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Policy That Works for Forests and People: Real Prospects for Governance and Livelihoods
by Stephen Bass James MayersSince its original publication by the International Institute for Environment and Development in 1999, Policy That Works for Forests and People has been recognised as the most authoritative study to date of policy processes that affect forests and people. Providing a thorough analysis of the issues, options and factors that determine different outcomes and bolstered by a major annex containing tools and tactics, the book offers clear and practical advice on how to formulate, manage and implement policies appropriate to different contexts. These are policies that result in real improvements in the governance, use and economic benefits that can flow from forests to those who depend upon them. This book is essential reading for policy-makers, forestry practitioners and academics and students in all areas of forest policy, management and governance.
Policy and Governance in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A Relational Equity Approach (Earthscan Studies in Natural Resource Management)
by Nikolai Mouraviev Anastasia KoulouriThis book discusses the balance of priorities within the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus and its impact on policy development and implementation, highlighting innovative perspectives in adopting a holistic approach to identify, analyse and manage the nexus component interdependencies. Due to increasing demands for natural resources, the WEF nexus has emerged as a response to the numerous global challenges. Addressing WEF challenges often involves balancing multiple and competing priorities and identifying and managing interrelations, synergies and trade-offs between the three components of the nexus. In this volume the authors focus on the dynamics between multiple stakeholders, such as governments, businesses, NGOs and local communities, when addressing WEF challenges by adopting a nexus approach. The book argues that effective engagement of multiple stakeholders can address difficulties arising from the introduction of an integrated approach to WEF policy design and implementation, increasing the potential benefits. The book also looks at the effect of international relations and regional power struggles on resolving cross-border WEF nexus issues. Case studies are drawn from Kenya, Central Asia, USA and Peru, highlighting key themes, such as how collaborative governance, enabled and facilitated by relational equity management, can be viewed as an innovative way to reconcile competing priorities. The combination of theoretical and case study chapters makes the book of interest to a wide audience, including scholars and advanced students of sustainable development, agriculture and food studies, water and energy policy design and governance, as well as to practitioners working in the fields of water, energy and food security.
Polishing the Glass Storm: A Sequence
by Katherine SoniatWith Polishing the Glass Storm, Katherine Soniat constructs a riveting sequence of verse that explores how archetype can expand both personal vision and narrative perspective as we hone our experiences into an understanding of shared commonality. In poems that weave a linguistic web between the metaphysical and material realms, Soniat reminds us of the many ways in which language can reinforce otherwise frail connections between vision and experience.
Political Agroecology: Advancing the Transition to Sustainable Food Systems (Advances in Agroecology)
by Manuel González de Molina Paulo Frederico Petersen Francisco Garrido Peña Francisco Roberto CaporalPolitical Agroecology is the first book to offer a systematic and articulated reflection on Political Agroecology from the Agroecological perspective. It defines the disciplinary field responsible for designing and producing actions, institutions and regulations aimed at achieving agrarian sustainability. In short, it aims to build a political theory that makes the scaling-up of agroecological experiences possible, turning them into the foundation of a new and alternative food regime. The book proposes theoretical, practical and epistemological foundations of a new theoretical and practical field of work for agroecologists: Political Agroecology. It establishes a framework for a common agroecological strategy, covering the different levels of collective action and the different instruments with which it can be developed. This will be essential reading for agroecologists, environmentalists, farming and food communities, and an ideal textbook for advanced agroecology courses in universities. Key features: Offers a unique state of the art on this fundamental new topic: Political Agroecology Presents a complete introduction to the political and institutional aspects of Agroecology, covering the whole food system Offers an important tool for searching agrarian sustainability Provides a broad epistemological, theoretical and methodological focus, exploring the connection between the different levels and scales involved in agroecological theory and practice
Political Change and Environmental Policymaking in Mexico
by Jordi DiezThis book explores environmental policymaking in Mexico as a vehicle to understanding the broader changes in the policy process within a system undergoing a democratic transformation. It constitutes the first major analysis of environmental policymaking in Mexico at the national level, and examines the implementation of forestry policy in Mexico's largest rain forest, the Selva Lacandona of the state of Chiapas.
