization, that has changed in definition over time due to global capitalist expansion and persistence of colonial power over the “3rd world.” Many anthropologists including Rosy and Escobar argue that westernized power structures (“1st world”) over-generalize “3rd world” perspectives and indigenous knowledge to frame blanket policies in underdeveloped societies. In this over-generalization of the “3rd world,” modern development projects generalize all “3rd world” societies as poor and vulnerable, rather than considering them participants and directors in their own paths to development. In creating this division of developed vs. underdeveloped societies, “3rd world” non-material culture values are weakened as increase in material culture values occur. Through implementation of new technological advancement, development and modernization interrupt the non-material parts of knowledge, greatly impacting indigenous “3rd world” societies. As illustrated, there are complex issues surrounding modern development projects for the “3rd world” or “underdeveloped” societies. Rosy argues that local knowledge is needed because it creates local-specific development projects that cannot be attained through global development projects. Furthermore, the modernization and development process deteriorates traditional values, institutions, and practices like extended family, kinship, and communal control, replacing these with rational, scientific, knowledge which have largely resulted in barriers to development among other negative outcomes. This article provides a great argument for the incorporation of indigenous knowledge into development processes. Without romanticizing indigenous knowledge, I argue that in the least indigenous knowledge is knowledge that cannot be attained through an outsiders perspective, that is “experimenting through living,” and should be at least taken into consideration when creating development projects. While it is important to have global participation and cooperation concerning development projects of the “3rd world,” the state/local levels must have control over their own economies to create the most benefit for citizens.
23. Escobar, A. (1999). Steps to an antiessentialist political ecology. Current Anthropology, 40(1), 1-30.
- Escobar argues we are in a “crisis of nature,” including a crisis of nature’s identity. The constant shift of cultural, socioeconomic, and political factors have caused the meaning of nature to change over time, claiming that cultural and biological resources for collectively “inventing” natures and their identities are unevenly distributed. This is a common theme across much of the literature in review, presented in slight different ways. Essentially, the cultural and political hegemonic influence creates great disparities between the distribution of cultural and biological resources on a global level. Anti-essentialist ideas about nature identity concern the fact that identities are continuously and deferentially created and sustained; partly in the context of power. The anti-essentialist notion calls for a “plurality of natures,” one in which both biological and social natures play central roles. Escobar argues that there are three landscape regimes in tension with one another; capitalist, organic, and technocratic landscapes. The capitalist landscape deals with production and modernity, focusing on rational, expert knowledge to manage resources. In this landscape, it is important to note the ways in which nature have been “governmentalized,” in which nature becomes embedded in the economy. The organic landscape, on the other hand, is defined by the notion that nature and society cannot be separated, they are intertwined. The organic landscape is seen in many “3rd world” societies, in which nature cannot be manipulated, and local models of nature can be seen as links between the biophysical, human, and supernatural domain. There is no unified view on what constitutes a local model of nature, but several features are often seen, including: they reveal a more complex image of the natural and social world being integral to one another, attachment to territories are multidimensional interactions, and that rituals are often central to interactions between human and natural worlds. Emphasis is placed on the fact that local environmental knowledge must be seen in set of context-specific improvisional capacities rather than constituting a complete knowledge system. A central argument to implementing organic views of the environment is that although it greatly differs from modern models of environmental use, economics, and production, local models exist chiefly in practice. The technonature landscape encompasses modern day artificial technologies. Escobar notes here that the invention of real-time technologies demonstrates the global delocalization of human activity, calling to explore how local cultural and material resources in marginalized communities are used to mobilize an adaption or hybridization of their identities. Hybridization is a mechanism used by “3rd world,” indigenous communities to incorporate multiple constructions of nature (the local and the global) simultaneously to negotiate with external forces while maintaining some form of cultural cohesion. The anti-essentialist view in my opinion is extremely important to global environmental management within the future. Ample research and case studies are available illustrating the multidimensional and multi-faceted nature of human-environmental relations and should be examined within the same realm, not separated.
