Lecture Guide for 10/17 - intro to P.E.
Organization
 WHY POLITICAL ECOLOGY? –
 POLITICAL ECOLOGY – THE HATCHET
 POLITICAL ECOLOGY – THE SEED
 LIBERATION ECOLOGY
Key Concepts/Ideas:
 PE questions
 What does it mean to conserve NATURE?
o As we’ve learned from the first ½ of class, the project of
conservation thought & conservation decision-making is a
tension-filled endeavor.
 There are multiple perspectives from which to
theorize a problem
 Theorization is significant because it determines, to a
large extent, the possible courses of action that will
be available
 WHAT IS NATURE & what is the relationship of humans to it?
o Does the fact that wilderness may be created by humans mean
that the descriptions of the different physical components of
wilderness don’t matter?
o Does the possibility that wilderness, whatever it is, has shaped
human culture mean that we have an ethical responsibility to
conserve it?
 How should we conserve nature?
 For that matter, what is nature?
 Why political Ecology? - there are political issues underpinning our theories about conservation,
our arguments about framing, and even our scientific knowledge about the
ecosystem.
o We have some theories that explain the goals of
conservation and what precisely should be conserved (what
action should be taken) :
 Malthusianism
 Limits to growth
 Tragedy of the commons
 Primitive Accumulation
 Market-based solutions
 State building
o
o

We have some arguments about how to focus the discussion
of these & other theories
 Lomborg, Castro– focus on human needs
 Carson, Leopold, Meadows, Hardin – Focus on needs
of ecosystem
 Avery – Focus on technological solutions
We have ecology as a way of thinking about the
interrelationships and interdependencies between different
components of the ecosystem (including humans)
Supposedly apolitical explanations of environmental problems are
actually overtly political --- because they:
o Are programmatic
o

assert that environmental knowledge originates in global N for
transfer to global S
o assert need for management of use & distribution of collective
goods (“commons”)
Political ecology gives us some useful tools for talking about the human
component of tension between conservation and development – i.e. the
human component of landscape change
o This means bringing into question some of our assumptions
about
 what natural is,
 what the wilderness is,
 what the landscape is,
 and how these three things change in response to
human activity
 What is Political Ecology? -- an effort to integrate Human & physical approaches to
land degradation – PE seeks to answer the question of why environmental systems
change & how social systems change -- while looking for linkages between the
conditions and changes to social & environmental systems
 Robbins’ definition of P.E.
o Empirical research-based explorations to explain linkages…
 linkages in the condition and change of social
environmental systems
o with explicit consideration of relations of power
 Basic Premise
 Costs and benefits associated with environmental change are
distributed unequally
 This reinforces or reduces existing social and economic
inequality
 Holds political implications in terms of the altered power of
the actors in relation to other actors
 Also, Our ideas about them are delimited and directed through political
processes

4 themes
 Degradation and Marginalization -- development, land transition, poverty
o focus is on environmental change
 how does it occur?
 why does it occur?
 Environmental conflict - enclosure, collective management
o focus is on environmental access
 who is not permitted access?
 why are they not given access?
 Conservation & Control
o focus is on conservation failures & political & economic
exclusion from conservation decisions & benefits associated
with conservation
 why do these failures occur?
 how are people excluded from decision making
process and access to benefits?
 Environmental identification and social movements
o focus is on social upheaval
 who participates in the upheaval?
 where do upheavals take place (in which types of
socio-environmental systems)?
 how do upheavals work?
 PE the Hatchet
 Robbins argues that political ecology can be thought of as a hatchet to prune
away at existing explanations for environmental change as well as the
possible courses of action that emerge from these explanations
 PE the Seed
 At the same time as PE is interested in critiquing the framing of environmental
problems as "demographic" or due to lack of "market efficiency", Robbins makes
it clear that PE is also interested in the
o coping strategies  that people use to deal with the environmental & socioeconomic
conditions that such programmatic framings of environmental
change impose on people
o alternative ways of understanding the human-environment
interaction
 Liberation Ecology
 Peet & Watts make this discussion of the goals of PE a bit more explicit,
by talking explicitly about the politics of scale -o they say that environmental issues encompass a number of
political arenas
 from the body
 to the locally imagined community
 to state and intra-state struggles
 to new forms of global governance
 P & W - deploy the politics of scale in an attempt to understand the...
