Political Ecology Across Spaces, Scales, And Social Groups
Contributors: Lisa L. Gezon (Editor); Susan Paulson (Editor)
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: December 28, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780813534770
Subjects: Environmentalist thought & ideology; POLITICS & GOVERNMENT; Public Policy - Cultural Policy; Essays; Social Science; Politics / Current Events; Sociology; Public Policy - Environmental Policy; Case studies; Anthropology - General; Political ecology
Description: "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."--Pub. desc.