24. Cleveland, D. (2000). Globalization and anthropology: Expanding the options.Human Organization, 59(3), 370-374.
- David Cleveland argues that agriculture drastically changed the nature of interactions between humans and the environment, and became a central factor in the creation of cities and systems of political hegemony. He further notes that understanding the social and cultural basis for the construction of knowledge is just as important as understanding the biophysical basis of that knowledge, insisting a need for a combination of humanistic and scientific approaches to applied anthropology. An important notion Cleveland puts forth is to be wary of the words “sustainability” and it’s components like “conservation” and economic “rationality” as these are simply statements of goals without being subjectively defined to a specific group or individual. In my opinion, this is a very important idea to consider when thinking about the negative impacts of globalization and how to mediate them through living more sustainably. In the literature, there is a seemingly constant reminder to look at the each community or individual in a strictly contextual way, making sure to differentiate between knowledge that is objective vs. subjective. Many small scale farmers, those heavily effected by globalization, will make use of any and all possibilities of globalization to improve their situation Cleveland argues. This contradicts several pieces of literature of indigenous knowledge systems, in which many anthropologists claim that IKS won’t be modified unless there is a forced adaptation within the community. When examining the powers of globalization in the context of indigenous knowledge systems, I believe both arguments can be true. I believe that small scale farmers and communities will only make use of some opportunities lended by globalization, in order to maintain their social and cultural cohesion. Finally, incorporating both local and global contexts can increase the epistemological range that modern science and technology can lend to local farmers and vice versa, the holistic and intimate knowledge of environments that locals lend to scientists.
25. Benson, P., & Kirsch, S. (2010). Capitalism and the Politics of Resignation. Current Anthropology, 51(4), 459-486. doi:10.1086/653091
- In this piece, Benson and Kirsch argue for a reorientation of the way anthropology and the public in general examine power structures, specifically claiming a need for in depth analysis on the strategies corporations use in response to their critics. They argue that in employing critique strategies, corporations facilitate the perpetuation of harm. Three main phases of corporate response to critique are outlined; phase one is outright denial by the corporations that a problem exists, phase two involves some acknowledgement of validity behind critique and openly admits there is a problem, while phase three is crisis management in which the corporations are forced to actively engage with their critics and take the problem head on. In presenting their argument, Benson and Kirsch use case studies surrounding both the tobacco industry and the mining industry to situate corporate response mechanisms in real-world examples. Furthermore, the use of case studies illustrates how these response mechanisms work to protect industries from potential delegitimization and allow them to continue operating in favorable regulatory environments. The authors note that there is ample anthropological research regarding power structures and corporations, but little exists to specifically examine the political processes corporations use to promote their own interests. An important concept used is “the politics of resignation.” This concept can be seen as the prevalent feeling within late modernity that is characterized by a tendency to act cynically in political life. Essentially, the politics of resignation create a widespread feeling among citizens of the state that they are unable, incapable to change [in this example] the structure of corporate processes. Furthermore, Zizek’s concept of “cynical distance” embodies the idea of politics of resignation. Cynical distance refers to the idea that citizens are taking an ironic distance, shrugging their shoulders to separate themselves from political systems that recognizes the serious harms surrounding corporate capitalism. To illustrate corporate response mechanisms, authors use the tobacco industry, when the industry denied the direct link between smoking and cancer until the mid 1990’s, although clear scientific evidence was released several decades earlier connecting smoking to disease. Once the direct link was no longer feasible to deny, the tobacco corporations used shifting justifications to argue for the continued production and legitimization of the tobacco industry. In recent times, the tobacco corporations now stand behind the argument that it is an individual consumer decision, and does not wholly affect the masses. I think this piece does a great job at bringing to light a major issue within anthropological study of power structures, in which too much emphasis on the governmental power is placed. I also agree with the author’s use of “harm” industry to exemplify the agentive quality of how corporations impact populations and environments. If we can more deeply analyze the processes and mechanisms corporations use to rid themselves of environmental responsibility, we can more effectively combat these mechanisms and force corporations to create more sustainable practices