Political Ecologies of Meat (Routledge Studies in Political Ecology)
by Harvey Neo Jody EmelLivestock production worldwide is increasing rapidly, in part due to economic growth and demand for meat in industrializing countries. Yet there are many concerns about the sustainability of increased meat production and consumption, from perspectives including human health, animal welfare, climate change and environmental pollution. This book tackles the key issues of contemporary meat production and consumption through a lens of political ecology, which emphasizes the power relations producing particular social, economic and cultural interactions with non-human nature. Three main topics are addressed: the political ecology of global livestock production trends; changes in production systems around the world and their implications for environmental justice; and existing and emerging governance strategies for meat production and consumption systems and their implications. Case studies of different systems at varying scales are included, drawn from Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe. The book includes an editorial introduction to set the context and synthesize key messages for the reader.
Political Ecology
by Karl Zimmerer Thomas J. BassettThis volume offers a unique, integrative perspective on the political and ecological processes shaping landscapes and resource use across the global North and South. Twelve carefully selected case studies demonstrate how contemporary geographical theories and methods can contribute to understanding key environment-and-development issues and working toward effective policies. Topics addressed include water and biodiversity resources, urban and national resource planning, scientific concepts of resource management, and ideas of nature and conservation in the context of globalization. Giving particular attention to evolving conceptions of nature-society interaction and geographical scale, an introduction and conclusion by the editors provide a clear analytical focus for the volume and summarize important developments and debates in the field.
Political Ecology of Agriculture: Agroecology and Post-Development
by Omar Felipe GiraldoThis study discusses an original proposal aimed at critically analyzing the power relations that exist in contemporary agriculture. The author endeavors herein to clarify some of the strategies that industrial agribusiness, in collusion with the state and multilateral structures, sets in motion in order to functionalize the lives of millions of farmers, so that their bodies, enunciations, and sensibilities can be repurposed in accordance with the dynamics of capital accumulation. The argument is based on the idea that agro-extractivism cannot be thought of exclusively as an economic-political and technological system, but as a complex interweaving of cultural meanings, aesthetics, and affections, which, amalgamated under the abstract name of "development", act as a support for the whole system's scaffolding. The book also explores the other side of the coin, describing how, and under what conditions, social movements are responding to the calamities generated by this model. The central thesis is that many ongoing agroecological processes are providing one of the most interesting guidelines at present for visualizing transitions towards post-development, post-extractivism, and the construction of multiple worlds beyond the sphere of capital. Political ecology of agriculture joins the calls that question the cultural project of modernity and the predatory sense imposed by the globalized food empire, and invites recognition of the importance of agroecology in the context of the end of the fossil-fuel era and the likely collapse of our industry-based civilization.
Political Ecology of Everyday Resistance and State Building: A Case of the Ho of Jharkhand
by Dhiraj KumarResource extraction and conflicts over natural resources are a global phenomenon, including in India. This book explores the process of state formation through developmental intervention in the resource-rich areas of Jharkhand in eastern India which are inhabited by the indigenous Ho community. The cultural practices and livelihoods of Indigenous tribes, like the Ho community in Jharkhand, are deeply linked with the local ecology. The conflict in Jharkhand is intertwined with state development projects and capitalist interventions. This book examines the history of these projects and the issues of territorialisation, dispossession, accumulation, and marginalization which communities have been fighting against for many decades. It examines the process of development policies and projects shaping and restructuring the resource-rich ecology in the region and addresses the interrelated issues of development-induced dispossession, resistance, ecological transformation, governance, illegalities, and state-building. It focuses on the questions: what do development projects bring to the Ho community; what induces them to resist and negotiate; and how state decentralization schemes and local governance in resource conflict areas strengthen State capacities? The book highlights the consequences on the livelihoods and cultural practices of the local people because of ecological transformation and everyday resistance. Comprehensive and important, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of anthropology, sociology, political ecology, social work, development studies, ecology, developmental sociology, indigenous studies, law, and economic anthropology.
