33
2
The lens of spatial fix has been used to discuss the role of scale in political ecology
(Brown and Purcell 2005; Cohen and Bakker 2014) and, for instance, to explain
how the movement of capital to invest in African agriculture produces winners and
losers (Bergius et al. 2018), and to explain the growth in aquaculture as a fix for
industrial overfishing (Mansfield 2010).
More recently, political ecologists have extended this idea further to not only
include the production of space, but also the production of nature within ‘socioecological fixes’ (Ekers and Prudham 2015). This implies studying more closely
how landscapes and ecologies are transformed as a result of capital moving into
new spaces as well as creating new commodities such as carbon, biodiversity,
ecosystem services and genes. Some of the political ecology literature studying
socio- ecological fixes also connects these fixes directly to processes of accumulation by dispossession.
Definition
Commodity fetishism is another concept from Marx that has been frequently used in
political ecology analyses. A fetish is an object that is given religious value, and the
origin of this value is therefore of a mystical character. Commodity fetishism was
used by Marx to highlight that there is often an ideological veil obscuring our
understanding of capitalistic production. This means that commodities tend to
appear as objects detached from the social relations they are produced under. The
concept ‘commodity fetishism’ is meant to highlight the fact that there in a capitalistic
economy tends to be an information gap between production and consumption. This
gap widens the more global the commodity becomes. The consumer therefore knows
little about the social and environmental conditions of production of particular
commodities. In a global economy based on mass production, it is for instance
difficult for consumers to know whether the commodities they buy have been
produced according to certain ethical and environmental practices.
Therefore, a consumer cannot know whether clothes from a specific manufacturer
are produced using child labour before an organization for labour or human rights
investigates this and the media writes about it. Similarly, it is difficult to know
whether the palm oil in the peanut butter comes from sustainable small-scale
producers in West Africa or from plantations in Indonesia that have destroyed
habitats for orangutans. Even if some of us have the opportunity to go on a safari
in Africa, it is hard to know if the hotel where we stay really has such a harmonious
relationship with local communities as the hotel management claims, or whether
people have been dispossessed and lost livelihood sources as a result of tourism.
implies moving surplus capital into new spaces and new markets. Rather than
being permanent, these fixes should be viewed as temporary remedies solving a
crisis of accumulation. As Harvey (2014: 7) notes, instead of solving its underlying
contradictions, capital ‘has the nasty habit of simply moving them around’, with
the state playing a key supportive role.
2.1 · Marxist Political Economy
2
The lens of spatial fix has been used to discuss the role of scale in political ecology
(Brown and Purcell 2005; Cohen and Bakker 2014) and, for instance, to explain
how the movement of capital to invest in African agriculture produces winners and
losers (Bergius et al. 2018), and to explain the growth in aquaculture as a fix for
industrial overfishing (Mansfield 2010).
More recently, political ecologists have extended this idea further to not only
include the production of space, but also the production of nature within ‘socioecological fixes’ (Ekers and Prudham 2015). This implies studying more closely
how landscapes and ecologies are transformed as a result of capital moving into
new spaces as well as creating new commodities such as carbon, biodiversity,
ecosystem services and genes. Some of the political ecology literature studying
socio- ecological fixes also connects these fixes directly to processes of accumulation by dispossession.
Definition
Commodity fetishism is another concept from Marx that has been frequently used in
political ecology analyses. A fetish is an object that is given religious value, and the
origin of this value is therefore of a mystical character. Commodity fetishism was
used by Marx to highlight that there is often an ideological veil obscuring our
understanding of capitalistic production. This means that commodities tend to
appear as objects detached from the social relations they are produced under. The
concept ‘commodity fetishism’ is meant to highlight the fact that there in a capitalistic
economy tends to be an information gap between production and consumption. This
gap widens the more global the commodity becomes. The consumer therefore knows
little about the social and environmental conditions of production of particular
commodities. In a global economy based on mass production, it is for instance
difficult for consumers to know whether the commodities they buy have been
produced according to certain ethical and environmental practices.
Therefore, a consumer cannot know whether clothes from a specific manufacturer
are produced using child labour before an organization for labour or human rights
investigates this and the media writes about it. Similarly, it is difficult to know
whether the palm oil in the peanut butter comes from sustainable small-scale
producers in West Africa or from plantations in Indonesia that have destroyed
habitats for orangutans. Even if some of us have the opportunity to go on a safari
in Africa, it is hard to know if the hotel where we stay really has such a harmonious
relationship with local communities as the hotel management claims, or whether
people have been dispossessed and lost livelihood sources as a result of tourism.
implies moving surplus capital into new spaces and new markets. Rather than
being permanent, these fixes should be viewed as temporary remedies solving a
crisis of accumulation. As Harvey (2014: 7) notes, instead of solving its underlying
contradictions, capital ‘has the nasty habit of simply moving them around’, with
the state playing a key supportive role.
2.1 · Marxist Political Economy