 "complex relations between nature and society via analysis of social
forms of access and control over resources"
 In other words, to understand environmental change , Peet & Watts want
to trace social forms of access & control through these different levels of
scale...
o they are especially interested in integrating political action everyday resistance, civic movements, organized party politics into questions of resource access and control
 In summary, Political ecology/ liberation ecology seek to bridge the gap between
purely human & purely physical approaches to land degradation.
 NATURALIZED NARRATIVES -- Both Robbins & Peet & Watts talk
about Naturalized narratives about environmental change being a
principle target of PE/ LE
 Robbins  wants to denaturalize them to show environmental
outcomes as contingent outcomes of power and not
inevitable
 P&W  emphasize that naturalized narratives tend to silence
other ways of knowing, speaking, and interacting
with the environment
 e.g. "Sustainability" - connects many previously
unconnected discussions about conservation &
development but means different things to different
people
 Social movements/ Alternatives
o Robbins
 wants to talk about alternative ways of understanding
and responding to environmental change
o
P&W




focus on the proliferation of social movements
the proliferation of SMs, they argue are due to the
profound environmental change and associated rapid
industrial growth caused by the restructuring of
global capitalism
this creates environmental externalities that prompt
people to form social movements in an attempt to
impose control over transnational corporations or
rogue states
specifically P&W want to talk about transnational
environmental alliances and networks as a response
to increasingly multilateral governance of
environment
Lecture Guide for 10/19 – Roots of PE
Organization
 Social Darwinism -- environmental determinism?
 Kropotkin -- mutual aid & methods
 Environmental Pragmatism
 Natural Hazards
 Cultural Ecology
 Ecology
 Political Ecology - redeux
Key Concepts/ Ideas (refer to 10-19 lecture guide handout)
 Social Darwinism -- environmental determinism?
o Scientific untangling of the Q of heredity or the environment
o Naturalizing difference, power, environment
o = "Nature" is conceived of as a one-way force that determines cultural
development
 Kropotkin -- mutual aid & methods
 Other critiques of social domination/ imperialist approaches to environment
o Sommerville (1780s)
o Marsh (1890s)
o Gilbert White (1930s - present)
 Cultural Ecology
o An eco-systemic approach to human environmental issues
o Sauer
o Steward
 MATURE Cultural Ecology
o Science of ecology = a “natural” system
 Critiques of Cultural Ecology
 Political Ecology – themes
o Degradation & Marginalization
o Environmental Conflict
o Conservation & Control
o Environmental identification & social movements
Lecture Guide for 10/21 – “Barstool biology”, Amazon
readings from Economist
Organization
 Cultural Ecology
 Narrative Bases of enclosure/ management strategies
 Embedded knowledge
 Relevant Truth
 Ecological Ricochet
 PE the hatchet & seed – Robbins’ methods
 Deforestation, logging, cattle in the Amazon – relevant truth?
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 Cultural Ecology & the ecosystemic approach to human environmental issues
 What we see from “Barstool Biology” is the argument that management strategies &
enclosures are justified by competing & overlapping narratives
o Dominant narratives
o Empirically derived narratives (political ecological narratives)
 Q - What is the source of the conflict in Barstool Biology?
 Embedded knowledge –
o Knowledge that reflects specific forms of practice undertaken in daily life –
i.e. knowledge embedded in what we do, how we live, how we work…
 Thinking about embedded knowledge shows that that there are
plural knowledge systems through which humans understand
the environment & interact with the environment
o Why is embedded knowledge political knowledge?
 Relevant Truth – directs attention to the processes that bring about change in
ecosystem dynamics
o In “Barstool Biology” – A way to think about what factors bring about
change s in ecosystem dynamics
 In Yellowstone, the relevant truth is driven by the coalitions
that form around the policy instruments controlling access to
and control over non-human systems
 It is around these policy instruments and processes that
human players mobilize their conflicting
embedded/local knowledge
a. i.e. – knowledge about the
Yellowstone issue is produced in a
political environment and reflects
political commitments
 PE Methods - Hatchet & the Seed
o Denaturalization of dominant narratives
 How?
o Alternatives to dominant narratives
 How?