Political Ecology of Industrial Crops (Earthscan Food and Agriculture)
by Abubakari AhmedThis book employs a political ecology lens to unravel how industrial crops catalyse ecological, agrarian, socioeconomic, and institutional transformation. Using the conceptual tools and perspectives of political ecology, namely multi-scalar analysis and attention to marginalisation, social difference, and discourses and narratives, this volume provides a critical and comprehensive assessment of the transformative power of industrial cropping systems. It presents a truly international overview by drawing on a range of case studies from the global South, including soybeans in South America, cashew nuts in Guinea Bissau, cotton in India, maize in China, jatropha in Ghana, sugarcane in Peru and Eswatini, and oil palm in Ghana and Peru. The unique case studies are put into perspective with chapters introducing the key concepts of political ecology and critical dimensions of industrial cropping systems related to large-scale land acquisitions, land grabbing, and marginal land. The individual chapters employ different approaches all rooted in political ecology, thus offering a rich overview of how the field engages with such cropping systems. Overall, this volume contains valuable propositions for improving current policies and practices in industrial crop settings in both developed and developing countries. Through its comprehensive and interdisciplinary outlook, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of political ecology, agrarian studies, development studies, and ecological economics.
Political Ecology of REDD+ in Indonesia: Agrarian Conflicts and Forest Carbon (Routledge Studies in Political Ecology)
by Jonas I. HeinIndonesia’s commitment to reducing land-based greenhouse gas emissions significantly includes the expansion of conservation areas, but these developments are not free of conflicts. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of agrarian conflicts in the context of the implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and forest carbon offsetting in Indonesia, a country where deforestation is a major issue. The author analyzes new kinds of transnational agrarian conflicts which have strong implications for global environmental justice in the REDD+ pilot province of Jambi on the island of Sumatra. The chapters cover: the rescaling of the governance of forests; privatization of conservation; and the transnational dimensions of agrarian conflicts and peasants' resistance in the context of REDD+. The book builds on an innovative conceptual approach linking political ecology, politics of scale and theories of power. It fills an important knowledge and research gap by focusing on the socially differentiated impacts of REDD+ and new forest carbon offsetting initiatives in Southeast Asia, providing a multi-scalar perspective. It is aimed at scholars in the areas of political ecology, human geography, climate change mitigation, forest and natural resource management, as well as environmental justice and agrarian studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781351066020, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Political Ecology: A Critical Engagement with Global Environmental Issues
by Tor A. Benjaminsen Hanne SvarstadThis textbook introduces political ecology as an interdisciplinary approach to critically examine land and environmental issues. Drawing on discourse and narrative analysis, Marxist political economy and insights from natural science, the book points at similarities, differences and inter-connections between environmental governance in the global North and South. A wide range of carefully curated case studies are presented, with a particular focus on Africa and Norway. Key themes of power, justice and environmental sustainability run through all chapters. The authors challenge established views and leading discourses and present research findings that may surprise readers. Chapters cover topics including wildlife conservation, climate change and conflicts, land grabbing, the effects of population growth on the environment, jihadism in the African Sahel, bioprospecting, feminist political ecology, and struggles around carbon mitigation within a fossil fuel-based economy. This introductory text provides tools and examples for both undergraduate and postgraduate students to better understand on-going struggles about some of the world’s most urgent challenges.
