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A Political Ecology Framework:
Easy to Visualize, Difficult to Realize
By Elaine Godfrey
Article Critique
Professor Anthony Thickett
DEV 3005, Contemporary Issues of the Third World
July 29, 2012
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The framework suggested in Arturo Escobar’s “Difference and Conflict in the Struggle over
Natural Resources: A political ecology framework” is a welcome approach to viewing and understanding
escalating environmental conflicts worldwide. The author succeeds not only in making clear the need to
differentiate between contrasting approaches to environmental issues, but also in enabling the reader to
visualize those different methodologies and fully grasp the relationship between each. However, this
framework doesn’t seem to be particularly unique or revolutionary, and taken as a whole, it seems to
serve only as a means of distinguishing viewpoints and offering a supremely optimistic, rather than
practical, dream of a future society.
Escobar’s point is simple enough: He is stressing the idea that the struggles of subaltern societies
must be heard and addressed equally, within a suggested political ecology framework, in order to achieve
a successful pluralistic society. Or, as he mentions in the final paragraph, a sense of “peace-with-justice
(Escobar 13).” This suggested framework includes the recognition of three main dimensions of
environmental conflict: economic distribution, ecological distribution, and the emerging cultural
component within specific environmental issues. He uses one, albeit vague, example of “any rainforest in
the world (7)” to illustrate these three dimensions. In describing the dominance of the issues of economic
distribution within the realm of environmental conflict, he refers to the rainforest’s local economy
becoming monetized and market-driven in order to support development. In the ecological dimension, he
describes the compromising of complex rainforest ecosystems in favor of modern plantations and
pastures; and finally, in the cultural aspect, he emphasizes the changing of local identities to “resemble
dominant modern cultures (7).” Each of the three dimensions of conflict, he stresses, is intertwined but
must be seen as inherently different. Different but equal.
But his ‘suggested framework’ is more of a clarification and critique of neo-liberal approaches to
environmental conflict than it is a particularly unique or monumental idea. Four years before Escobar’s
article was published, the 2002 UNESCO World Summit “Roundtable on Cultural Diversity and
Biodiversity for Sustainable Development” discussed and reported on a similar concept, one that
considered the broad dimensions of cultural diversity and biodiversity to be equally important in the
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development of a country. Anthropologist and author of the section entitled “Diversity and Sustainable
Development,” Dr. Arjun Appadurai stresses the need to link both cultural and biodiversity:
“…by definition, biodiversity requires the proliferation and protection of many ecological
regimes and environmental balances. Human beings are the key movers in such balances…Thus cultural
diversity is a powerful guarantee of biodiversity. Together, these two kinds of diversity are the best
counterpoint to the…uniformity that might result if market-driven globalization is allowed to run its own
course.(Appadurai).”
And, just as Escobar explains that the aim of his framework is to “demystify the theory that
ignores subaltern experiences and knowledge of the local economy, environment, and culture (11),” in
order to better understand and manage globalization, the UNESCO report offered the same message,
saying, “It is time to give an economic value to this knowledge and to the genetic resources so carefully
nurtured by indigenous peoples…A sustainable society can only be achieved through the participation
and empowerment of all peoples (Appadurai).” Although Escobar’s reiteration is perhaps useful to enable
members of the academic community to more clearly conceptualize the problem with development
through unfair distribution on the three dimensions of political ecology, it offers nothing new in the way
of development theory.
Escobar’s suggestion that achieving a better understanding of the interrelationship between the
economical, ecological, and cultural dimensions of environmental conflict will help the world to reach
this sense of peace and “plurality of knowledges (13)” is a plausible theory. But it is nothing more than
that: a theory. In his conclusion, Escobar poses several weak but well-intentioned proposals for
redressing the environmental issues surrounding modern development, but, however well-intentioned,
these recommendations offer no practical idea for how to go about achieving this idealistic concept of
peace-with-justice.
The first suggestion made is the need to “limit cultural dominance in key institutions (11).”
Escobar specifies, in particular, those institutions concerning global policy, conservation, and economic
development. But he offers no precise way of limiting this cultural dominance, no strategy to reduce the
detrimental effects of Westernization on indigenous cultures and ecosystems. This is particularly
surprising because the issue of cultural hegemony is both an obvious and quite well-known debate within
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the realm of globalization. Escobar’s repetition of the issue and advice that we must simply “redress” it, is
both redundant and useless, without the presence of some sort of detailed solution.
Escobar continues by mentioning that it is also important to continue the action of non-dominant
cultural forms, ones which are less “individualistic” and therefore, not as threatening to the uniqueness of
a culture or environment. This is an interesting point; he describes the emphasis that should be placed on
the creation of dialogue and space for these cultural forms, suggesting a need for new educational
strategies – even an “entire pedagogy of difference (11)” – to support this. However, in suggesting that
certain aspects of cultural and economic modernization should be given more focus, Escobar fails to
specify which cultural forms could be considered non-dominant. Even in his example of continuing to
encourage the development of gender policy, Escobar is unsuccessful in explaining how, exactly, this
“pedagogy” will be developed, and what other holistic cultural forms might be embraced.
In his final “call to action,” the author makes the recommendation that worldwide support must
be given to organizations and social movements whose aim is to support pluralistic societies. These
movements are ones which create visions of basic rights, alternative and non-capitalist practices, and
sustainable ecological processes. This advice, although intended to guide and empower, inspires nothing
but further questions, leaving the reader to ask “Which social movements, specifically?” The first words
of the suggestion offer hope that the reader may be given some clue as to what cause should be endorsed,
but when Escobar fails to offer any more information, it makes one wonder if such a specific social
movement exists, and why, at the risk of providing more useless advice, he bothered mentioning it at all.
Arturo Escobar’s framework for approaching environmental conflict is straightforward, wellsupported, and easily accepted. It makes the suggestion that in order to begin the process of achieving
peace and successful development, the interrelated dimensions of economy, ecology, and culture must be
considered equally, along with the place-based experience and knowledge of local people. While this idea
is perfectly conceivable in theory, however, Escobar provides the academic community with no practical
idea for how to combat this neo-liberal globalization imbalance. His vague suggestions seem to be
simply common sense, with no guidelines or details as to how the three dimensions of environmental
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conflict might be viewed more equally or in what ways the voices and expertise of local people might be
better heard. And although Escobar did an adequate job of clarifying the key issues under the scope of
neo-liberal modernization, announcing to the reader that it is no longer acceptable to deny people the right
to their own culture, ecology, and economy, seemed to be, for the most part, redundant. The political
ecology framework presented in “Difference and Conflict” is made to look like a true, academic
breakthrough, when upon closer inspection, it is found to contain nothing but a restructuring of the same,
already-debated issues, providing no real contribution to the field of sustainable development.
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Works Cited
Appadurai, Arjun. "Diversity and Sustainable Development." Proc. of Cultural Diversity and Biodiversity
for Sustainable Development, South Africa, Johannesburg. 2002. 16-19. Cultural diversity and
biodiversity for sustainable development. UNESCO, Jan. 2003. Accessed: 27 July 2012.
<http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001322/132262e.pdf>.
Escobar, Arturo. "Difference and Conflict in the Struggle Over Natural Resources: A Political Ecology
Framework." Development 49.3 (2006): 6-13. Accessed: July 2012.