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Political-industrial ecology: An introduction
Geoforum
Political-industrial ecology: An introduction Political ecology and industrial ecology have emerged as influential, but distinct, intellectual thought traditions devoted to understanding the transformation of nature-society relations and processes. Evolving from the pioneering work by physicists and environmental engineers in the late 1960s (e.g. Ayres and Kneese, 1969), industrial ecology emerged as a distinct field in the 1990s (Graedel and Allenby, 2003). It is a largely normative project that seeks to quantify and dematerialize the resource stocks and flows of industrial ecosystems, product life cycles, and societal metabolisms. To systematically dissect production-consumption processes across cradle-to-grave phases (e.g. extraction, manufacturing, use, reuse), industrial ecology deploys material flow analysis, life cycle assessment, environmental input-output modeling, amongst other methods, and has cultivated more abstract principles and practices such as industrial symbiosis and socioeconomic metabolism. As the field has matured, industrial ecology has branched out by becoming more heterogeneous, not only in terms of topical foci and methodology, but also in terms of how it understands the material basis of societal transitions (cf. Vienna School of Social Ecology; Haberl et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the overwhelming focus of industrial ecology is on the material rather than social dimensions of resource use. Political ecology emerged at roughly the same time (the term is usually attributed to Wolf in 1972) out of concern that environmental science and dominant narratives of environmental change were 'apolitical' in that they did not sufficiently consider the role of social and, especially, political economic processes in shaping these outcomes (Robbins, 2012). Its roots are much older than this, of course, with inspiration ranging from Humboldt and Marsh to Kropotkin and Marx. Political ecology has evolved to become a powerful thought tradition that now reaches across geography to cognate fields such as anthropology, environmental sociology, development studies, environmental history, and science and technology studies (STS). Political ecology investigates connections between political economy and environmental change, with special attention to issues of equity, power, access, and governance. Epistemologically and methodologically pluralistic, by explicitly questioning and destabilizing apolitical accounts of environmental change, political ecology is decidedly critical. Despite the shared focus on nature-society relations, until recently, industrial ecology and political ecology have not substantively engaged each other. This is curious given that both fields study resource flows and their transformation. As Liverman et al. (2003, p. 273) lamented in a review on global change research, despite obvious synergies, "Relatively few geographers have been involved in the study of industrial ecology." But geographers and political ecologists are starting to engage in new and exciting ways. This has been sparked by the potential of leveraging theoretical and methodological strengths of each field to more deeply explore how ecological, political, and socioeconomic process shape the relationships between a product, commodity, or material process, its primary inputs and outputs, and the relevant social and ecological implications. This led Newell and Cousins (2015) to propose the creation of a new subfield, political-industrial ecology, to enable the cross-fertilization of ideas, epistemologies, and approaches between political and industrial ecology. This editorial provides the opportunity to introduce a working definition, rationale, and process for this emerging subfield: Political-Industrial Ecology (PIE) represents a confluence between two thought traditions: political ecology and industrial ecology. PIE focuses on the ways in which resource (e.g. material and energy) flows and stocks shape (and are shaped by) environmental, socioeconomic , and political processes and patterns over time and space. As part of a broader rebalancing of nature-society relations, PIE is committed to situating resource extraction, transformation, and consumption within their social and political economic context. This also includes a commitment to altering, reducing, or transforming these stocks and flowsas guided by principles of equity and justice. PIE embraces epistemological and methodology pluralism, which often (but not necessarily) entails scholars working collaboratively on particular projects. The friction between the varied epistemologies of political ecology and industrial ecology is highly useful as it yields unexpected and transformative understandings and approaches. This useful friction is made apparent by a dialectic and quasi-fusion between the respective qualitative and quantitative methodologies found in both fields, including modeling of resource flow and form, spatial analysis, historical materialism, ethnography, and more. This theme issue-a collection of six research papers and one perspective essay (Breetz, 2016)-offers an exciting entrée into what PIE is and, especially, what it might become. Most of the contributors to this issue participated in formative sessions that explored the interface between political and industrial ecology. This included a panel session entitled 'Theorizing Political-Industrial Ecology' at the 2015 American Association of Geographers (AAG) conference in Chicago, which evaluated epistemological and methodological concerns associated with industrial ecology approaches, including narratives of ecological modernization, apolitical industrial ecologies, and the bifurcation of nature and society. The following year, at the 2016 AAG in San Francisco, four paper sessions on PIE further explored these issues through the presentation of empirical research on resource flows ranging from water, to e-waste, to biofuels. The remainder of this editorial is divided into three sections. First, we briefly summarize historical antecedents of PIE, focusing on the uptake of
Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2008
As industrial ecology (IE) solidifies conceptually and methodologically, and as it gains visibility and legitimacy in academia, industry, and government, it is important that the IE community periodically evaluate the status of its emerging institutional arrangements. At the same time, industrial ecologists should assess the political relations developing between the field and the larger world. We analyze four institutional criteria: professional legitimacy, viable clientele, entrepreneurial acumen, and occupational opportunities, as well as a more controversial fifth measure-political relevance. Drawing a comparison with the field of ecology, we argue that efforts to foster IE institutionally can, ironically, conflict with the objective of seeing IE become "the science and engineering of sustainability. " The article concludes by reflecting on the importance of this kind of critical appraisal and on why many observers of the field remain hopeful.
