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Desde la década de 1980 la costa nahua de Michoacán, México ha sido una zona de interés gubernamental y empresarial por su biodiversidad y colindancia con el Océano Pacífico en una franja aproximada de 130 kilómetros. Diversas políticas federales han impactado las formas de apropiación con el entorno, principalmente las normativas enfocadas a la protección ambiental. Estas políticas se han conjuntado con la visión del desarrollo empresarial extractivista así como el modelo de desarrollo sustentable que se ha tratado de imponer a partir del ecoturismo. Este artículo busca explicar, desde la perspectiva de la ecología política, cómo en el ejercicio de diversas políticas ambientales se hace presente, de forma transversal, una visión de desarrollo empresarial así como el ideal del desarrollo sustentable que, en gran medida, puede confrontarse con los esquemas de sustentabilidad tradicional y el patrimonio biocultural de los pueblos nahuas.

Policies on firefighting within protected natural areas have shifted from a suppression approach to one of fire management, which has had consequences for the practices and perspectives of peasant populations. The study poses the question of how regulation, restriction and prohibition on the use and management of fire, whose objective is conservation, confront, transform or criminalize these practices in the parcels. From a political ecology perspective, the institutionalization of the discourse of fire in the La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas is analyzed. Through interviews, surveys and participant observation, modification of practices and peasant perspectives in the area is reconstructed. The results show that there is a differential change in the use and perception of fire, which refers to an adaptive capacity along with a sort of “environmental clientelism,” as a response to governmental environmental policies. The conclusions allow to know the way in which the inhabitants of the protected natural areas are responding to the neoliberal conservation model implemented in the country.

A “saga” da algaroba (Prosopis juliflora) no semiárido envolveu uma grande diversidade de atores sociais, dentro do cenário desenvolvimentista, quando se pregava a introdução desta espécie como “salvação” socioeconômica para a região. O objetivo deste artigo é de analisar a construção do discurso salvacionista que deu suporte à implantação da tecnologia da algaroba. Investigar que atores sociais participaram dessa construção e quais eram suas estratégias e interesses. Como metodologia usamos o levantamento bibliográfico pertinente ao objeto de estudo na referida época, como também da documentação dos registros da imprensa escrita nos jornais da região. Palavras-chave: algaroba, ecologia, semiárido, desenvolvimento, tecnologia.

Este articulo presenta un análisis del conflicto socioambiental del páramo Santurbán después de la delimitación a partir de una perspectiva bioética con enfoque de ecología política. En consecuencia, se realizó un estudio de caso que implementó técnicas cualitativas como la observación y las entrevistas a profundidad con el fin de identificar en primer término, las ideas de naturaleza que poseen los diversos actores de la disputa, en segundo término, las estrategias de reapropiación de los movimientos sociales, por último, develar si “la diferencia en la igualdad” como valor bioético está presente en las alternativas de desarrollo ofrecidas a las comunidades del páramo. Entre los hallazgos se determinó que los diversos actores, luchan por la reapropiación del páramo con ideas heterogéneas. No obstante, estas percepciones en todos los actores coexisten, con nociones hibridas. La conformación de los movimientos sociales fue débil en los líderes sociales mineros. Por último, “la diferencia en la igualdad” como valor bioético no está presente en las alternativas de desarrollo que redefinirá el futuro de las comunidades de Santurbán.

Este artigo se preocupa em articular as estratégias de negociação de terras empregadas pela empresa mineradora Manabi a contextos econômico-políticos mais abrangentes, com destaque para a dinâmica mais recente dos padrões neo-extrativistas de acumulação que se desenvolvem no país. Cuida-se, também, de demonstrar a inserção do caso estudado no conjunto dos processos semelhantes de implantação de projetos minerários que ora se desenvolvem ou se intentam desenvolver em Minas Gerais, mas que também incidem nos estados do Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo e Bahia. Por intermédio de um estudo empírico no município de Ferros, Minas Gerais, busca-se evidenciar o peso dos imperativos e assimetrias estruturais sobre o desenrolar dos processos por meio dos quais a Manabi e seus prepostos adquirem propriedades e/ou direitos de uso sobre as terras implicadas pelo projeto de construção de um mineroduto, estrutura tubular responsável pelo escoamento do minério de ferro retirado na área de extração. Da mesma forma, faz-se compreensível identificar a similitude das estratégias utilizadas para a viabilização dos empreendimentos por diferentes empresas, em distintos projetos minerários.

