39
2
Vayda and Walters (1999) have, however, responded to the critique from political ecologists that human and cultural ecology lacks a focus on power and politics
more broadly, and thereby fails to properly describe causes of environmental
change. They argue that it is problematic that political ecology starts with a priori
judgements giving privilege to certain political-economic explanations. As an alternative to political ecology, they introduce ‘event ecology’.
This means
» to begin research with a focus on the environmental events or changes that we want
to explain and then to work backward in time and outward in space so as to enable
us to construct chains of causes and effects leading to those events or changes. By
contrast, the practice of many political ecologists, presumably regarding access to
resources as always politically determined and as always important for understanding or explaining environmental change, is to focus their research on such access, or
on change in such access, and to pay little or not attention to actually demonstrating
environmental effects (Vayda and Walters 1999: 169)
Hence, research should be ‘guided more by open questions about why events occur
than by restricted questions about how they are affected by factors privileged in
advance by the investigator’ (Vayda and Walters 1999: 170).
While event ecology seems to be another name for progressive contextualization, and while it is easy to agree that research should be open to all possible explanations, this critique may be seen to be relevant for only a section of political
ecology scholarship, even in the late 1990s. Many political ecologists have after all
engaged with ecology and not only relied on political explanations. One example is
the contribution by political ecologists to the paradigm shift in drylands research
and range science that took place in the 1990s (Stott and Sullivan 2000; Davis 2016;
Sayre 2017). For instance, political ecology research in the African Sahel from the
1990s included climatic variation and non-equilibrium ecology as key elements in
the analysis (Turner 1993 and Turner 1998, Benjaminsen 1997, Bassett and Bi Zuéli
2000, see also 7 Chaps. 7 and 8). This research has questioned claims of desertification caused by overgrazing and has instead pointed at rainfall variation as the
key driver of environmental change in the Sahel.
In addition, Piers Blaikie’s book The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in
Developing Countries from 1985 had paved the way for an approach to political
ecology that engages explicitly with natural science (Blaikie 1985). The book was a
critique of environmental conservation policies in the Global South and presented
three central arguments (Neumann 2008). First, there is often lack of sound scientific data on soil erosion and other environmental processes, which leads to a high
level of uncertainty. Second, actors perceive environmental change differently
depending on their ‘ideology’. Blaikie argued ‘that all approaches to soil erosion
and conservation are ideological – they are underpinned by a definite set of assumptions, both normative and empirical, about social change’ (Blaikie 1985: 149).
Third, environmental policies are about control over and rights to land and natural
resources. A critical question that political ecology asks, therefore is: Who wins
and who loses from resource and conservation policies? This again leads us to
study ‘where power lies and how it is used’ (Blaikie 1985: 6).
2.2 · Human Ecology and Cultural Ecology
2
Vayda and Walters (1999) have, however, responded to the critique from political ecologists that human and cultural ecology lacks a focus on power and politics
more broadly, and thereby fails to properly describe causes of environmental
change. They argue that it is problematic that political ecology starts with a priori
judgements giving privilege to certain political-economic explanations. As an alternative to political ecology, they introduce ‘event ecology’.
This means
» to begin research with a focus on the environmental events or changes that we want
to explain and then to work backward in time and outward in space so as to enable
us to construct chains of causes and effects leading to those events or changes. By
contrast, the practice of many political ecologists, presumably regarding access to
resources as always politically determined and as always important for understanding or explaining environmental change, is to focus their research on such access, or
on change in such access, and to pay little or not attention to actually demonstrating
environmental effects (Vayda and Walters 1999: 169)
Hence, research should be ‘guided more by open questions about why events occur
than by restricted questions about how they are affected by factors privileged in
advance by the investigator’ (Vayda and Walters 1999: 170).
While event ecology seems to be another name for progressive contextualization, and while it is easy to agree that research should be open to all possible explanations, this critique may be seen to be relevant for only a section of political
ecology scholarship, even in the late 1990s. Many political ecologists have after all
engaged with ecology and not only relied on political explanations. One example is
the contribution by political ecologists to the paradigm shift in drylands research
and range science that took place in the 1990s (Stott and Sullivan 2000; Davis 2016;
Sayre 2017). For instance, political ecology research in the African Sahel from the
1990s included climatic variation and non-equilibrium ecology as key elements in
the analysis (Turner 1993 and Turner 1998, Benjaminsen 1997, Bassett and Bi Zuéli
2000, see also 7 Chaps. 7 and 8). This research has questioned claims of desertification caused by overgrazing and has instead pointed at rainfall variation as the
key driver of environmental change in the Sahel.
In addition, Piers Blaikie’s book The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in
Developing Countries from 1985 had paved the way for an approach to political
ecology that engages explicitly with natural science (Blaikie 1985). The book was a
critique of environmental conservation policies in the Global South and presented
three central arguments (Neumann 2008). First, there is often lack of sound scientific data on soil erosion and other environmental processes, which leads to a high
level of uncertainty. Second, actors perceive environmental change differently
depending on their ‘ideology’. Blaikie argued ‘that all approaches to soil erosion
and conservation are ideological – they are underpinned by a definite set of assumptions, both normative and empirical, about social change’ (Blaikie 1985: 149).
Third, environmental policies are about control over and rights to land and natural
resources. A critical question that political ecology asks, therefore is: Who wins
and who loses from resource and conservation policies? This again leads us to
study ‘where power lies and how it is used’ (Blaikie 1985: 6).
2.2 · Human Ecology and Cultural Ecology