 Amazon articles from the economist
Lecture Guide for 10/24 – “Barstool biology” &
Yellowstone readings from NY Times
Organization
 Narrative Bases of enclosure/ management strategies
 Embedded knowledge
 Discursive coalitions
 Ecological Ricochet
 PE the hatchet & seed – Robbins’ methods (see 10/21 lecture guide)
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 Narrative Bases of enclosures/ management strategies
 Q – Is it fair to make the argument that management strategies
for controlling environmental space are variations of
enclosure?
o What we see from “Barstool Biology” is the argument that management
strategies & enclosures are justified by competing & overlapping narratives
 Embedded Knowledge - Robbins’s research shows that there are different
perspectives on ecological problems
o embedded in the negotiations of management/ enclosure strategies, then, are
different knowledges – or different ECOLOGICAL NARRATIVES
 discursive coalitions are built around common ideas of:
o (1) Private wilderness – not managed (because management =
fragmentation)
o (2) Private nature – managed by hunters
o (3) People’s nature – block managed
o (4) People’s access – access & non-intervention (no support for policy
measures
 Discursive coalition in Bison example (from NY times)
o Governor – somewhere between people’s nature and private nature
 Most likely on people’s nature but with attention to flexibility
o Humane society – possibly People’s access? Or people’s nature nonintervention
 no clear position on how management should be done besides
“not through hunting”
o Greater Yellowstone Coalition (Bozeman) – private nature, people’s
nature
 OK with hunt as long as it is “truly fair chase”
o Local hunters – people’s access, people’s nature
 Ecological Ricochet (p.1) of land management (policy change)
o = change has possibility to reverberate throughout state’s complex ecosystem
 aspen and willow growth,
 amphibian and reptile survival
 quality of streams and rivers
Lecture Guide for 10/26 – Knowledge, ethnicity, poverty,
conservation
Organization
 Quiz
o




List of participants in the Calakmul conflict:
 Farmers/campesinos
 Scientists
 Conservationists/environmentalists
o Pick two groups from the above list and describe/explain:
 One example of what Calakmul ecology means to that group
(how that group understands Calakmul ecology)
 One example of an action (in the environment) that that
meaning leads to
Ethnoecology and the Calakmul Biosphere conflict – Luke – define ethnoecology
Ethnoecological meanings assigned to ecological systems
Environmental knowledge & positionality
Environmental knowledge & environmental action
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 The goal of today’s lecture is to think about what Robbins & Haen think shapes 1)
knowledge about the nature & 2) human activity in nature
o For Robbins it’s policy instruments that control access to & use of wilderness
that shapes the relative truth (which produces enviro outcomes)
o For Haen it’s something different (ethno-ecological meaning of land to
people ultimately determines the way that people will transform their
environments)
 Ethnoecology –
o Learning from local knowledge about traditional systems of environmental
management
 Calakmul Conflict – how to think about the conflict?
o Conservation v. development
o Local v. international
o Plural definitions of calakmul’s environment
 Meanings and ecological systems – locals, scientists
o Forest height & conceptions of change over time
 Environmental knowledge & positionality
o From Robbins we learned that in examining a conflict over management it is
essential to think about the way that different knowledge about the
environment gets translated into different positions about the conflict
o Haen distinguishes between the different positions that people have about the
Calakmul conflict by dividing the actors into two groups, the conservation
community & campesinos
 “no tocar” v. “sustainable use”
 campesino resistance
 Environmental knowledge & action
o Knowledge about the environment gets translated into
 different positions on environmental management (about the
policy instruments that control access to resources)
 different types of action in the environment
o Haen – relevant truth about what people think about the environment is
revealed in what they do
 E.g.s?
Lecture Guide for 10/28 – Knowledge, ethnicity, poverty,
conservation - Chico Mendes & Kenya’s green militant
(GPB – pp.94-107)
Organization
 Relevant truth
 Relevant truth in the broader context
o Natural rubber and environmentalism in Brazil
 Group activity – locating the relevant truth in the chapters on Mendes & Maathai
Key Concepts/ Ideas
o Robbins’ idea of the relevant truth
 driven by policy instruments that define access and control of
natural resources
 Revealed in exploration of environmental knowledges that comprise
coalitions
 Haen’s argument about the relevant truth
 Driven by people’s ethnoecological knowledge
 Haen says the relevant truth about what people think about the
environment is revealed in what they do.
 revealed as she explores how people’s ethnoecological knowledge (&
value system) motivates them to act outside of the parameters set by
policy instruments
 Relevant truth & Extractive reserves
o To understand the way that Brazil’s ecosystem has been transformed by
humans– i.e. to understand why people do what they do in the environment –
it is not enough to say OK, here’s what people the tappers say about the
rainforest and here’s what they do in the rainforest so that’s the relevant
truth. We have to think of rubber tapper knowledge and practices in the
rainforest as constrained by/ a response to larger historical processes of
economic, political, and landscape change in Brazil.
