EIAs, power and political ecology (original) (raw)
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Geoforum, 2017
Academics across disciplines are increasingly employing political ecology lenses to unpack conflicts related to resource extraction. Yet, an area that remains under-researched and under-theorised is how environmental impact assessments (EIAs) are embedded in politics and imagined as sites of power relations. Drawing on longterm fieldwork in Zimbabwe engaging small-scale gold miners, EIA consultants and government officials, this article examines the changing social significance of EIAs during and after a nationwide police operation that was framed by authorities as targeting non-compliance with environmental policy, illegal mining and illicit trading. Among other articulations of dissent, small-scale miners associations protested that EIA enforcement rhetoric served unjustly as a rationale for halting livelihoods and extracting rent from miners in times of economic difficulty. The article challenges EIA narratives that focus narrowly on risk management or governance failure, exploring technocratic obfuscations and how enforcement rhetoric was perceived in relation to criminalisation and coercion, expert environmental consultancy cultures and adapted legacies of colonial practice in contemporary dynamics of rule. Heavy-handed policing under the banner of enforcing order impinged on livelihoods and had counterproductive effects in addressing environmental problems, while complying with expensive EIA report-producing requirements was far beyond the means of most small-scale miners. The article rethinks how technical EIA rhetoric becomes entangled in spaces of contentious politics, the perils of looking only at particular scales of relations to the exclusion of others, and what it means to re-engage Donald Moore's notion of "shifting alignments and contingent constellations of power." Suggesting future directions in political ecology theorising in relation to extractive sectors, it calls for careful attention to the situated politics of EIAssituated in time and space, amid varying relations of powerand how multiple hegemonic practices are conceptualised and challenged.
Political ecologies of resource extraction: Agendas pendientes
ERLACS, 2015
Research related to extractive industries has grown significantly over the last decade. As the commodities boom appears to be winding down, this essay outlines areas for potential future research. Emphasis is placed on the need for research on: the relationships among extractivism, climate change and societal transitions; the aggregate effects of the commodity boom on the environment, on societal structures, on elite formation and on cultural politics; the implications of resource extraction on the couplings of space and power at different scales and with particular reference to the Colombian peace process; and the gendered and generation dimensions of the effects of extractivism on rights and citizenship. The paper calls for ongoing collaborations among scholars and activists, for greater collaboration among social and bio-physical scientists, for comparative analysis with regions beyond Latin America and for innovative ways of bridging research and the public sphere.
International Development Policy , 2023
The green economy and ‘green growth’ are not solutions to ecological and climate catastrophe. The dominate trajectory of techno-industrial development has to be reconsidered and placed within ecological limits. The ‘social’, related to environmental and climate justice, tends towards subordinating the ecological in the maintenance of modernist infrastructures, and thus towards breaking efforts to achieve socio ecological harmony. The following examines the realities of resource extractivism, but also tensions within academic debates on these matters. This entails locating an important ‘grey area’within these debates, which has significant implications for imagining pathways to address ecological and climate catastrophe. This grey area—questioning the difference between extractivism and industrialism—also persists within archetypal positions on land acquisition and shades of reform in environmental justice studies, and, to a lesser degree, in the (academic) decolonial literature. This chapter contends that environmental justice reinforces modernist development, necessitating and expanding extractivism and ecologically destructive infrastructures. By highlighting ambiguities in critical literatures, it seeks to provide political clarity, reinforcing personal and collective self-determination and, secondarily, to encourage public policy to begin taking climate catastrophe seriously.
From Extractivism to Sustainability Scenarios and Lessons from Latin America, 2023
In this chapter López Flores and Preiser address expand on several issues flagged in the introduction to the book—issues that arise in a context characterized by a socio-ecological crisis and neo-extractivist expansion that has resulted in conflicts between the extractive companies, the state supporting extractive ventures and the active resistance of communities both in regard to the destructive impacts of extractive projects and the struggle of these communities to reclaim their territorial rights and demands to protect their ways of living and their livelihoods. The authors dissect the dynamics of these conflicts and disputed territorialities as they relate to and play out in the context of local community-based development, with reference to developments in Andean-Amazon region, one an exemplar of a left-leaning ‘progressive’ post-neoliberal regime, the other a classically neoliberal regime. The key protagonists in the socioenvironmental conflicts generated by the advance of extractive capital and their destructive operations, are the companies in the extractive sector, which generally take the form of multinational corporations; the local communities on the extractive frontier that are negatively impacted by these destructive operations; and the governments—particularly the national government—in their relationship with both the multinational companies in the extractive sector and the local indigenous communities. The authors argue that extractivism can be conceptualized as an inherent part of global capitalist accumulation and as such a glocal phenomenon; that is, it is conditioned by globalization but anchored locally, a phenomenon that has led to an increasing number of conflicts and increased violence against movements resisting extractivism and its destructive socio-environmental impact on the communities. One of several highly significant conclusions reached by the authors in their analysis of several local cases of extractivism is that the advance of extractive capital and the expansion of extractive frontier is promoted by both neoliberal and progressive regimes.