Political Ecology: Deconstructing Capital and Territorializing Life
by Enrique LeffThis book offers a conceptual framework for the critical understanding of the present socio-environmental conflicts. It reflects on the evolution of subject and thought, a shift in environmental thinking triggered by the development of eco-territorial conflicts and the social responses given to the environmental question. Bringing together 40 years of the authors writing and research, the book explores the transition from ecological economics and historical materialism to ecological Marxism. It unpacks the forging of political ecology from value theory in political economy, to ecological distribution and ecologies of difference; a transition to an environmental rationality grounded in the ontology of diversity, a politics of difference and an ethics of otherness. This evolution in thinking gives consistency to a theoretical discourse able to respond to the territorial conflicts generated by the radicalization of the environmental question as a key social issue of our times. The book is a call to respond to the urgent challenge of reversing the tendency towards the entropic death of the planet and to building a sustainable world order.
Political Economy of China’s Climate Policy (Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path)
by Jiahua PanThis book covers major advances in China’s climate policy over the past decade and presents theoretical approaches to climate justice and low-carbon transformation from a Chinese perspective. It analyzes the political economy of China’s climate policy, and subsequently addresses the following major aspects: carbon emissions and human rights, equity and carbon budgets, economic analysis of low-carbon transformation, economics of adaptation to climate change, and international climate regime building.
Political Economy, Race, and the Image of Nature in the United States, 1825–1878 (Routledge Research in Art and Politics)
by Evan Robert NeelyPolitical Economy, Race, and the Image of Nature in the United States, 1825–1878 is an interdisciplinary work analyzing the historical origins of a dominant concept of Nature in the culture of the United States during the period of its expansion across the continent.Chapters analyze the ways in which “Nature” became a discursive site where theories of race and belonging, adaptation and environment, and the uses of literary and pictorial representation were being renegotiated, forming the basis for an ideal of the human and the nonhuman world that is still with us. Through an interdisciplinary approach involving the fields of visual culture, political economy, histories of racial identity, and ecocritical studies, the book examines the work of seminal figures in a variety of literary and artistic disciplines and puts the visual culture of the United States at the center of intellectual trends that have enormous implications for contemporary cultural practice.The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, American studies, environmental studies/ecocriticism, critical race theory, and semiotics.
Political Landscapes: Forests, Conservation, and Community in Mexico
by Christopher R. BoyerFollowing the 1917 Mexican Revolution inhabitants of the states of Chihuahua and Michoacán received vast tracts of prime timberland as part of Mexico's land redistribution program. Although locals gained possession of the forests, the federal government retained management rights, which created conflict over subsequent decades among rural, often indigenous villages; government; and private timber companies about how best to manage the forests. Christopher R. Boyer examines this history in Political Landscapes, where he argues that the forests in Chihuahua and Michoacán became what he calls "political landscapes"--that is, geographies that become politicized by the interactions between opposing actors--through the effects of backroom deals, nepotism, and political negotiations. Understanding the historical dynamic of community forestry in Mexico is particularly critical for those interested in promoting community involvement in the use and conservation of forestlands around the world. Considering how rural and indigenous people have confronted, accepted, and modified the rationalizing projects of forest management foisted on them by a developmentalist state is crucial before community management is implemented elsewhere.
Political Nature: Environmentalism and the Interpretation of Western Thought
by John M. MeyerConcern over environmental problems is prompting us to reexamine established thinking about society and politics. The challenge is to find a way for the public concern for the environment to become more integral to social, economic, and political decision making.
Political Opportunities for Climate Policy
by Roger KarapinAnalysis of climate change policies focuses mainly on the prospects for international agreements or how climate policies should be designed. Yet effective domestic climate policies are essential to any global solution, and we know too little about how and why such policies are adopted. Political Opportunities for Climate Policy examines in depth the causes of effective climate policies in the United States, using a statistical analysis of all fifty states and long-term case studies of California, New York, and the federal government. Roger Karapin analyzes twenty-two episodes in which policies were adopted, blocked, or reversed. He shows that actors and events have positively affected climate policy making, despite the constraints presented by political institutions and powerful fossil fuel industries. Climate policy advocates have succeeded when they mobilized vigorously and astutely during windows of opportunity - which opened when events converged to raise both problem awareness and the political commitment to address them.