 Relevant truth in historical perspective (the broader context)
o In the case of the extractive reserves, how do we put the “relevant truth” –
sustainable forest use controlled by forest community – back into a broader
context so that we can examine how it relates to broader patterns of change
in national and international politics, economics, and attitudes towards the
environment?
o Look to emergence of the “sustainability” in development discourse in Brasil
to find the relevant truth about environmental degradation in the Amazon.
(History of Rubber)
o Rubber boom & bust
o Exploitation of rubber tappers
o Exploitation & debit = rubber tappers learning from Indians how to
survive
o World war II
o Cold war politics – development of amazon for $$ and to control
commies
o Conflict with cattle ranchers
o Mendes’s relationships with international environmentalists.
Lecture Guide for 10/31 – Networks & Social Movements
(GPB 123-129 “Politics Beyond the State”)
Organization
 Relevant Truth (see 10/28 lecture guide)
 Direct Action and the Fluid Approach: Seeing TEAGs
 TEAGS & Voluntary Change
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 FLUID APPROACH – Wapner wants us to think about the forces that change
ecosystem dynamics in less specific terms than Robbins (coalitions made up of
people whose embedded knowledge about environment drives them to ally with
others with apparently contradictory knowledge in an attempt to influence policy)
and Haen (ethnoecological constructs of nature drive people’s action in nature = we
have to look beyond coalitions and observe what people do when they are “in”
nature. --seeing TEAGs
o Global civil society
 DIRECT ACTION & REVERBERATION
o Goals
 Dislodge traditional understandings
 Substitute new interpretative frames
o Strategies
 Expose hidden abuse
 Engage in dangerous/ dramatic action
o Audience?
 TEAGs & Voluntary Change
o TEAGS seek to bring about voluntary change
 This is different to Hardin’s argument about coercion
 To see this you must take a fluid approach to analyze
governance.
Lecture Guide for 11-2 – Networks & Social Movements –
Forsyth “Industrial Pollution and Social Movements in
Thailand”
Organization
 Presentation – forest policy & TEAGs
 Direct action & the fluid approach – seeing TEAGs (see 10/31 lecture guide)
 Sting – social movements as alternatives to traditional governance
 Environmental discourse
 Forsyth - Social movements and environmental discourses
 Environmental discourse and risk
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 The Sting -- So, TEAGs want to shift the governing ideas that animate society –
o Ecological sensibilities
 E.g. – seal clubbing protests being conducted by TEAGs
o TEAG-based explanation
o Political ecological explanation
o What’s the difference?
o By considering the circumstances that cod fishermen in Newfoundland and
Laborador find themselves in (decreasing cod #s & the possibility that they will
not be paid better price for fish as supply decreases (b/c corporations can squeeze
them)) = we can start to think about the possibility that the ecological sensibility
that TEAGs promote may create resonance that blinds us to other ways of
understanding ecosystem dynamics.
 Environmental Discourse
o System of ideas or knowledge about the environment
o inscribed in a specific vocabulary (risk of lead, risk of lignite)
o Used to legitimate the exercise of power over people and ecosystem
processes
o By categorizing them as particular “types”
o Why? – to see if common perceptions (i.e common environmental
discourses) are accurate and relevant to people affected
 F wants to critically investigate the influence of SMs on the epistemology of
environmental risk - environmentalism
o EPISTEMOLOGY - the study or theory of the origin, nature, methods, and
limits of knowledge (study of knowledge).
o Why is this important?
 Applications of the environmental discourses generated by
SMs as solutions have controversial implications.