El objetivo de este artículo es reflexionar teórica y conceptualmente sobre el territorio y su resignificación en la construcción de la sustentabilidad. Se hace referencia a la teoría de sistemas complejos, desde un enfoque constructivista, y de la geografía y la ecología política, como aproximación a las nociones de apropiación territorial, territorialización, desterritorialización y reterritorialización. La discusión deductiva de cinco tesis concluye con un postulado que retoma la propuesta de Gunderson y Holling (2002), para explicar los procesos adaptativos de los sistemas socioterritoriales, los cuales están mediados a partir de cadenas dialógicas. Actualmente, desde los movimientos sociales emergentes, se tejen innovaciones que recrean de manera híbrida conceptos como diversidad, autonomía, equidad y sustentabilidad. Ello permite resignificar el diálogo político del paradigma por el territorio entre los espacios de esperanza –redes antisistémicas–, los exclusivos –redes globalizadas– y los de desesperanza –espacios fragmentados–.

Propósito: El objetivo es observar las complejidades en las condiciones socioambientales y en la justicia ambiental del lago de Tota, Boyacá, Colombia. Metodología / Foco: La metodología a ser utilizada es la pesquisa cualitativa, por medio del método de estudio de caso, pues permite identificar el comportamiento de los individuos frente a un fenómeno, en un contexto social. Resultados: De acuerdo con lo expuesto, este importante ecosistema es un escenario para reflexionar sobre la persistencia del olvido por parte de la entidades gubernamentales y habitantes locales, la actitud de ellos es preservar el lago para producir riqueza, explotar la tierra y los recursos naturales. Limitación / desenvolvimiento de la investigación: El contenido de este análisis no es suficiente para entender la compleja situación social y ambiental, entre la población y el lago. Originalidad / Valor del artículo: Este articulo presenta algunas definiciones que ayudan a entender un poco más la Ecología Política, en cuyos puntos de basa este análisis: injusticia y racismo ambiental, conflictos y problemas ambientales, desarrollo segregacionista, zona de sacrificio, inseguridad y dependencia alimentaria, movimientos sociales, modernidad/ colonialidad, la identidad y el papel de la mujer, permitiendo entender la complejidad de la situación actual de ese ecosistema.

El artículo indaga en las estrategias diplomáticas de los gobiernos de China y Japón hacia América Latina, a partir del estudio de fuentes secundarias y primarias. Por un lado, se aborda la interpretación del condicionamiento histórico que ejerce el modo de inserción de ambos países en el sistema-mundo desde el siglo XIX hasta el siglo XX. En particular, nos enfocamos en los objetivos de la política de relaciones exteriores de China y Japón hacia América Latina, en donde encontramos la motivación económica de obtener recursos naturales. Por otro lado, se ofrece un análisis discursivo centrado en dos alocuciones del Presidente Xi Jinping y el Primer Ministro Shinzo Abe realizadas en Brasil durante el 2014. El corpus de trabajo principal se conforma por esta coincidencia espacio- temporal que nos permite indagar en la situación de discursos en competencia entre ambos gobiernos. Nuestra argumentación se centra en las estrategias diplomáticas de China y Japón por la interpelación hacia el enunciatario latinoamericano, en condiciones de competencia. Esta se realiza en el campo de la cooperación internacional, organizada por la lógica de la geopolítica del desarrollo, es decir, entre países más o menos desarrollados. A partir de estos condicionamientos, se organiza el discurso diplomático. En el plano retórico, se utilizan recursos como el uso de vocablos y las citas textuales latinoamericanas. En la dimensión temática, se explicitan asuntos comunes como la búsqueda de desarrollo, paz y cooperación. En conjunto, buscan establecer una relación enunciativa de cercanía (“amistad”) como forma de superar las distancias (geográficas y culturales) entre ambas regiones.