Success and Its Price: The Institutionalization and Political Relevance of Industrial Ecology
Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2008
As industrial ecology (IE) solidifies conceptually and methodologically, and as it gains visibility and legitimacy in academia, industry, and government, it is important that the IE community periodically evaluate the status of its emerging institutional arrangements. At the same time, industrial ecologists should assess the political relations developing between the field and the larger world. We analyze four institutional criteria: professional legitimacy, viable clientele, entrepreneurial acumen, and occupational opportunities, as well as a more controversial fifth measure-political relevance. Drawing a comparison with the field of ecology, we argue that efforts to foster IE institutionally can, ironically, conflict with the objective of seeing IE become "the science and engineering of sustainability. " The article concludes by reflecting on the importance of this kind of critical appraisal and on why many observers of the field remain hopeful.
What's Nature Got To Do With It? A Situated Historical Perspective on Socio-Natural Commodities
Nature(s) have been commodified since the early days of capitalism, but through processes and socio-natural relationships mediated by their times, histories and localities. While the conditions under which nature's commodities are being trademarked today may be new, their potential for commodification is not. Commodifications of nature should not come as a surprise to environmental social scientists and activists. In this article, I argue that commodification of 'nature's products, places and processes' produces new sorts of socio-natures. Situated histories of rubber are particularly relevant because, like carbon, ecosystem services and other recently commodified natures, rubber sits comfortably on the line between a fictitious commodity and a commodity produced explicitly for market: the latex alone has almost no use value, and to give it any exchange value, it requires processing. Yet analytically, it is still considered a 'natural commodity', different from 'synthetic rubber' and other tradable tree latexes in qualities and socio-natural characteristics. However, it is the social relations constituting rubber's production and trade in various rainforest and agro-forestry environments that have given it a positive or negative connotation, rather than its natural properties or the ecological contexts within which it has been produced. By situating rubber in three of its globally important temporal and spatial contexts, I show how it has been subjected to fairy-tale-like stories that masked and naturalized its commodity lives of the moment. Understanding how history is told or remains untold is thus an essential part of the politics of knowledge production, but also of human experience and mobilization for change. It should be part of any political ecology analysis.
ENVIRONMENTAL ECOLOGY: PARALYZED THROUGH POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC RE-MODIFICATIONS AND FIEFDOM
The modern material mechanized world's political and economic ideology as far as environmental concerns is based on the policy of self-determination and exploration which relies blindly on biodiversity utilization, desertification, deforestation, industrial growth, chemical wastage, poisonous emissions. Moreover the environmental issues function on local and global phenomenon controlled through decision making of hierarchies of power. Hence modernization and development works at multiple levels including the roles, actions and practices of government agents, civil society and individuals. It connects local, national, international and global environmental domain and discourse, which attempts to bring forth the social impacts and climate change due to environmental problems arising out of scientific advancements.This paper attempts to bring together Ecology and Economics-the disparate disciplines of different nature by probing into the sole objectives of both respectively. It aims to investigate how the local sources become the source of subsistence for inhabitants. Thirdly the paper will take up the role and responsibilities of the stakeholders to reconstruct the dysfunctional ecological balance and to recompense the loss that has occurred due to blindness towards global environmental health and harmony.
