Political Ecology Across Spaces, Scales, and Social Groups - by Susan Paulson (Paperback)

About the Book

Environmental issues have become increasingly prominent in local struggles, national debates, and international policies. In response, scholars are paying more attention to conventional politics and to more broadly defined relations of power and difference in the interactions between human groups and their biophysical environments. Such issues are at the heart of the relatively new interdisciplinary field of political ecology, forged at the intersection of political economy and cultural ecology. This volume provides a toolkit of vital concepts and a set of research models and analytic frameworks for researchers at all levels.

Book Synopsis

Environmental issues have become increasingly prominent in local struggles, national debates, and international policies. In response, scholars are paying more attention to conventional politics and to more broadly defined relations of power and difference in the interactions between human groups and their biophysical environments. Such issues are at the heart of the relatively new interdisciplinary field of political ecology, forged at the intersection of political economy and cultural ecology.

This volume provides a toolkit of vital concepts and a set of research models and analytic frameworks for researchers at all levels. The two opening chapters trace rich traditions of thought and practice that inform current approaches to political ecology. They point to the entangled relationship between humans, politics, economies, and environments at the dawn of the twenty-first century and address challenges that scholars face in navigating the blurring boundaries among relevant fields of enquiry. The twelve case studies that follow demonstrate ways that culture and politics serve to mediate human-environmental relationships in specific ecological and geographical contexts. Taken together, they describe uses of and conflicts over resources including land, water, soil, trees, biodiversity, money, knowledge, and information; they exemplify wide-ranging ecological settings including deserts, coasts, rainforests, high mountains, and modern cities; and they explore sites located around the world, from Canada to Tonga and cyberspace.

Review Quotes

Political ecology is a strong and growing interdisciplinary field of inquiry, and this book makes a welcome and unique contribution. Susan Paulson and Lisa Gezon have put together an engaging and well-written collection that is full of fresh ideas and applications related to current theoretical debate, concepts and methods.--Marianne Schmick "Director, Tropical Conservation and Development Program, University of Florida"

About the Author

Susan Paulson is the director of Latin American studies and an associate professor of anthropology at Miami University.

Lisa Gezon is an associate professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the State University of West Georgia.