 Environmental Discourse & Risk
o Factors that shape environmentalism (environmental discourse) in Thailand –
“brown” v. “green”
o Social influences on the interpretation of risk
 Because material risks are new (have no history among
population)
 Because scientific uncertainty is high
 = local social movements may easily be dominated by
outside expertise or framed in ways that do not reflect
local experience of risks

o
F’s argument – under these circumstances activists may seek to
impose pre-existing forms of meaning onto environmental risk
Formation of social movements – form around discourse coalitions between
different political actors (storylines become songlines)
 Critical to the identification & response to risk
 Social Movements are discursive structures that produce
discourse coalitions
 Discourse coalitions are organized around storylines of risks
that are agreed upon by multiple political actors/discursive
structures
 These storylines, or discourses, become anchoring devices
around which discourse discursive structures and new
discourse coalitions are arranged –
 i.e they become topics of unified debate upon which
both state and activists can agree, while still adopting
more familiar positions of disagreement
 (in the Thailand case, the risk of lead and lignite)
Lecture Guide for 11-4 – Environmental Risk – Beck’s
Risk Society
Organization
 Quiz
o
o
o
Beck argues that in a modern industrial society, science has a monopoly in
determining how we understand environmental risk. In a risk society, Beck
continues, science’s monopoly on risk is broken & risk is defined by society.
Explain how science’s monopoly on risk broken as we transition from an
industrial to a risk society.
Environmental Imaginaries
Risk society
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 Environmental Imaginaries
o Environmental Discourse Coalitions are produced by activism.
 Activism is supported by narrative/discursive structures.
 As they are repeated and passed back and forth
between discursive structures, these
narrative/discursive structure become hegemonic
environmental imaginaries (new “songlines”/
presumed biophysical realities) which are reproduced
by each new episode of activism.
o Q – how are discourses / narratives that we hold to shaped by narratives that
come different discursive structures?
 Risk Society
o Industrial society produces a proliferation of risks that can’t be investigated
or managed using scientific methods.
 Society will eventually become organized around defining and
distributing risk
 Progression society: Pre-Modern  Modern  Risk society
 Beck’s 5 thesis on Risk -- the way that we define risk will change as risks continues
to proliferate….
o 1) Risks produced in late modern societies are essentially different than
wealth
o 2) some people are more affected by growth and distribution of risks than
others => social risk positions
o 3) diffusion and commercialization of risks raise capitalism to a new stage
(RISK DEFINITION)
o 4)one can possess wealth – one is afflicted by risk
o 5) socially recognized risks contain a political explosive – (dispute over the
origins of risk)
Lecture Guide for 11-7 –Risk Society & Critiques of PE
Organization
 RISK SOCIETY
 5 THESES ON RISK
 CRITIQUES OF PE & REBUTTAL
 EVENMENTAL/ EVENT ECOLOGY
 PETE & WATTS HIT BACK
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 Risk Society – basic argument
o Social production of wealth is systematically accompanied by the social
production of risks
 Progression of society: Pre-Modern  Modern  Risk society
o Q - Old Risks v. New Risks – why the change in type of risk?
 Eventmental/ Event Ecology v. Political Ecology
o Event Ecology theory & methods
 Focus on concrete environmental events & changes
working backwards in time and outwards in space
o Mangroves case study
 Main Critiques of political ecology
 Responses from Pete & Watts –
o in event ecology, the only expression of environment can be the
biophysical events of environmental change
Risk handout:
What is risk?
Premodern risks
 Columbus e.g. – personal risks – had a note of bravery
Old Risks – assaulted the nose or eyes
 Old ways of calculating risk – concept of accident and insurance, medical
precautions (averages…) – don’t fit new risks
11/9 – Viewing guide for Toxic Racism
What is environmental racism?
What are the obstacles to proving a cases of environmental racism? (Use an example from each
case study to explain your answer)
Kettleman City, CA
Raleigh, NC
West Dallas, TX
Kettleman City, CA -- How does the Chem Waste representative explain the fines that EPA has
levied against Chem Waste?
How is the lawsuit against Chem Waste framed?
Raleigh, NC -- What problems do residents & the NAACP face in trying to use the Clean Water
Act to go after hog operations?
How have residents & the hog industry responded to the problem of scientific uncertainty in the
case of pollution from hog operations?
West Dallas, TX -- What event/action would you say gave the W. Dallas Environmental Justice
movement the push it needed to get the federal government’s attention?
Lecture Guide for 11-11 –Rethinking Sovereignty & Toxic
Racism & the World Bank– GPB 63-81
Organization
 Toxic Racism
 Rethinking Sovereignty
 World Bank
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 Toxic Racism
 brings the question of the links between sovereignty, ecosystem dynamics,
environmentalism back into focus.