Con métodos cualititativos analizamos los procesos de resistencia y (retro) innovación construidos y defendidos por una comunidad de productores de quesos crudos en el Golfo de Arauco (Chile); territorio marcado por el monocultivo forestal. Su existencia y viabilidad económica, desafí­a la industria forestal y el marco regulatorio existente, particularmente las normas higienistas de pausterización. Confirmamos la hipótesis que el pastoreo local y la producción de quesos con base en leche cruda involucran conocimientos y prácticas antiguas y nuevas, permite la reproducción socioecológica territorial, y responde a la complejidad temporal de las economí­as campesinas, articulando una red de productores, intermediarios y consumidores.

La conformación urbana de Comodoro Rivadavia en la Patagonia argentina ha sido influida históricamente por la extracción de hidrocarburos, condicionando el acceso al suelo urbano. Esta ciudad responde a una crisis ambiental global que tiene como emergente al riesgo, lo cual quedó reflejado durante las precipitaciones extraordinarias acaecidas en el otoño de 2017. El presente trabajo analiza cómo las dificultades de acceso al suelo son un componente fundamental en la conformación de escenarios de riesgo ambiental. Reconociendo que estos se corresponden con sistemas complejos y en la búsqueda de miradas que confluyan en la ecología política, se pretende vincular estas dificultades con la construcción de la vulnerabilidad. El enfoque metodológico contempló la realización de entrevistas, revisión de fuentes secundarias y el abordaje interdisciplinario. A manera de conclusión, sostenemos que las dificultades de acceso al suelo generadas por la industria petrolera fueron una causa estructural del desastre ambiental.

The dialogue of knowledge/savoirs, is thought in this context in its ontological character –beyond a trans-disciplinary approach or method–, as the concept of a new political philosophy of history that deconstructs transcendental idealism (from Kant, Hegel and Husserl) and Marx’s historic dialectic, opening history to the conflictive encounter among different rationalities and cultural beings, that guide strategically and through a political ethic of life, the construction of a sustainable future: in the immanence and under the thermodynamic-ecological and symbolic-cultural conditions of life.

En el artículo se hace un recorrido histórico acerca del proceso de dominación y domesticación de la naturaleza, que sirvió a los propósitos de la agroindustria cañicultora instalada en el Valle del Cauca y que extendió sus dominios al valle geográfi co del río Cauca (Colombia). La lectura crítica la asume el autor desde la ecología política, y desde ese campo se le propone llamar al agroecosistema de la caña de azúcar como Enclave Artifi cial Desnaturalizante (EAD). Con estas categorías se expone un ejercicio refl exivo y crítico, con el que se confrontan el discurso con el que se valida a diario la plantación de caña de azúcar y la propia lógica que está detrás del monocultivo de dicha gramínea. Se trata de un artículo de reflexión, anclado en las disquisiciones propias de la ecología política, en la búsqueda de encontrar consensos y provocar discusiones no solo alrededor de la nueva categoría nominativa para el cultivo de la caña de azúcar, sino sobre la sostenibilidad, alejada, por supuesto, de toda lógica de plantación, por los efectos conflictos socioambientales que de tiempo atrás viene provocando dicho cultivo y sus prácticas industrializadas.

Este documento caracteriza y presenta un análisis crítico del extractivismo forestal vigente en la comuna de Arauco, ubicada en la región del Biobío, Chile, cuyo proceso se inició hace más de cuarenta años, como política pública, con la intención de combatir la erosión de la tierra, abastecer a las empresas carboníferas, construir líneas ferroviarias y alivianar los índices de pobreza. Sin embargo, esta actividad afecta hoy los paisajes, la economía y la vida cotidiana en el territorio, lo que lleva a que el extractivismo forestal se convierta en un contenido sociocultural al que se le asignan diferentes sentidos, que circulan simultáneamente en la vida social local y generan diversas formas de resistencia ante los impactos del modelo extractivista forestal. Los datos analizados dan cuenta de que la presencia de este modelo se instala no solo en los espacios naturales y productivos del territorio, sino también en las construcciones socioculturales cotidianas de sus habitantes, especialmente en comprensiones internalizadas y compartidas. A partir de dichas comprensiones, se han levantado a su vez diferentes formas de resistencia, a través de las cuales los habitantes controlan los límites del extractivismo forestal. Metodológicamente, este análisis se basa en un trabajo etnográfico realizado durante el 2016, centrado en la observación participante, entrevistas semiestructuradas y revisión documental, en el que se ponen en valor los discursos y las prácticas de diversos actores del territorio sobre la forma en que se internaliza el modelo extractivista forestal. Entre los principales resultados, se identifican valoraciones positivas, críticas y modos de convivencia, además de formas de resistencia, discursos críticos y situaciones de conflicto. De esta manera, se presenta una forma de comprensión del extractivismo forestal que más allá de los impactos ambientales o sociales de esta actividad, considera la incidencia que tiene dicho modelo en las relaciones que los habitantes construyen con su territorio.