Tactics of dispossession: Access, power, and subjectivity at the extractive frontier
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2020
In this article we analyse and theorise how power is exercised and subjectivities reworked to achieve and maintain socio-political order in areas of large-scale international extractive investment. Through a critical review of recent literature on the political ecologies of the international mining and hydrocarbon industries, we explore the strategies that firms and their allies deploy to secure and preserve the transformed relations of land and resource access upon which accumulation relies. Inspired by the work of John Allen we analyse these strategies with attention to the modalities and techniques of power used, highlighting the diverse ways socio-political stability is pursued despite the industry's destabilising effects. What emerges is that, contrasting the sector's reputation for coercion and domination, transformed regimes of access to land and resources at the extractive frontier are to a significant degree achieved and stabilised through what Allen calls the "quieter registers" of power. Attention to the varied and overlapping ways extractive firms and their allies exercise power to secure and maintain access to land and resources highlights limitations to David Harvey's influential accumulation by dispossession framework for understanding how extractive capital circulates into "new ground." It also directs attention to processes of subject formation at the extractive frontier, and to how industry expansion may be facilitated through the production of particular kinds of subjects. To illustrate this, we outline three interrelated ways subjectivities are reworked through peoples' encounters with the logics, materiality, and power of contemporary extractive industry. We suggest that those living in the shadow of large international extractive operations become extractive subjects. K E Y W O R D S accumulation by dispossession, extractive industry, land and resource access, power, subjectivity 1 | INTRODUCTION The extractive frontier is a place of upheaval. As a now sizeable literature on the political ecologies of mineral, oil, and gas development shows, extractive capital moving into "new ground" transforms landscapes, reshapes livelihoods, and often sparks socio-political conflict (e.g.
The Political Ecology of Resource and Energy Management beyond the State
Energies Beyond the State: Anarchist Political Ecology and the Liberation of Nature, 2021
Resource and environmental management generally entail an attempt by governing authorities to dominate, reroute, and tame the natural flows of water, the growth of forests, manage the populations of non-human bodies, and control nature more generally. Often this is done under the mantle of conservation, economic development, and sustainable management, but still involves a quest to “civilize” and control all aspects of nature for a specific purpose. The results of this form of environmental management and governance are many, but by and large, across the globe, it has meant governments construct a specific idea regarding nature and the environment. These forms of control also extend beyond the natural environment, allowing for particular methods of managing human and non-human populations in order to maintain power and enact sovereignty. This volume contributes to advancing an ‘ecology of freedom,’ which can critique current anthropocentric environmental destruction, as well as focusing on environmental justice and decentralized ecological governance. While concentrating on these areas of anarchist political ecology, three major themes emerged from the chapters: the legacies of colonialism that continue to echo in current resource management and governance practices, the necessity of overcoming human/nature dualisms for environmental justice and sustainability, and finally discussions and critiques of extractivism as a governing and economic mentality.
Journal of Genocide Research, 2020
At the root of techno-capitalist development – popularly marketed as “modernity,” “progress” or “development” – is the continuous and systematic processes of natural resource extraction. Reviewing wind energy development in Mexico, coal mining in Germany and copper mining in Peru, this article seeks to strengthen the post-liberal or structural approach in genocide studies. These geographically and culturally diverse case studies set the stage for discussions about the complications of conflictual fault lines around extractive development. The central argument is that “green” and conventional natural resource extraction are significant in degrading human and biological diversity, thereby contributing to larger trends of socio-ecological destruction, extinction and the potential for human and nonhuman extermination. It should be acknowledged in the above-mentioned case studies, land control was largely executed through force, notably through “hard” coercive technologies executed by various state and extra-judicial elements, which was complemented by employing diplomatic and “soft” social technologies of pacification. Natural resource extraction is a significant contributor to the genocide-ecocide nexus, leading to three relevant discussion points. First, the need to include nonhuman natures, as well as indigenous ontologies and epistemologies, into genocide studies to dispel an embedded anthropocentrism in the discipline. Second, acknowledges the complications of essentializing identity and the specific socio-cultural values and dispositions that are the targets of techno-capitalist development. Third, that socio-political positionality is essential to how people will relate and identify ecocidal and genocidal processes. Different ontologies, socio-ecological relationships (linked to “the Other”), and radical anti-capitalism are the root targets of techno-capitalist progress, as they seek assimilation and absorption of human and nonhuman “natural resources” into extractive economies. Genocide studies and political ecology – Anthropology, Human Geography and Development Studies – would benefit from greater engagement with each other to highlight the centrality of extractive development in sustaining ecological and climate catastrophe confronting the world today.
