Basic principles

Question 1

What, fundamentally, does PE do?

Answer 1

PE interrogates the idea of nature and the role of politic and power with nature

Pol Ecol politicises and problematises seemingly apolitical changes to the environment

All about power, control, democracy, appropriation, exclusivity etc

See Perreault, et al, 2015

Question 2

What is a good citation for the basics of PE? A

Answer 2

Perreault, et al, 2015

(Routeledge handbook)

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Question 3

What is the trouble with the Antropocene?

Answer 3

Conceptualises environmental change as caused by all humans

Question 4

What is the main theoretical debate in PE?

Answer 4

STS/assemblage/ANT/more-than human

VERSUS

Material and discursive changes (Marxist/Neo-Marxist)

Question 5

Are all ecological projects apolitical? Why not?`

Answer 5

“Ecological projects are all economic-political projects”

Harvey 1993
Capital is involved and nature is produced

Question 6

Are all ecological projects apolitical? Why not?`

Answer 6

“Ecological projects are all economic-political projects”

Harvey 1993
Capital is involved and nature is produced

Question 7

What was the first major publication in PE?

Answer 7

Brookefield and Blaikie 1987

Also Blaikie 1985 soil erosion

Question 8

What did Bookefield and Blaikie 1987 achieve?

Answer 8

• Gave a political economic perspective of environmental change (proto-Marxist)
• Chains of explanation for envi change

Question 9

Who has recently combined a social science analysis with a political economic one in PE?

Answer 9

Peet & Watts 2016

Question 10

What was Bryant and Bailey 1997’s contribution to PE?

Answer 10

Drew attention to the asymmetry of power relations in the political economy

Question 11

Why is PE considered to be theoretically ambivalent?

Answer 11

It is an approach, a theory and ethos and a method of critique…

Mainly a canon of research (Neumann 2005)

Question 12

How does Paul Robbins (2011) define PE?

Answer 12

“A hatchet and a seed” (Robbins, 2011)
- creation and destruction

• changes to the environment understood anthropologically
• a focus on groups and households
• Can guide policy (iffy…)
  .
  .
  Robbins 2011

Question 13

What are the three waves of PE?

Answer 13

1) Marxist (1980s/90s)
- capital
- material changes / material conditions

2) Discursive (1990s/2000s)
- beyond narratives in Neo-Marxist
- produces conflict
- power/knowledge

3) More-than-human (2000s-)
- ANT
- STS
- Assemblage theory / webs of relations

Question 14

Why can differentiating different traditions in PE be problematic?

Answer 14

• Traditions continue
• Can be revitalised (e.g., hard Marxian approaches returning)
• Approaches can be united and combined

Question 15

What was the main point in Blaikie 1985?

Answer 15

• Soil degradation caused by political economic changes, not naïve overuse by local people
• Poverty is linked to the global economy and environment
• Sort of a feedback system re marginal returns

Question 16

What did Eckholm 1976 attribute soil degradation to?

Answer 16

Population growth and marginal returns

Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1968)

Critiqued by Blaikie 1985

Question 17

Where did Blaikie (1985) conduct his study?

Answer 17

• Zambia mining sector expansion during colonialism
• More work-time
• less time attending land
• Taxes = household squeeze

Question 18

Where did Blaikie (1985) conduct his study?

Answer 18

• Zambia mining sector expansion during colonialism
• More work-time
• less time attending land
• Taxes = household squeeze

Question 19

What are chains of explanation (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1986)?

Answer 19

• Environmental change does not have a single, superficial cause
• Uncovers social metabolism of capitalism
• Not a simple explanation - multivariate and complex

Question 20

What is the second contradiction of capitalism?

Answer 20

That capitalism systemically destroys nature

(O’Connor 1998)

Question 21

What is the first contradiction of capitalism

Answer 21

Capitalism destroys the reproduction of labour and thus capital / capitalist relations

Question 22

What are 5 enduring concepts in PE?

Answer 22

1) Scale
2) Temporal change
3) Who wins/loses
4) Who (/what?) decides
5) The material base for the means of production

Question 23

What is a seminal paper from the “discursive turn” in PE?

Answer 23

Swift 1998

• Knowledge and ideas shape environmental relations
• deconstructed narratives

(Also Leach and Mearns 1996)

Question 24

What is a classic and misleading narrative about desertification?

Answer 24

Stebbing 1937
- A lack of productive management by locals
- State needed to intervene to avoid further desertification

Also Lamprey 1977

Question 25

How have Stebbing’s narratives been resurrected?

Why is it significant?

Answer 25

UNCOD 1997
- Need forest belts to prevent desertification
- Imposed on people
- A long history of UN / official intl organisations getting involved

Significant because makes the discourse official, appear objective

Question 26

Why is discourse powerful?

Answer 26

Conceals reality and presents “truths” (Leach and Mearns 1996)

Question 27

Why did Marxist / Pol Econ and discursive approaches get criticised?

Answer 27

• Too focussed on narratives, not the everyday production of landscapes
• Too human-focussed
• Not enough intersectionality (too generalising)

Question 28

What is an intriguing study in the more-than-human aspects of PE?

Answer 28

Barua 2014
“Bio-geo-graphy”
- Elephants as actants in landscapes
- How do elephants conceptualise landscapes?

Extend to how would a sloth view the Anthropocene

Question 29

How can PE be summarised? Limitations?

Answer 29

“A jack of all trades, a maser of none”

• might lack theoretical rigor

Question 30

Why is it important to reflect on more recent scholarship in PE?

Answer 30

Highlights awareness of recent waves:
- ANT
- Hard Marx / neo-Marx
- Hard Foucault
- Feminist/post col/queer theory

Question 31

What are situated knowledges?

Answer 31

Haraway 1988
Knowledge is relational, creating a “knowing person”

Question 32

What is it about capitalism that destroys nature? (2 pts)

Answer 32

• Markets and uneven trade / dependency theory
• Needing to pay for cheap, alienated labour

Question 33

Who has written about decolonising PE?

Answer 33

Loftus 2019

Question 34

What is the problem with Loftus’ (2019) argument about decentring PE?

Answer 34

Loftus (2019) suggests decentring PE from the North and studying relations between N-S

The trouble is that these are the realities of environmental change!

Question 35

Who has written about the multiple meanings of land?

Answer 35

Li 2019

Question 36

What is the difference between decolonising and decentring?

Answer 36

Decolonising = emphasising indigenous rights

Decentring = different perspectives

(See Loftus 2019)

Question 37

What is the teleological issue with Marxism?

Answer 37

Focusses on the process of capitalism, and not enough on the epistemology of the approach (focussed on G North)

(Loftus, 2019)

Question 38

Who has suggested a more pragmatic approach to decolonising PE?

Answer 38

Schulz 2017

Need to facilitate dialogue and not suggest that only those affected should decide

Question 39

What is a subaltern?

Answer 39

Groups excluded by capitalist institutions (e.g., those excluded from pol forests)

A Gramscian term - one of resistance too

Scott 1985 Weapons of the Weak (counter-hegemonic)