Este artículo contribuye a desplegar el campo de relaciones que se ha establecido entre las nociones de crisis y cambio ambiental global, a través de la revisión de las principales tradiciones de pensamiento ambiental con influencia en América Latina, a partir de la década de 1970. Con este objetivo, se examinan los rasgos distintivos de la representación de lo ambiental en la producción académica de las ciencias sociales regionales, las construcciones éticas sobre las que se sostiene esta producción y las relaciones que se establecen entre ecología, crisis y desarrollo. El texto presenta un panorama general tanto de la producción identificada con Latinoamérica, como de las adaptaciones e interpretaciones de otros idearios y pensamientos de origen no latinoamericano, pero de reconocida influencia regional. Metodológicamente, se realiza un trabajo de doble hermenéutica sobre la bibliografía relevante, principalmente a través de textos y autores que inspiran y fundan las perspectivas estudiadas. El primer apartado hace un recorrido analítico y descriptivo sobre las nociones de crisis y las respuestas éticas hacia la naturaleza que sirven de base a las propuestas teóricas. El segundo apartado presenta un panorama de la construcción de la problemática ambiental desde cinco grandes grupos de perspectivas teóricas: la economía ambiental y ecológica, el marxismo ecológico, la modernización ecológica, la ecología política, la ontología política y la perspectiva decolonial. Finalmente, se presentan las conclusiones y reflexiones sobre los alcances políticos y prácticos de la producción teórica ambiental en Latinoamérica. Afirmamos que el pensamiento social latinoamericano sobre el cambio ambiental global ―dadas las realidades sociomateriales sobre las que funda su evidencia― se encuentra en una posición privilegiada para aportar a la construcción de otras prácticas no centradas en la apropiación instrumental y a la visibilización de otras ontologías relacionales entre humanos y naturaleza no humana.