The political ecologies of "green" extractivism(s): An introduction
Journal of Political Ecology, 2024
What is so-called 'green' extractivism and where did it come from? The introduction to this Special Section examines the origins and implications of the concept, linking it to a long history of exploitation, dispossession and (neo)colonialism under the guise of green-washing notions such as 'sustainable development.' Conducting an in-depth literature review, we first revisit the concept of extractivism, exploring its origins, development and analytical purchase. We link extractivism to 'extra-action,' implying taking more than what is viable for ecosystems and argue for a supply-web oriented, rather than a point of extraction-focused understanding. Subsequently, we examine key theoretical frameworks in political ecology that paved the way to the study of 'green' extractivism, notably Ecological Distribution Conflicts (which we argue could better be labeled Ecological Destruction Conflicts) and green grabbing. Based on this, we discuss the core features of green extractivism, which are twofold: (1) the use of socioecological and climate crises to reinforce existing or generate new markets and profit-generation opportunities; and (2) the mobilization of claims of ecological sustainability and 'carbon neutrality' to legitimize and rationalize extraction. After outlining the Special Section contributions, we end by considering gaps in existing scholarship on green extractivism and suggest ways forward.
Power and politics have been central topics from the early days of Political Ecology. There are different and sometimes conflicting conceptualizations of power in this field that portray power alternatively as a resource, personal attribute or relation. The aim of this article is to contribute to theorizations of power by probing contesting views regarding its role in societal change and by presenting a specific conceptualization of power, one which draws on political ecology and sociotechnical approaches in science and technology studies. We review how power has been conceptualized in the political ecology field and identify three trends that shaped current discussions. We then develop our conceptual discussion and ask explicitly where power emerges in processes of resource governance projects. We identify four locations that we illustrate empirically through an example of rural electrification in Tanzania that aimed at catalyzing social and economic development by providing renewable energy-based electricity services. Our analysis supports the argument that power is relational and productive, and it draws on science and technology studies to bring to the fore the critical role of non-human elements in co-constitution of society – technology – nature. This leads us to see the exercise of power as having contradictory and ambiguous effects. We conclude that by exploring the tension between human agency and constitutive power, we keep the politics alive throughout the analysis and are able to show why intentional choices and actions really matter for how resource governance projects play out in everyday life. Le pouvoir et la politique ont été des sujets clés depuis les premiers jours de l'approche «political ecology». Il existe des conceptualisations différentes et parfois contradictoires du pouvoir dans ce domaine, qui représentent le pouvoir en tant que ressource, attribut personnel ou relation. Le but de cet article est de contribuer aux théorisations du pouvoir en sondant les points de vue contestants sur son rôle dans le changement sociétal et en présentant une conceptualisation spécifique du pouvoir. C'est une approche qui s'appuie sur «political ecology» et les approches sociotechniques dans les études scientifiques et technologiques. Nous examinons comment le pouvoir a été conceptualisé dans le domaine de la «political ecology» et identifions trois tendances qui ont façonné les discussions en cours. Nous développons ensuite notre discussion conceptuelle et demandons explicitement où le pouvoir émerge dans les processus de projets de gouvernance des ressources. Nous identifions quatre endroits que nous illustrons de manière empirique à travers un exemple d'électrification rurale en Tanzanie visant à catalyser le développement social et économique, en fournissant des services d'électricité basés sur l'énergie renouvelable. Notre analyse appuie l'argument selon lequel le pouvoir est relationnel et productif et s'appuie sur des études scientifiques et technologiques pour mettre en évidence le rôle essentiel des éléments non humains dans la co-constitution de la société-la technologie-la nature. Cela nous amène à voir l'exercice du pouvoir comme ayant des effets contradictoires et ambigus. Nous concluons qu'en explorant la tension entre l'agent humain et le pouvoir constitutif, nous maintenons la politique en vie tout au long de l'analyse et montrons pourquoi les choix et les actions intentionnels comptent vraiment dans la manière dont les projets de gouvernance des ressources se déroulent dans la vie quotidienne. El poder y lo político han sido temas centrales desde los inicios de la ecología política. En este campo hay conceptualizaciones del poder que suelen ser distintas y en ocasiones opuestas, que muestran el poder tanto como un recurso, un atributo personal, o una relación. El objetivo de este artículo es contribuir a las teorizaciones sobre el poder indagando en perspectivas opositoras con respecto a su papel en el cambio social, presentando además, una conceptualización específica de poder que se basa en aproximaciones tanto socio-técnicas como de ecología política en estudios de ciencia y tecnología. Consideramos cómo el poder ha sido conceptualizado en el campo de la ecología política, e identificamos tres corrientes que han moldeado la discusión actual. Luego desarrollamos nuestra discusión conceptual y explícitamente nos preguntamos de dónde emerge el poder en procesos de proyectos de gobernanza de recursos. Identificamos cuatro locaciones que ilustramos empíricamente a través de un ejemplo de electrificación rural en Tanzania, el cual proyectaba catalizar el desarrollo social y económico al proveer servicio de electricidad basada en energías renovables. Nuestro análisis respalda el argumento que sostiene que el poder es relacional y productivo, y lo basamos en estudios de ciencia y tecnología para presentar el crítico papel de los elementos no humanos en una co-constitución de sociedad-tecnología-naturaleza. Esto nos lleva a ver el ejercicio del poder como algo que tiene efectos contradictorios y ambiguos. Concluimos que, explorando tensiones entre la agencia humana y el poder constitutivo, mantenemos lo político vigente a lo largo del análisis y podemos mostrar por qué las decisiones intencionales y las acciones, realmente importan en cómo los proyectos de gobernanza de recursos se manifiestan en el día a día.