 RETHINKING SOVEREIGNTY
o What is sovereignty? – decision making authority w/in territorial jurisdiction
o Conca argues that there are 2 dominant ways of understanding the outcome of the
encounter between sovereignty & ecology
 Enviro concerns erode sovereignty = constraints on the authority of the state
 Multinational enviro concerns & institutions = state’s capacity to act may be
enhanced
o Operational sovereignty
o Formal sovereignty
o Conca – these two conceptions limit how we understand rules of access to environment
and resources
 i.e. – we have to think about sovereignty as a power that can be affected
in multiple ways by the environment.
o Narrowed –
o Deepened –
o Brittled
o Q – What are some of the effects of environment & environmental advocacy on
sovereignty?
Lecture Guide for 11-14 –Ecogovernmentality (Goldman)
Organization
 Theme: how the interpretive frame through which people view nature gets changed.
 Sovereignty
 undergoes complex changes via ecological problems and increased awareness of civil
society
 World Bank
 has "greened" via protests about environmental impacts of its projects
o changes sovereignty
o changes ecological rationality of target populations
Key Concepts/ Ideas
 As we talk about governance and control of resources and conservation projects & ideas
we've talked about:
o TEAGS
o policy instruments
o social movements
o ethnoecological knowledge
o dominant discourses, etc..
 Today we'll talk about the most powerful multi-national lending
institution - the WB - & it's role in governing resource use, creating
"stings" of governance, shaping nature & perception of nature
 History of the Bank o Environmental policies (Tropical Forest Action Plan)
o 1980 & 90 reforms
 Environmentally, the author warns, the bank's focus is too narrow
o From Goldman’s chapter we get an extremely critical perspective on precisely
how the bank’s internal policies and new “green” image transform sovereignty,
the environment and people’s understandings of both.
 Green practices impact the production of
o National and global truth regimes on nature
o Rights regimes to more effectively control (and increase mkt. value of)
environments, natural resources, and resource-dependent populations
o New state authorities w/in national boundaries and in the world system
 I.e. – WB’s practices  birth of environmental states in the south
 These environmental states feature new global forms of legality
and ecorationality
o = fragmented, stratified, and unevenly transnationalized
Southern states, state actors, & state power
o changes affect the “art of government” – I.e the multiple and widely dispersed
forms of government and their immanence to the state
 Green practices – have made particular natures and natural resource-dependent
communities legible and accountable
 Via introduction of new cultural/scientific logics for interpreting qualities
of the state’s territory = new domains of political economic calculation
 Example of new forms of new forms of legibility & accountability
o Forests in Laos
 Ecogovernmentality – how it happens – the “modernizing process”
o Effects of ecogovernmentality?
 Changes sovereignty
 Changes rationality
 Changes nature
Lecture Guide for 11-16 –Ecogovernmentality (Goldman)
& Skinning scientific cats
Organization:
 World Bank has "greened" via protests about environmental impacts of its projects
o changes sovereignty
o changes ecological rationality of target populations
 Multilateral Environmental Agreements
 Skinning Scientific Cats
 Ecogovernmentality
 Ecogovernmentality & MEAs
Key Ideas/Concepts:
 Goal of today’s class
o To start out with, we’re going to think about the relationship between
scientific knowledge and taking action to deal with/manage environmental
problems.
o i.e. – science requires some value orientation & set of agreed upon social
goals in order to know which questions to ask.
o
Continue thinking about the various interpretive frames, ecological
consciousnesses, and dominant & alternative narratives about the
environment that shape our interactions with the environment
o
Consider Jasanoff’s & Conka’s position that scientific knowledge does not
provide a clear path of action
 Beck makes a similar argument
Consider Goldman’s argument that the WB, a powerful multilateral
institution which, through its project planning & implementation
requirements and activities, transforms the ecological consciousness of target
populations
 These transformations to sovereignty and rationality are
characterized by neoliberal approach to nature, prioritizing one
specific type of nature, and channeling resources towards the
reproduction of that nature
Multilateral Environmental Agreements – an imbalance b/w the rapid growth in the #
of agreements and chronic problems
o “clusters” of MEAs
o Challenges to implementation
Elements of MEAs
Skinning Scientific cats – role of scientific rationality in shaping the terms of
multilateral environmental agreements
o Paradigm shift?
o Jasanoff – knowledge alone is no substitute for the political will to act
 Critiques of the scientific paradigm
 Satisfying answers?
 Ideology & politics?
