title: Consuming Landscapes: Towards a Political Ecology of Resource Appropriation
Creators: name: Franks, Daniel
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2008
Subjects: subject: Resource appropriation
subject: landscape consumption
subject: political ecology
subject: Empire
subject: Chile
subject: West Papua
subject: environmental governance

description: In this thesis I develop a political-ecological model of Resource Appropriation called Landscape Consumption. Resource Appropriation, the intentional taking by a social group(s) from one society of the resources of another sovereign political society without consent, is a pervasive and persistent social phenomenon. Resource Appropriation may manifest between states, nations, corporations or other forms of social organisation and may range from the direct looting of resources, occupation of land and colonialism, to the enforcement of disadvantageous economic, political and trading relationships. Consistent with the field of Political Ecology this thesis attempts to account for the broader environmental and social transformations that accompany Resource Appropriation and the underlying political and economic processes. In doing so the thesis contributes to the growing collection of literature that explores the relationship between natural resource development and social and ecological transformation. The Landscape Consumption model argues that Resource Appropriation is not simply achieved by the power of an army or a type of economic instrument but through a broad array of socio-ecological techniques employed by a dominant group(s) that reshapes the relations of space and place, perception and experience, society and ecology. The model draws on three themes: domination, detachment and consumption. Landscape Domination refers to the broader political, social, economic and ecological control imposed by a dominant social group(s) in the pursuit of a resource. While a single resource may be the focus of appropriation in practice broader social and ecological domination is required. Landscape Detachment argues that such domination facilitates the detachment of the dominated from the social and biogeophysical processes of information feedback. Landscape Consumption hypothesises that the combined effects of domination and detachment result in a deterioration of both societies and ecologies. The process of consumption relates not only to the resources directly sought by dominant social groups but also to the consequent deterioration of the function, abundance and diversity of the landscapes where the resources were appropriated. The Landscape Consumption model responds to the transformed power relationships that characterise the contemporary international political environment. Resource Appropriation over the past decades has shifted from direct nation-state domination (colonialism and neo-colonialism) to more complex and less formal forms that have involved interstate and international institutions and actors, argued here to constitute Empire. The thesis argues that the project of Empire includes multilateral economic systems and institutions built since the Second World War, the discourses of neoliberalism and trade liberalisation, expansion of corporate power, and also the various foreign and economic policies pursued by nation-states; but that the agency of Empire is more accurately attributable to the complex of interconnections and relationships between these heterogenous elements and thus requires a new conception of sovereignty. The model adopts a landscape approach to account for the complex sovereignty and agency that has accompanied this shift. Landscape provides the means to explain the multiple interactions between social groups and biogeophysical environs grounded by their location in geographic space. Landscape is a theoretical tool that provides insight into the socio-ecological processes, discourses, relationships and actors that contribute to domination for Resource Appropriation and is flexible enough to conceptualise the agency of diverse social groups. The model is useful in this context as Empires do not arise to dominate ecology and society in one totalising moment, but are built and defended landscape by landscape. To test the Landscape Consumption model the thesis makes a historical comparative analysis of two case studies, in Chile and West Papua, where previously autonomous landscapes were integrated or re-integrated into larger political-economic entities through practices of domination. The case studies draw on a wide variety of sources, such as declassified government and military records, fieldwork, and interviews to investigate copper Resource Appropriation during the time period of 1955–2005. The case studies reveal the multiple processes and actors involved in Resource Appropriation and confirm the applicability of the Landscape Consumption model. The case studies suggest that while Resource Appropriation does lead to broader deterioration of environmental and social resources, dominated landscapes can mitigate the extent of Landscape Consumption by mobilising to challenge the dominance of imposed landscapes.