Political Ecology
- LAST REVIEWED: 19 May 2017
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0002
- LAST REVIEWED: 19 May 2017
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0002
Introduction
Political ecology emerged in the 1980s within the field of geography from cultural ecology and development studies traditions. Initially phrased by Piers Blaikie, an expert in rural development and resource governance, as the multiscale analysis of environmental degradation from a political economy perspective, political ecology rejected neo-Malthusian explanations of human impacts on the environment. Instead, the subfield understands environmental change as a result of power relations, which cause highly variable access to resources. Debate exists on whether political ecologists created a theory of human–environment interactions or whether they established a research framework. Moreover, scholars have debated whether political ecology is sufficiently “political” or “ecological.” In the late 1990s and early 2000s, political ecology fragmented into several subareas that have since developed into vigorous research areas. Political ecologists share affinity with several groups of scholars, including anthropologists who self-identify as political ecologists, economic geographers interested in resources and commodities, political geographers interested in environmental politics, and scholars specializing in cultural ecology and environmental justice.
General Overviews
Geographers have published a number of texts introducing political ecology to undergraduate readers and early graduate students. For undergraduate students, Robbins, et al. 2010 is appropriate for courses taught in geography on resources and environment. Especially noteworthy in this textbook is the combination of theoretical and conceptual topics with a case-study approach that applies the theoretical and conceptual to topics such as tuna and French fries. Neumann 2005, a concise introduction to political ecology, is similarly aimed at undergraduates. For graduate students, Robbins 2012 presents an excellent synthesis of the field.
Neumann, Roderick P. Making Political Ecology. London: Hodder Arnold, 2005.
Concise treatment of political ecology as a new subfield of human geography. Argues for a broad understanding of political ecology and as a philosophical foundation for the critical realist. Outlines the origins of the subfield and argues for a need for historical approaches, for attention to both state and civil society, and for ecological analyses in political ecology.
Robbins, Paul. Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction. 2d ed. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
Textbook aimed at graduate students seeking to understand the origins, theoretical underpinnings, and recent directions of political ecology. Revised edition acknowledges the increasing diversity of approaches taken in political ecology.
Robbins, Paul, John Hintz, and Sarah A. Moore. Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Textbook suited to undergraduates. Concise and insightful discussion of important theoretical concepts and frameworks complemented by their application to a case-study approach targeting a range of commodities and issues.
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Article
- Activity Space
- Actor Network Theory (ANT)
- Age, Geographies of
- Agricultural Geography
- Animal Geographies
- Anthropocene and Geography, The
- Anthropogenic Climate Change
- Applied Geography
- Arctic Climatology
- Art and Geography
- Assemblage
- Atmospheric Composition and Structure
- Automobility
- Aviation Meteorology
- Behavioral Geography
- Belonging
- Biodiversity Conservation
- Biodiversity Gradients
- Biogeography
- Biogeomorphology and Zoogeomorphology
- Biometric Technologies
- Biopedoturbation
- Body, Geographies of the
- Borders and Boundaries
- Brownfields
- Carbon Cycle
- Cartography
- Cartography, History of
- Children and Childhood, Geographies of
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- Climate Literacy and Education
- Climatology
- Communication
- Community Mapping
- Commuting
- Comparative Urbanism
- Complexity
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- Cultural Ecology and Human Ecology
- Cultural Geography
- Cultural Landscape
- CyberGIS
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- Development, Regional
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- Drones, Geography of
- Drought
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- Economic Geography
- Economic Historical Geography
- Edge Cities and Urban Sprawl
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- Energy, Renewable
- Energy Resources and Use
- Environment and Development
- Environmental Justice
- Ethics, Geographers and
- Ethics, Geography and
- Ethnicity
- Ethnography
- Everyday Life, Geography and
- Feminist Geography
- Fieldwork
- Film, Geography and
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- Fluvial Geomorphology
- Folk Culture and Geography
- Gender and Geography
- Gentrification
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- GIS and Remote Sensing Applications in Geomorphology
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- GIS, Historical
- GIS, History of
- GIS, Space-Time
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- Hurricanes
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- Hydrology
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- Immigration and Immigrants
- Indigenous Peoples and the Global Indigenous Movement
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- Knowledge, Geography of
- Labor, Geography of
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- Literature, Geography and
- Location Theory
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- Medical Geography
- Migration
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- Mountain Meteorology
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- Nations and Nationalism
- Natural Hazards and Risk
- Nature-Society Theory
- Neogeography
- New Urbanism
- Nightlife
- Non-representational Theory
- Nutrition Transition, The
- Oceans
- Orientalism and Geography
- Participatory Action Research
- Peace, Geographies of
- Phenology and Climate
- Photographic and Video Methods in Geography
- Physical Geography
- Place
- Polar Geography
- Policy Mobilities
- Political Ecology
- Political Geography
- Political Geology
- Popular Culture, Geography and
- Population Geography
- Ports and Maritime Trade
- Postmodernism and Poststructuralism
- Producer Services
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- Qualitative GIS
- Qualitative Methods
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- Questionnaires
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- Rural Geography
- Science and Technology Studies (STS) in Geography
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- Slope Processes
- Social Justice
- Soils, Diversity of
- Sonic Methods in Geography
- Spatial Analysis
- Spatial Autocorrelation
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- Sustainable Agriculture
- Synoptic Climatology
- Technological Change, Geography of
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- Teleconnections, Atmospheric
- Territory and Territoriality
- Terrorism, Geography of
- The Climate Security Nexus
- The Voluntary Sector and Geography
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- Water
- Weather and Climate Damage Studies
- Wetlands
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