Political Power and Environmental Sustainability in Gulf Monarchies (Contemporary Gulf Studies)
by Tobias ZumbraegelThis book offers a new perspective about the Gulf Arab states entering a post-oil era by looking at the political factors behind the green transformation. It discusses the recent ‘environmental enthusiasm’ in the oil- and gas-rich Gulf monarchies by asking how political power can be constituted through advocating environmental sustainability. While hydrocarbon-wealthy Gulf monarchies have been viewed as the globe’s ‘hydrocarbon powerhouse’ with an immense ecological footprint, efforts towards sustainability and environmental protection measures are increasingly monitored. Climate Change, environmental, degradation and the global pressure towards a low-carbon development are threatening the very basis of economic and political power of the oil- and gas-exporting Gulf monarchies. So far, discussions about this fundamental transformation have barely elaborated how it affects and reorganizes political power games in the region. This book attempts to overcome the dominant focus of techno economic drivers of change and uncovers how environmental sustainability impacts state-society and state-elite relationships as well as shaping regional and even global geopolitics.
Political Responsibility for Climate Change: Ethical Institutions and Fact-Sensitive Theory (Routledge Advances in Climate Change Research)
by Theresa Birgitta ScaveniusThis book offers new perspectives on how social and political institutions can respond more effectively to climate change. Theresa Scavenius presents a concept of moral responsibility that does not address the obligations of individual citizens, but instead assesses the moral responsibility of institutionalised actors, such as governments, parliaments, and other governmental agencies. This focus on political responsibility is something that up until now has largely been neglected by moral theory, but Scavenius argues in this book that accountability must be assigned to institutionalised group agents. With this new research, she outlines building blocks for a new agenda of climate studies by offering an innovative approach to climate governance and democratic climate action at a time when many political initiatives have failed and crucially outlines the necessity of approaching moral dilemmas from a fact sensitive political theoretical approach. Written in a clear and engaging style, this volume will be an invaluable reference for researchers interested in moral philosophy, climate change, environmental politics and policy, and institutional theory.
Political Spirituality in an Age of Eco-Apocalypse
by James W. PerkinsonThis book 'hunts and gathers' across different historical epochs and situations, juxtaposing biblical materials and hip-hop, Christian colonialism and vodou, personal experience and racial politics, poetics and high theory. It is compelled by a desire to challenge the current crisis of sustainability from the point of view of indigenous communities and deep ancestry. Author James W. Perkinson ably synthesizes material from a diverse range of fields, including anarcho-primitivism, biblicalstudies, and history of religions in order to argue for a 'turn to indigeneity. ' The book's motive force is a deep concern for humanity's future in the face of eco-disasters like climate change and population overshoot as well as the compounding problems brought on by political economy calamities. Given the growing trend toward a turn away from institutionalized religious commitment and toward a more generalized and post-modern mix of practices and interests typically styled as 'spiritual,' the work proposes 'political spirituality' as a theme for investigation. Throughout the book, Perkinson raises the question: What does it really meant to be a human being? This query is posed not merely as a philosophical inquiry or existential musing, but as a personal and political conundrum arising from the overwhelming crises now engulfing our global reality. The book constitutes a poetic 'walk about' across quite different historical epochs and disparate contexts. Creatively foraging for indigenous memories and insurgent energies to help us live and cope in our modern state of unsustainability, the work aims to re-animate love of the wild and 'interspecies listening' for the sake of survival. The text articulates a deep suspicion toward our growing fascination with a kind of 'techno-messianism,' while nonetheless exploring some of the artistic innovations and meanings emerging from industrialization and digitalization.