Copyright of Dilemas Contemporáneos: Educación, Política y Valores is the property of Dilemas Contemporaneos: Educacion, Politica y Valores and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ecología Política is the property of Fundacio ENT and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Naturalist John Muir has often been criticized for his relative silence on the role of native peoples in occupying, forging, and tending the environments that he so often described as wilderness. His work is further marked by the absence of reflection on the elimination of native peoples from the land in and around the exact locales he revered most in his writing. Muir's The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, published in 1912–1913, is an anomalous part of the naturalist's historically important oeuvre in this regard. Unlike his earlier works, which commonly neglected accounts of native people in the United States, this book contains numerous descriptions of Native American people and lifeways. Exploring the text in its historical context, this research deploys psychoanalytic geography to understand the surprising return of natives to Muir's landscapes and memories. That Native Americans, so absent or ignored in Muir's previous work, would return in such full force in a late reflection, the research suggests, is no coincidence. The text, we conclude, represents the return of repressed memory, affecting the U.S. psyche at the time. Unable to consciously address complicity in, and benefits derived from, the violent removal of Native Americans from the landscapes of Muir's youth, he (and, in turn, America) becomes the revolutionary progenitor for a national park system predicated in part on the expulsion, both discursive and physical, of native peoples. These expulsions are necessarily revisited again, as ghosts inscribed in a textual return of repressed memory, with significant implications for the conservation movement. Key Words: conservation, political ecology, preservation, psychoanalytic geography, wilderness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the growth of mining in the Sierra Mariscal (Mexico-Guatemalan border) has unified various religious perspectives present in the region and has exacerbated its presence, in a context of defense of the territory. Several social conflicts, derived from the transnational mining activity in the study area, encouraged among the Mame people the interest in reviving ritual practices considered traditional. In addition to other political practices rooted in the region, these shape what we call the dialogues of the land, which incorporate added meanings into the strategies of political resistance against the extractive activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the title of the so-called "Lacanian left," we provide a text that places --within the horizon of political ecology-- a series of readings inspired by the speech of the French psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan with regard to "the question for life" in our contemporary worlds. We connect theoretical routes between what Lacan called "the excision of the subject" in terms of "the reality of the constitution of subjectivity" and what, in political ecology, is known as the "pre-ontology of being" with three fields of representation regarding the society-nature relations: the ontological, the political and the ethical. It is, therefore, to think about life with a ternary that we combine what the Lacanian left adopts from the field of psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World is the property of Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Mundo Agrario is the property of Universidad Nacional de La Plata and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The management of multifunctional irrigation has been debated both in terms of the concern for its socio-economic and environmental impact, and discussions about the public-private interests that emanate from its promotion. According to this, questions about who takes part of the decision-making processes and to what extent they participate or exert some control or influence on the whole stakeholders focus the debate about its legitimacy and governance. This article delves into these aspects from the analysis of a case study, the agroecological corridor formed by the El Hondo Natural Park and Los Carrizales Agrarian Natural Park (Elche, Alicante). From semi-structured interviews and questionnaires and in order to deepen on its management model and the power relations between key stakeholders, the paper analyses 1) the issues that generate the greatest concern and debate on the El Hondo-Los Carrizales agroecological system and 2) the level of governance in decision-making process. Results show a lack of social recognition towards the multifunctionality of both parks, as well as the need to strengthen its management in an integrated and adaptive way, thereby increasing its resilience to the impacts of climate change and maximizing its agronomic potential, both key aspects for the survival of the agroecological system of El Hondo-Los Carrizales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim herein is to analyze the contributions by the sociology and the anthropology to the construction of the study object of the political ecology as the study field dealing with the power relationships concerning the environment. An analysis of the theoretical-methodological tools from these two disciplines was conducted in order to highlight its contribution to this space of thinking. It states that what is defined as "natural" is actually built on a field of necessarily contending forces, crossed by unequal power relationships between the social agents. In it, the opposite ways of appropriating the nature are settled. It is also set out that the analyses of how the social groups are linked to their places –the core concern in the political ecology– must work based on this assumption to study the conflicts found in the processes for appropriating the nature. This way, the theoretical-methodological tools from the sociology and the anthropology enable to recognize the historic and sociocultural nature of these processes and to understand the mechanisms whereby subaltern agents report existing environmental injustices and propose alternatives questioning the prevailing model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism can be considered a strategy for capitalist accumulation in rural areas where established communities are evicted from their territories, depriving local people of their livelihoods. This article documents the case of the resettling of Chamela, a locality in the coastal zone of Jalisco in western Mexico that consists of some fifty families of fishermen who were expelled so that a tourist complex called Zafiro could be constructed