 Non-scientific motives for action?
 Paralysis
 Conflict over how to scientifically conceptualize a
problem
Ecogovernmentality
o




o
o
Q - How does the possibility that rationality and sovereignty are, to a certain
extent, transformed by WB projects affect the structure of multilateral
environmental agreements between developing & developed countries?
Why is this important?
 Because if the Bank has this powerful influence over the
interpretive frames through which people all over the world
view & value the environment (their eco-rationality –which is
not just scientific) it influences not only national sovereignty
but also the social, cultural, and ethical ties that people have to
environment
Lecture Guide for 11-18 –Sustainable Development (GPB
227-252)
Organization:
 Quiz
o According to the section of the Bruntland report that we read in GPB, what is
sustainable development?
o Sustainable development requires, among other conditions, a concrete definition
of “maximum sustainable yields” for renewable resources and “rate of depletion”
for non-renewables. Why might this be troubling to someone thinking about
sustainable development from an “ecogovernmentality” (Goldman’s article on
Laos) point of view?
 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT paradigm
 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT requirements
 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT nature
 ECOGOVERNMENTALITY
Key Ideas/Concepts:
 SD represents a paradigm shift
o Paradigms shape the goals of actors in important ways
 Influence how actors understand their interests
 How resources are allocated
 Which actors & institutions are empowered to make decisions that
affect global change.
 Why is the paradigm of sustainable development so seductive?
 SD holds the possibility of reconciling economic growth with
environmental well-being
 COMMON INTEREST – SD is framed as being in the common interests of all
individuals in the “real world”
 Q - What does this type of framing entail in terms of cooperation?
 Sustainable DEVELOPMENT SERVES AS AN INTERPRETIVE FRAME
THROUGH WHICH TO SEE THE ENVIRONMENT…
 Requirements of Sustainable development
 Harmony
 Conservation of resources
o based on scientific assessment
 i.e. Tech & Risk management must be re-oriented
o Tech – “the key link between humans & nature” must be reoriented
according to “environmental concerns
 Q - whose definition of “environmental concerns” gets used
here?
 CHANGES TO LEGAL & INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS
1. Sustainable Development – action
 Laos example – Tropical Forest Action Plan
o Example of new forms of new forms of LEGIBILITY &
ACCOUNTABILITY
 To keep Laos Tropical Forest Action Plan rolling, Bank
wanted to do a coherent analysis of the supply of ecological
resources, dynamics of ecosystems, and the utilization patterns
of different forest users
 commissioned scientific studies…
 created classification systems for nation’s forests &
land users
a. define boundaries of ecozones where there
are clear regulations as to what people are
not allowed to do
Lecture Guide for 11-21 – Critiques of Sustainable
Development (GPB 252-265)
Organization:
 Sustainable Development in action
 SD critique - Elite Instincts
 SD critique - conceptualization
o As we go through this lecture, keep in mind that projects done in the name of
sustainable development do have positive environmental and social outcomes...
The point is, it's hard to understand the degree to which the effects of SD projects
are distributed equitably on different people and landscapes...
Key Concepts/ Ideas:
 Ecogovernmentality & Elite Instincts –
o Lohmann characterizes the “common interests/future” idea about sustainable
development as a POSITION OF GLOBAL ELITES
o EI #1
 ignore the origins of “poverty”, “population growth”, and
“underdevelopment.
o EI #2
 Use code words – “security”
o EI #3
o Seek solution that requires little change to existing power structure
 the idea that $$ & tech need to flow from N-S to ensure sustainable
development tailors the solution not to the problem but to the
interests of those who created them
o
EI #4
 Identify executors of the solution w/in existing power structures
 L argues – no matter how warmly the WB appears to have
embraced the “green” slogans of the rebels, THE EMPIRE
ALWAYS STRIKES BACK
 SD - CONCEPTUALIZATION - Sharachchandra M. Lélé -- history of SD
o Lélé shows that SD didn't just pop up out of nowhere in the Bruntland Report
 i.e. SD is the product of historical, economic, political, cultural, and
ecological processes & has changed in response to shifts in each process
& in the sum of the of the intersection of the processes
 1980 - International Union for Conservation of Nature & Natural
Resources (IUNC)
 UNEnvironmental Program (UNEP)
 World Commission on Environment & Development (WCED)
 environmental degradation & poverty link
o enviro degradation said to be caused by poverty
 LÉLÉ - there isn't much evidence proving the
link between economic growth, poverty
eradication, and sustainability



LÉLÉ -The complexity of the cause of enviro
degrad & poverty is not well theorized
 excluded are discussions of deeper
socio-political change
 excluded are discussions of changes in
cultural values in N & S
traditional development objectives - basic needs, increased productivity, standard
of living
 LÉLÉ - we should ask Q's like:
 what is to be sustained?
