236
10
10.2.3 Decolonization
When students at the University of Cape Town managed to get the statue of Cecile
Rhodes removed from its viewpoint over the city close to the university in April
2015, this event started a global debate about decolonization in academia.
This debate has focused on questions such as: Whose worldviews dominate in
academia? Whose values are prioritized? How can perspectives from indigenous
and colonized peoples be included in research and teaching? And how does all this
matter for how environments and natural resources are governed?
This latter question is, in particular, important in political ecology, and this is
also a question that political ecologists have spent some time studying and discussing. In fact, political ecologists have been at the forefront to decolonize environmental science (Neimark et al. 2019), as well as related themes such as ‘conservation’
(Adams and Mulligan 2003; Martin et al. 2016; Salazar Parrenas 2018), ‘development’ (Wainwright 2008), ‘environmental education’ (Meek and Lloro-Bidart
2017) and ‘food justice’ (Bradley and Herrera 2016).
We would argue that the unique contribution of political ecology to the decolonization debate will be on how (neo)colonial power relations lead to indigenous
and other marginalized people losing access to land and resources. This struggle
for land is closely linked to a struggle over meaning where some research feed into
dominating policy narratives that serve to justify dispossession. Hence, in such
cases, decolonization would mean changing the narratives through providing better empirical research.
Finally, this means that decolonization does not necessarily need to go via postcolonial or poststructural theories. A critical investigation into the empirical basis
for colonial narratives may provide a foundation for an argument about decolonization, as shown in the case about Sámi reindeer pastoralism in 7 Chap. 7. Hence,
decolonization is not in contradiction to science, as some seem to think—only to
poor science.
References
Adams, W., and M. Mulligan, eds. 2003. Decolonizing nature: Strategies for conservation in a postcolonial era. London: Earthscan.
Bradley, K., and H. Herrera. 2016. Decolonizing food justice: Naming, resisting, and researching
colonizing forces in the movement. Antipode 48 (1): 97–114.
Gómez-Baggethun, E. 2020. More is more: Scaling political ecology within limits. Political Geography
76: 102095.
Kallis, G. 2019. Limits: Why Malthus was wrong and why environmentalists should care. Palo Alto:
Stanford University Press.
Martin, A., B. Coolsaet, E. Corbera, N.M. Dawson, J.A. Fraser, I. Lehmann, and I. Rodriguez. 2016.
Justice and conservation: The need to incorporate recognition. Biological Conservation 197: 254–
261.
Meek, D., and T. Lloro-Bidart. 2017. Introduction: Synthesizing a political ecology of education.
Journal of Environmental Education 48 (4): 213–225.
Chapter 10 · Stocktake and Ways Forward
10
10.2.3 Decolonization
When students at the University of Cape Town managed to get the statue of Cecile
Rhodes removed from its viewpoint over the city close to the university in April
2015, this event started a global debate about decolonization in academia.
This debate has focused on questions such as: Whose worldviews dominate in
academia? Whose values are prioritized? How can perspectives from indigenous
and colonized peoples be included in research and teaching? And how does all this
matter for how environments and natural resources are governed?
This latter question is, in particular, important in political ecology, and this is
also a question that political ecologists have spent some time studying and discussing. In fact, political ecologists have been at the forefront to decolonize environmental science (Neimark et al. 2019), as well as related themes such as ‘conservation’
(Adams and Mulligan 2003; Martin et al. 2016; Salazar Parrenas 2018), ‘development’ (Wainwright 2008), ‘environmental education’ (Meek and Lloro-Bidart
2017) and ‘food justice’ (Bradley and Herrera 2016).
We would argue that the unique contribution of political ecology to the decolonization debate will be on how (neo)colonial power relations lead to indigenous
and other marginalized people losing access to land and resources. This struggle
for land is closely linked to a struggle over meaning where some research feed into
dominating policy narratives that serve to justify dispossession. Hence, in such
cases, decolonization would mean changing the narratives through providing better empirical research.
Finally, this means that decolonization does not necessarily need to go via postcolonial or poststructural theories. A critical investigation into the empirical basis
for colonial narratives may provide a foundation for an argument about decolonization, as shown in the case about Sámi reindeer pastoralism in 7 Chap. 7. Hence,
decolonization is not in contradiction to science, as some seem to think—only to
poor science.
References
Adams, W., and M. Mulligan, eds. 2003. Decolonizing nature: Strategies for conservation in a postcolonial era. London: Earthscan.
Bradley, K., and H. Herrera. 2016. Decolonizing food justice: Naming, resisting, and researching
colonizing forces in the movement. Antipode 48 (1): 97–114.
Gómez-Baggethun, E. 2020. More is more: Scaling political ecology within limits. Political Geography
76: 102095.
Kallis, G. 2019. Limits: Why Malthus was wrong and why environmentalists should care. Palo Alto:
Stanford University Press.
Martin, A., B. Coolsaet, E. Corbera, N.M. Dawson, J.A. Fraser, I. Lehmann, and I. Rodriguez. 2016.
Justice and conservation: The need to incorporate recognition. Biological Conservation 197: 254–
261.
Meek, D., and T. Lloro-Bidart. 2017. Introduction: Synthesizing a political ecology of education.
Journal of Environmental Education 48 (4): 213–225.
Chapter 10 · Stocktake and Ways Forward