there. This resort covers approximately 910 hectares. The case of Chamela reflects how forced resettlement due to tourism projects is a strategy that weakens the internal organizational structure of communities, undermines their economic autonomy and generates dependence on service companies that completely reconfigure the territory according to their needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, small-scale gold mining operations proliferated worldwide. Along Ghana's Offin River, the landscape has been radically transformed by mining, including disruptions to agriculture and surface hydrology, with adverse health outcomes. Yet, health research on small-scale mining tends to focus on miners' mercury exposure. Further, studies on the relationships between disease and landscape change typically examine disease clustering and risk factor identification, rather than complex nature–society dynamics shaping infection and uneven vulnerability. Combining ethnographic, remote sensing, and quantitative methodological approaches, we detail how the socioecological outcomes of mining—from food insecurity and water-logged pits to profound anxiety and mercury contamination—combine to increase local malaria incidence. We argue that these changes interact with existing sociostructural conditions and Plasmodium falciparum's unique biological capacities to render women and children most vulnerable to the disease. We suggest that mental health profoundly shapes malaria incidence and, countering individualized constructions of risk, family members' health is deeply interconnected. This article contributes to current geographic debates in several ways. First, a cumulative vulnerability approach helps scholars conceptualize how biological, psychological, structural, and social conditions interrelate to shape humans' conjunctural vulnerabilities along axes of difference, particularly in health contexts. We also highlight the importance of materiality in mediating vulnerability and malaria dynamics. Finally, we argue for more scholarly attention to familial relationships of care and mental health, heretofore unexplored topics in political ecologies of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Polis (07176554) is the property of Polis - Revista Academica Universidad Bolivariana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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Copyright of Revista Austral de Ciencias Sociales is the property of Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades, Intituto de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Austral de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines collective actions led by peasant communities in the Paramillo Massif in Colombia. It juxtaposes these locally defi ned development proposals focused on maintaining the balance between society and the environment with dominant neoliberal development models implemented by the Colombian State that promote developmentalism and seemingly exacerbate armed confl ict in the country. The article frames this analysis within the context of political ecology, with the purpose of questioning the ideological bases for large-scale development that negatively impacts local communities both socially and environmentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is a key resource and an epicenter of struggle in Ethiopia, as indicated by the incident that sparked a powerful protest in Oromia in 2015. The protest quickly galvanized against the Addis Ababa Master Plan, which government offi cials represented as a "development plan," while the protesters counter-framed it as a "Master Killer," highlighting the immanent risks of land dispossession and displacement of people. This article employs a political-ecological approach to examine environmental, socio-cultural, and political-economic implications of the Master Plan and the resistance against it as a signifi er of wider issues of contestation connected to land and displacement. It highlights contemporary grievances of the Oromo people in relation to unresolved historical questions and outlines the responses of the government to the protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The material and intellectual history of geographical concepts matters. So, too, does providing alternative intellectual histories that can help to untangle imperialist threads and open new paths for geographical thought. Anglophone political ecology has relied greatly on the concept of metabolism, drawn from Marx and the German chemist Justus von Liebig. Upon this conception of the relationship between society and nature major edifices of social theory have been erected. Here I both trace the concept's history to the material flows of imperialism and offer an alternative intellectual history for metabolic critique through the work of Josué de Castro (1908–1973), a Brazilian geographer and nutritionist. I argue that a physiological, anticolonial version of metabolic critique draws attention to how the bodies and flows of (not only) Europe and Europeans and (not only) Latin America and Latin Americans are produced in relation to one another. Emerging work has sought to put forward anticolonial and embodied political ecology: Thinking with Castro can help take these approaches in fruitful directions. Key Words: history of geography, hunger, Josué de Castro, metabolism, political ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bitácora Urbano/Territorial is the property of Bitacora Urbano/Territorial and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente is the property of Universidade Federal do Parana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Popular environmentalism can have limited democratic outcomes if it reproduces structures of social order. This article seeks to advance understandings of environmental democratization by examining the analytical framework of civic epistemologies as a complement to the current use of environmental narratives in political ecology and science and technology studies. Civic epistemologies are the preexisting dimensions of political order that the state and other actors seek to maintain as unchallengeable. They add to current analysis because they show the structures around which narratives form, as well as how knowledge and political agencies of different actors are coproduced in reductive ways. The article applies this analysis to popular environmentalism in Thailand and especially concerning community forests and logging from 1968 to present. Using a combination of interviews and content analysis of historic newspaper reporting, the article shows how diverse actors—including state, elite conservationists, and peasant activists—have organized political activism and ecological claims about forests according to unchallenged norms of appropriate community culture