Political Spirituality in the Face of Climate Collapse: Of Monsters, Megaliths, Mules, and Muck
by James W. PerkinsonThis book takes its motive force from our contemporary climate crisis. It seeks to reorient human (and especially Christian) understanding, towards a more ecologically-focused, indigenously-informed way-of-living. James W. Perkinson argues that our current eco-climatic and socio-political emergency is the culmination of a 5,000-year history of supremacist “settlement,” in which city-states first emergent in Mesopotamia and Egypt not only begin coercively organizing labor into surplus production and ecosystems into inordinate and destructive yields of “goods,” but in the process, also simultaneously “deform” the Spirit-World “haloing” of natural phenomenon into outsized service of imperial reach. Perkinson recognizes globalized humanity as an emerging monstrosity destroying both human culture and the world. How we re-envision and revalue, at our critical juncture, our inescapable interdependence with the more-than-human world as peer and teacher and even “elder,” is the central theme that throbs below the surface of the very disparate topics commanding attention in each chapter.
Political Theology of the Earth: Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
by Catherine KellerAmid melting glaciers, rising waters, and spreading droughts, Earth has ceased to tolerate our pretense of mastery over it. But how can we confront climate change when political crises keep exploding in the present? Noted ecotheologian and feminist philosopher of religion Catherine Keller reads the feedback loop of political and ecological depredation as secularized apocalypse. Carl Schmitt’s political theology of the sovereign exception sheds light on present ideological warfare; racial, ethnic, economic, and sexual conflict; and hubristic anthropocentrism. If the politics of exceptionalism are theological in origin, she asks, should we not enlist the world’s religious communities as part of the resistance?Keller calls for dissolving the opposition between the religious and the secular in favor of a broad planetary movement for social and ecological justice. When we are confronted by populist, authoritarian right wings founded on white male Christian supremacism, we can counter with a messianically charged, often unspoken theology of the now-moment, calling for a complex new public. Such a political theology of the earth activates the world’s entangled populations, joined in solidarity and committed to revolutionary solutions to the entwined crises of the Anthropocene.
Political Transition and Inclusive Development in Malawi: The democratic dividend (Routledge Studies in African Development)
by Dan Banik Blessings ChinsingaMalawi is among the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa that has witnessed significant improvements in relation to meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. It exhibits some of the main challenges facing African democracies while they attempt to consolidate the benefits of democratisation. Political Transition and Inclusive Development in Malawi critically analyses opportunities and constraints related to the impact of democracy on development in one of the world’s poorest countries. The book explores how, and to what extent, processes related to democratic and economic governance can be strengthened in order to make political and administrative authorities more responsive to development needs. It also considers characteristics of successful implementation of public policy and the effective and timely delivery of basic services in local contexts; increased citizen participation and dialogue with local government authorities; factors that enable civil society organisations to hold political and administrative officials to account; and better utilisation of academic research for improved evidence-based policy formulation and implementation. This volume will be of great interest to scholars in development studies, African studies, politics, law and anthropology, as well as policymakers and those interested in democracy, governance, human rights and the implementation of anti-poverty programmes, development administration and decentralisation.
Politicization of Ecological Issues: From Environmental Forms to Environmental Motives
by Gabrielle BouleauThe legitimacy of environmental policies is an issue of increasing concern for analysts. Ecological stakes are deemed to be global, but global public decisions are rare and implemented with difficulty. Dissensus prevails on environmental ethics and there is little evidence of any greening of policy tools. The global framing of the environment fails to account for how people relate to the ecological realities which surround them. Rather than placing the environment at a distance, Politicization of Ecological Issues advocates for building legitimacy from people’s perceptions of singular forms and patterns in their environment. Based on scholarly literature in political ecology and empirical cases of water policy in Europe, the book shows how the qualification of environmental realities has been politicized and translated into motives for public action. Similarly, it argues that theoretical debates addressing the ecological crisis are not only dealing with ideas, but rather advocating for specific environmental forms that are deemed to be motives of hope or worry.