 For whom?
 For how long?
 These are significant questions b/c SD has the power to
generate operational consensus b/w groups w/ fundamentally
different answers to these Qs
o = need to identify aspects of SD that cater to diverse
interests & those that require trade-offs (the political
aspects)
 LÉLÉ - differentiating b/w ecological & social sustainability
could be a first step
process -- understood to be necessarily participatory
o participation ("local participation") replaced "equity" & "social justice"
(which were early components of SD)
 LÉLÉ - there is a suggestion that local (decentralized)
participation = a substitute for equity & social justice
 participation - is being conceptualized as merely
Lecture Guide for 11-28– Indigenous
Ecology/ethnobiology - COICA(GPB 331-346)
Organization:
 SD critique - conceptualization
 COICA – Coordinating Body for Indigenous People’s Organization of the Amazon Basin
o As we go through this lecture, keep in mind that projects done in the name of sustainable
development do have positive environmental and social outcomes... The point is, it's hard
to understand the degree to which the effects of SD projects are distributed equitably on
different people and landscapes
Key Concepts/ Ideas:
 Difference between LÉLÉ & Lohmann
o Lohmann - sees SD as a project of the "Empire" (WB)
 SD was created by elite northerners to protect elite interests and
consolidate elite control of the flow of natural resources, capital, info,
etc...
 SD conceptualizes the solution to environmental (& poverty) issues as a
business opportunity
o LÉLÉ - SD as it is is imprecise in its conceptual underpinings
 more precision in the theory of SD (the distinction between objectives of
SD & means of achieving it, for example) will give SD more flexibility
& diversity of approaches in developing strategies that might lead to a
society in harmony w/ the environment & itself
 Regardless of how we feel about SD, (an elite project v. a good idea in need of more
theorization v. fine as it is) SD does constitute a particular set of ideas about how to see,
categorize, manage, and regulate the environment.
o So when we think about the interpretive frames through which to understand the
environment, we need to consider the various means by which the ecorationality the frame promotes is constituted
 Classification systems
 Ways of counting
 Ways of acting (daily practices) – WB trains Lao dev. Workers to act a
certain way
 Enforcement of standards
 COICA - COICA pushes particular arguments about education, indigenous sovereignty,
and evaluation/ research about development projects
o Background/ context
 Operation Amazonia
 1986 - Mendes meets Steve Schwartzmann from the Environmental
Defense fund
 1987 - Bruntland report
 1989 COICA forms
 COICA - letters to lenders & environmentalists
 Challenges to COICA's efficacy?
Lecture Guide for 11-30–12/5 -- COICA & Monkey
Wrench Gang
Organization:
 COICA – Coordinating Body for Indigenous People’s Organization of the Amazon Basin
 Monkey Wrench Gang - Geography of
Key Concepts/ Ideas:
 COICA - COICA pushes particular arguments about education, indigenous sovereignty,
and evaluation/ research about development projects
o Background/ context
 Operation Amazonia
 1986 - Mendes meets Steve Schwartzmann from the Environmental
Defense fund
 1987 - Bruntland report
 1989 COICA forms
 COICA - letters to lenders & environmentalists
 COICA - alternative conceptualization of sustainable development
 Challenges to COICA's efficacy?
 Abbey
o From The Monkey Wrench Gang, we get a fictional representation of how a small
group of people decides to try to reclaim some semblance of control in the face
of, as Doc puts it, “the iron treads of a technological juggernaut, A mindless
machine.
o Education
o Employment
 1975 Monkey Wrench Gang – ecoterrorism handbook v. entertainment?
o message - environmental movement must be radicalized
 Abbey's message
o development/progress
o property
o violence
o sabotage (etymology?)
o enemies of the MWG?
 Geography of the Monkey Wrench Gang
o Significant places
o Q - why is the desert setting such a powerful setting for this book?
o Q - Parallels b/w Abbey & previous readings (ethics? progress? technology?
development? seeing nature?)