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Political  Ecology: A
Critical Introduction. Paul A. Robbins.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. xxi and 242
pp., maps, illus., bibliog., index.
$44.95 paper. (ISBN 978-1-4051-0266-7)
GARY R. SCHNAKENBERG
Michigan State
University.
Due to its highly interdisciplinary
nature, students working in a number of areas are likely to touch upon the
field of political ecology in the course of their educations. Students of international development, land
use and environmental planning, water resource management, conservation
biology, economics, geography, and anthropology could all utilize a political
ecology framework to one degree or another.
For those unfamiliar with the field, political ecology could be
described in a nutshell as a framework that examines issues of human
interactions with the environment in a set of power relationships—economic,
cultural, political—nested in different scales that shape and/or constrain
those human-environment interactions. Important
elements of political ecology involve a) uncovering the ways in which nature
and the environment are culturally constructed, and b) how dominant
constructions of nature often marginalize indigenous people who depend directly
on the resources provided by their environments for their very existence. Though to my knowledge, no one working in
political ecology identifies as an EcoJustice scholar, these points of focus
reveal the possibility of connections for those interested in an EcoJustice
framework. Especially in light of competing claims as to
what political ecology is, it all the more important to have a sound,
accessible, coherent description of the theories, concepts, and methodologies
that make up political ecology, as well as pointing out and evaluating some of
the criticisms leveled at it. Robbins’
book fills this need admirably.
The
book is organized into four parts. The
first, “What Is Political Ecology?” lays out the approach of the field’s
practitioners. Robbins immediately
reveals a necessary but deceptively simple concept (familiar to the
EcoJustice-oriented) that might take some students (and policymakers) aback:
that there is no such thing as apolitical
ecology, and its assertion must be challenged—which helps make the answer to
the question that titles this section clear.
One of the unique (and highly effective) approaches that Robbins takes
in this book is to avoid attempting to create a work of comprehensive
description (and those of us who remember trying to glean any genuine
understanding from introductory textbooks
in 100-level courses will be thankful).
Instead, after offering a list of others’ definitions of political
ecology, Robbins sets out a list of understandings under which political
ecologists operate (12). He makes a
point by way of examples to describe political ecology is something people do (13).
Robbins employs a
useful metaphor in the opening chapter that he carries successfully throughout
the book: political ecology is both a “hatchet” and a “seed.” The “hatchet” side of what he calls the
field’s “Jekyll-and-Hyde persona” (12) stands for the critique of dominant
modes of thinking about the environment and dominant methods of actualizing
that thinking in/on the environment. It
consists of debunking myths of pristineness, of a “nature” that is pure and
untouched by humans, pointing out the marginalization or silencing of many
voices in the debate about how nature should be “managed,” as well as describing
the negative impacts of market-based policies and practices on natural
systems. By contrast, the “seed” side of
the metaphor points to the possibilities of doing things differently. It illustrates alternatives and actions that
may come from local knowledge and practices, not as a romantic longing for a lost “Golden Age,” but
as a way to help “develop specific, manageable, and appropriate ways to make a
living” (13). Robbins also identifies
several narratives, big questions, and theses that guide political ecologists.
This first section
also offers an intellectual history of the field and identifies important contributors
to its development. Robbins’ title for
the second chapter, “A Tree With Deep Roots,” goes deep indeed, identifying
Peter Kropotkin, a 19th-century explorer of the Russian Far East, as
the unofficial founder of political ecology.
The subsequent two chapters explain important theoretical foundations
and offer examples of studies in the 1970’s and 80’s that reveal a field truly
emergent.
Part II consists
of only two chapters and 37 pages, and examines difficulties with the
conception of both the destruction and construction of nature. Part III is an extremely useful section for
students new to political ecology, with four chapters, each laying out a line
of argument in contemporary political ecology.
These arguments overlap each other somewhat, and Robbins provides a
description, an evaluation of, and a research example for each of them. Part IV is a one-chapter conclusion, “Where
To Now?” in which Robbins discusses and evaluates criticism of political
ecology from several sources and indicates a possible path political ecologists
can follow to address critics, move forward, and remain useful and
relevant. Unlike many conclusions that are
merely encapsulations of main points of the book, Robbins uses the comments of
critics to truly evaluate political ecology and make important recommendations
for the field’s practitioners. His call
for political ecology to move outside of the typical research context of marginalized
agriculturalists in “Third World” settings is
welcome, and essential. The field has
much to offer in helping to understand political, cultural, economic, and
ecological interactions and experiences of urban dwellers of the global North
as well as the rural South, but as of yet, this application remains underexplored. He illustrates this possibility by asking
readers to consider the case of the American lawn, usually seen as an
apolitical artifact of American consumer Culture, and sets the stage for
another book project (see Robbins 2007.
Lawn People. Temple
Univ. Press).
The book’s
strengths are many. Robbins explains
concepts clearly and his illustrative examples are very effective. A useful and engaging feature of the book is
the inclusion of 19 “boxes” dispersed through the text, one or two per chapter.
