35
2
degradation, a link that was taken for granted and rarely investigated empirically
in early Marxist contributions to political ecology.
However, while Marxist critics tended to accept the environmental impacts of
human production described by the various Neo-Malthusian reports, they pointed
at the inherent lack of social and political analysis in these studies and argued that
Malthusian thinking would tend to lead to policies of ‘blaming the victims’. In this
way, as pointed out by Enzensberger (1974), ecologists and other natural scientists
may pretend to be ‘objective’ and ‘apolitical’, but they become political actors
when engaging in environmental debates, which are essentially about political
choices with winners and losers. The presumed neutrality of ecology as a science is
therefore illusory, and what Enzensberger referred to as ‘political ecology’ corresponds to what political ecologists later have called ‘apolitical ecology’ (Robbins
2020a).
Political ecologists have, however, since the 1990s challenged many environmental degradation narratives. While Marx’ idea about ‘the robbing of soils’ in capitalist agriculture should be critically investigated like any ‘taken-for-grantedness’, and
while there is not an obvious connection between environmental degradation and
political-economic marginalization, there has recently been a revival of Marxist
thinking in political ecology. Instead of marginalization necessarily leading to degradation, political ecology studies have documented how degradation narratives
serve to justify elite capture and smallholders’ dispossession of land and natural
resources including forms of accumulation by dispossession (Benjaminsen 2015;
Bergius et al. 2020; Cavanagh et al. 2020). In this way, degradation narratives may
contribute to driving land-use conflicts rather than population growth and environmental degradation as in the Malthusian scenario.
2.2 Human Ecology and Cultural Ecology
Human Ecology and Cultural Ecology are closely related approaches within interdisciplinary human-environment and nature-society studies although with somewhat different origins (Zimmerer 2013).
Human Ecology was coined by geographers at the University of Chicago in
1907 under the influence of well-known ecologists such as Frederic Clements, but
has later been mostly championed by social scientists. Cultural Ecology also
emerged in the early twentieth century in the USA, but as a theory of cultural
change focusing on human adaptation to material conditions (economic and environmental) (Zimmerer 2013).
In both approaches, human society, often at a local community scale, are studied as part of an ecosystem with a focus for instance on flows of energy, nutrients
or calories. Research on risk, systems analysis, resilience and adaptation are important directions within this tradition.
A textbook in Human Ecology (that embraces both Human and Cultural
Ecology) states that this approach ‘emphasizes the complex ways in which humans
shape and are shaped by their environment’ (Bates and Tucker 2010: 1). While earlier human ecology ‘tended to ask how traditional behaviors enabled a population
2.2 · Human Ecology and Cultural Ecology
2
degradation, a link that was taken for granted and rarely investigated empirically
in early Marxist contributions to political ecology.
However, while Marxist critics tended to accept the environmental impacts of
human production described by the various Neo-Malthusian reports, they pointed
at the inherent lack of social and political analysis in these studies and argued that
Malthusian thinking would tend to lead to policies of ‘blaming the victims’. In this
way, as pointed out by Enzensberger (1974), ecologists and other natural scientists
may pretend to be ‘objective’ and ‘apolitical’, but they become political actors
when engaging in environmental debates, which are essentially about political
choices with winners and losers. The presumed neutrality of ecology as a science is
therefore illusory, and what Enzensberger referred to as ‘political ecology’ corresponds to what political ecologists later have called ‘apolitical ecology’ (Robbins
2020a).
Political ecologists have, however, since the 1990s challenged many environmental degradation narratives. While Marx’ idea about ‘the robbing of soils’ in capitalist agriculture should be critically investigated like any ‘taken-for-grantedness’, and
while there is not an obvious connection between environmental degradation and
political-economic marginalization, there has recently been a revival of Marxist
thinking in political ecology. Instead of marginalization necessarily leading to degradation, political ecology studies have documented how degradation narratives
serve to justify elite capture and smallholders’ dispossession of land and natural
resources including forms of accumulation by dispossession (Benjaminsen 2015;
Bergius et al. 2020; Cavanagh et al. 2020). In this way, degradation narratives may
contribute to driving land-use conflicts rather than population growth and environmental degradation as in the Malthusian scenario.
2.2 Human Ecology and Cultural Ecology
Human Ecology and Cultural Ecology are closely related approaches within interdisciplinary human-environment and nature-society studies although with somewhat different origins (Zimmerer 2013).
Human Ecology was coined by geographers at the University of Chicago in
1907 under the influence of well-known ecologists such as Frederic Clements, but
has later been mostly championed by social scientists. Cultural Ecology also
emerged in the early twentieth century in the USA, but as a theory of cultural
change focusing on human adaptation to material conditions (economic and environmental) (Zimmerer 2013).
In both approaches, human society, often at a local community scale, are studied as part of an ecosystem with a focus for instance on flows of energy, nutrients
or calories. Research on risk, systems analysis, resilience and adaptation are important directions within this tradition.
A textbook in Human Ecology (that embraces both Human and Cultural
Ecology) states that this approach ‘emphasizes the complex ways in which humans
shape and are shaped by their environment’ (Bates and Tucker 2010: 1). While earlier human ecology ‘tended to ask how traditional behaviors enabled a population
2.2 · Human Ecology and Cultural Ecology