and behavior. These actions have kept narratives about forests and society in place and worked against alternative and arguably more empowering visions of communities and forests in recent years. The article argues that revealing civic epistemologies can contribute to a deeper form of environmental democratization than engaging in environmental politics based on existing narratives or analyzing the limitations of narratives alone. Key Words: authoritarianism, environmentalism, political ecology, science and technology studies, Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given a history in political ecology of challenging hegemonic "scientific" narratives concerning environmental problems, the current political moment presents a potent conundrum: how to (continue to) critically engage with narratives of environmental change while confronting the "populist" promotion of "alternative facts." We ask how political ecologists might situate themselves vis-à-vis the presently growing power of contemporary authoritarian forms, highlighting how the latter operates through sociopolitical domains and beyond-human natures. We argue for a clear and conscious strategy of speaking power to post-truth, to enable two things. The first is to come to terms with an internal paradox of addressing those seeking to obfuscate or deny environmental degradation and social injustice, while retaining political ecology's own historical critique of the privileged role of Western science and expert knowledge in determining dominant forms of environmental governance. This involves understanding post-truth, and its twin pillars of alternative facts and fake news, as operating politically by those regimes looking to shore up power, rather than as embodying a coherent mode of ontological reasoning regarding the nature of reality. Second, we differentiate post-truth from analyses affirming diversity in both knowledge and reality (i.e., epistemology and ontology, respectively) regarding the drivers of environmental change. This enables a critical confrontation of contemporary authoritarianism and still allows for a relevant and accessible political ecology that engages with marginalized populations likely to suffer most from the proliferation of post-truth politics. Key Words: authoritarianism, environmental policy, political ecology, post-truth, science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research within geography and related disciplines has directed much attention to the coupled interactions between social and ecological systems. These studies have usefully analyzed the multifaceted, temporal, and scalar dimensions of human-environment interactions and how future environmental change will continue to challenge human resource needs. Political ecology research has also made contributions in this regard, particularly by emphasizing livelihood systems, impacts of conservation and development, agricultural production, and environmental governance. Yet although political ecology research has contributed to socioecological systems scholarship, much of this work has been situated within dryland environments or marine ecosystems that have particular biophysical features. Comparatively, wetland environments that experience dynamic flooding regimes warrant further attention from political ecology. This article engages with the findings from an ongoing research project that is evaluating the impacts of flooding variability for rural livelihoods in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. We outline some of the main findings from this work by concentrating on two themes central to political ecology: access and governance. We conclude by arguing that the Okavango Delta should be understood as a hydrosocial waterscape that encompasses a variety of socioecological relationships within the region, as well as the power relations operating at a variety of scales that both produce and govern them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses urban flooding in the Una Watershed in the city of Belém through a Political Ecology lens, which means considering the production and social distribution of environmental risks, as well as its impacts. To do so, the analysis stems from the concrete experiences of city inhabitants, which are interpreted using concepts such as risk, adaptation and vulnerability, situating these experiences in the context of urbanization under capitalism. In contrast with mass media framings, which blames the poor population and represent flooding as a natural phenomenon, this work discusses that environmental risks in Belém are related to infrastructural deficiencies and to impacts of large scale urbanization projects. Thus, urban flooding results from historic processes of land occupation, exclusion, and marginalization of the poor in Belém, which remains unchanged even after massive investments in drainage and sanitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography and allied disciplines have long debated the ontological relationship between nature and society. Although a binary perspective has historically predominated, recent decades have given rise to theories transgressing the nature-society divide through nondualist conceptualizations of socionatures. Proponents of actor-network theory (ANT) in particular have made the case for a nondualist approach focused on hybrid socionatural networks. Yet some scholars working in critical traditions such as political ecology reject ANT for reasons including insufficient attention to power and human intentionality. This article engages this debate, arguing that ANT's approach to socionatural networks is compatible with political ecology's core commitments and that drawing on ANT can help address enduring critiques of political ecology's privileging of the political and economic over the material. The article grounds its argument empirically by applying a political-ecological network approach to a conflict rooted in the neoliberal subsumption of nature at Peru's Lake Parón. In documenting the historical dynamics of socionatural articulation within the Parón waterscape, the case illustrates the potential of a network approach for understanding processes of assemblage and hybridization in ways that emphasize their historical-materialist character and the emergent agency of the social and natural--and socionatural--actors that they link. The article contends that such an approach not only yields a more comprehensive and symmetrical understanding of agency but can also support more just environmental governance by highlighting the contradictions between social reproduction and economic production that underlie many socioenvironmental conflicts under capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Textual is the property of Universidad Autonoma Chapingo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)