These one-page vignettes allow Robbins
to step outside the flow of his work and offer some further insight and
commentary into the work of a particular researcher and her/his work (A similar
feature was used to great effect in Norman Davies’ massive 1996 single-volume
survey stretching from the Ice Age to the Cold War, Europe: A History). More
extensive than footnotes, they allow readers to interrupt the main explanation
with brief interludes that give enlightening glimpses into the researchers and
the research that make political ecology—which Robbins made a goal of this book
at the outset. The entirety of Part III
outlining four important arguments and their evaluation (Degradation and
Marginalization, Conservation and Control, Environmental Conflict, and
Environmental Identity and Social Movement) is well situated for use by
students in an introductory political ecology course. It would be useful after reading this book
(or at least this section) to ask students to try and apply these arguments to
what they read in ethnographic studies that deal with political ecology
themes. Which of these, if any, apply to
the unfortunate subjects of British India
during the El Niño famines described in Mike Davis’ 2002 work, Late Victorian Holocausts? Does a different argument apply to the
circumstances described in the same work for China? Does the “Conservation and Control” argument
apply equally to western Serengeti people displaced from park land as described
by Jan Bender Shetler (2007) as it does to highlands of Indonesia and
the struggles of people there to maintain access to forest resources inside a
new national park (Li 2007)?
Though the book is
not a collection of separate essays, it would be possible to use sections
selectively for different courses in disparate fields. For example, a major piece of the
Introduction and/or Chapter 1 could be used as a “stand-alone” reading in a
course other than political ecology as a provocative tool for discussion and
consciousness-raising, especially in a field such as resource management or
environmental engineering. For that
matter, several of the chapters might be utilized in this fashion in a
coursepack for geography, anthropology, development, forestry, or other
courses. This quality makes the book
useful to educators in different fields interested in EcoJustice principles.
Although a highly
readable and useful work, the book is not without some weaknesses. The flip side of its flexibility as a useful
text for students in a variety of disciplines is that not all readers will be
equally familiar with its concepts.
While explanations are very clear, natural resource management or
forestry students, for example, might need some front-loading for clarification
of “hard” v. “soft” constructivism, for example, let alone Gramsci and
Foucault. However, since this is not the
primary intended audience, this criticism is a mild one.
Despite showing
that the thinking of political ecology goes back a long way, another reviewer
has pointed out the problem with identifying Kropotkin as the first political
ecologist (Wolford 2005). Like
chemistry, algebra, sociology or geography, political ecology did not appear
full-grown but was the result of a long period of work by many people
undertaking certain types of investigations until at some point, one could say
that political ecology existed. The line
between antecedent and practitioner can be difficult to determine, but if
Kropotkin is a political ecologist, why are others even further back in history
who examined the intersections among history, environment, politics, and
culture of people in places not (Wolford 2005)?
Although Robbins
is highly critical of decisions and actions taken by those in power based on
market/technology/economic-efficiency based approaches to ecological problems
(9), he reproduces hierarchization through use of the term
“underdeveloped.” Though its use is
nearly universal and therefore difficult to avoid, unqualified use of this term
perpetuates the denigration of people as “in need of improvement” that compare
unfavorably to the ideals of the very economic model of which Robbins is
critical. The people to whom he is
referring may have very highly “developed” social and distributive networks,
for example, but not be seen as “developed” in the context of the
industrial/postindustrial/ free market economic paradigm. Likewise, although he does an outstanding job
of explaining what he means by the term and why it would be a useful
conceptualization in the conclusion, his use of environmental production (as opposed to construction
or destruction) as a metaphor (209) lends itself to misinterpretation as
representing the market-driven perspectives he argues against so forcefully in
the opening chapter.
All in all, this
is a highly useful book from a very important contributor to critical geography
and related fields. EcoJustice educators will find it provoking and
enlightening, both as a way to gain insight into an important and relevant
intellectual framework and to provide students with examples and explanations. It is lucid, explanatory, and takes a very
effective approach based on the research that people called political
ecologists do, which is especially welcome for a field that does not have a
specific disciplinary/institutional home.
Arguments from Peet and Watts
notwithstanding (206), Robbins lays out the field’s theoretical frameworks and
offers examples of their application in a very accessible manner. This book accomplishes its purpose very well,
and is highly recommended as an introductory text for a general reader
interested in gaining a basic grounding in the field, as well as either
undergraduate or beginning graduate students in a related social science. The theories and arguments could be applied
equally effectively through the lenses of focus utilized by different
departments of the Academy. Sections are
also useful as stand-alone essays for a variety of other fields and courses of
study. Those who only use it in that
fashion, however, would miss out on the richness that this small volume has to
offer.
[NOTE: In a conversation during the
winter of 2009, Robbins indicated that he was thinking of putting out a new
edition of this book, so interested readers might want to keep an eye out!]
References
Davies, Norman. 1996. Europe: A History. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Davis, Mike. 2001. Late Victorian
Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third
World. New York:
Verso.
Li, Tania Murray. 2007. The Will to
Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham and London: Duke University
Press.
Shetler, Jan Bender. 2007. Imagining
Serengeti: A History of Landscape Memory in Tanzania From Earliest Times to the
Present. Athens, OH:
Ohio University Press.
Wolford, Wendy. 2005. Will the real
political ecologist please step forward? Review of
Robbins
(2004) Political Ecology: A Critical
Introduction. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers. 95(3): 717-719.
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