FORUM Success and Its Price The Institutionalization and Political Relevance of Industrial Ecology
2015
As industrial ecology (IE) solidifies conceptually and method-ologically, and as it gains visibility and legitimacy in academia, industry, and government, it is important that the IE commu-nity periodically evaluate the status of its emerging institutional arrangements. At the same time, industrial ecologists should assess the political relations developing between the field and the larger world. We analyze four institutional criteria: pro-fessional legitimacy, viable clientele, entrepreneurial acumen, and occupational opportunities, as well as a more controver-sial fifth measure—political relevance. Drawing a comparison with the field of ecology, we argue that efforts to foster IE in-stitutionally can, ironically, conflict with the objective of seeing IE become “the science and engineering of sustainability. ” The article concludes by reflecting on the importance of this kind of critical appraisal and on why many observers of the field remain hopeful. Keywords environmental policy ...
Ecological Political Economy: Towards a Strategic-Relational Approach
This paper identifies three distinct traditions in what might be described as 'ecological political economy'. First, a " Promethean " approach posits that capitalism has a relentless drive towards growth and bears responsibility for the wholesale transformation of nature. Second, critics of sustainable capitalism acknowledge the possibility of capitalist futures with a better management of natural resources and carbon emissions. The Strategic Relational Approach, developed by Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum, points to a unique third type of ecological political economy. Each approach is shown to have distinct views concerning the commodification of nature, the role of the state, and ways to understand ecological and social transitions. The Strategic Relational Approach points to the possibility of counter-hegemonic strategies and collective mobilization to transform the state and so redirect, control and contain capitalist relations with nature.
Journal of Political Ecology -- Special Issue on Alternative and Non-Capitalist Political Ecologies
The articles in this special section, by offering ethnographically grounded reflections on diverse strains of economic activism, begin to articulate a non-capitalocentric political ecology that we think can help scholaractivists politicize, reimagine, and recreate socio-ecological relations. In this introductory article, we offer a useful vision of how scholar-activists can engage with and support more just and sustainable ways of organizing human-human and human-environment relations. Specifically, we argue that engaged researchers can significantly contribute to a meaningful "ecological revolution" by (1) examining the tremendously diverse, already-existing experiments with other ways of being in the world, (2) helping to develop alternative visions, analyses, narratives, and desires that can move people to desire and adopt those ways of being, and (3) actively supporting and constructing economies and ecologies with alternative ethical orientations. Each article in this collection attempts one or more of these goals, and this introductory article provides a conceptual grounding for these ethnographic studies and a synthesis of some of their primary contributions. We begin by describing why critique is analytically and politically inadequate and explain why we think a non-capitalocentric ontology offers an essential complement for engaged scholarship. We then turn to the work of J.K. Gibson-Graham and the Community Economies Collective in order to explain how ideas of overdetermination, diverse economies, and performativity better equip the field of political ecology to contribute to alternative futures. And finally, we discuss how the articles in this volume reconceptualize values, politics, and scale in a manner that illuminates our scholarly and activist efforts.
Reinterpreting Industrial Ecology
Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2011
This article argues that industrial ecology has, to date, largely engaged with the ecological sciences at a superficial level, which has both attracted criticism of the field and limited its practical application for sustainable industrial development. On the basis of an analysis of the principle of succession, the role of waste, and the concept of diversity, the article highlights some of the key misconceptions that have resulted from the superficial engagement with the science of ecology. It is argued that industrial ecology should not be seen as a metaphor for industrial development; industrial ecology is the ecology of industry and should be studied as such. There are manifold general principles of ecology that underpin our understanding of the world; however, the physical manifestation and causal effects of these principles are particular to the system and its constituent elements under analysis. It is thus proposed that context-specific observation and analysis of industry are required before theoretical and practical advancement of the field can be achieved.