Preface and Acknowledgements
This book provides an introduction to political ecology, which is an interdisciplinary field of critical studies of environmental issues. We present many case studies
and examples from local sites in both the Global South and Global North, linking
local environmental processes to the national and global levels. We believe that the
book can be used to introduce students to political ecology at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, but we also think it may be of interest to a general readership engaged in environmental issues.
Political ecology has grown as an academic field during the last few decades,
attracting in particular many young scholars and students from social, human and
natural sciences. This is a critical approach examining power in environmental governance, and especially related to injustice and environmental decline. Being critical also means studying knowledge production and the exercise of power within
science itself and its links to policy-making. Our intention is to equip students with
tools to question what is often taken for granted in environmental policy formulations and in environmental science.
The book presents a number of such examples of examining what tends to be
taken for granted. It is based on a textbook in political ecology first published in
Norwegian by Universitetsforlaget (Scandinavian University Press) in 2010 and in
a revised version in 2017. This English edition is not merely a translation. It is an
extensively revised version compared to the last Norwegian edition. All chapters
have been reworked, some more than others. While 7 Chaps. 2 and 10 are completely new, 7 Chaps. 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 have been updated and rewritten with new
cases.
Political ecology has become a broad field including several directions, and we
do not pretend to cover all of the current trends. Theoretically, we first of all draw
on discourse theory, Marxist political economy, various other social science theories and insights from natural science. Most of the examples and case studies are
taken from our own empirical research, mostly in Africa and Norway.
We are grateful to the following colleagues who commented on single chapters
or the whole manuscript in Norwegian: Jørund Aasetre, Hans Petter Andersen,
Mikael Bergius, Axel Borchgrevink, Halvard Buhaug, Karoline Daugstad, Nils
Petter Gleditsch, Ingrid Guldvik, Eirik Jansen, Andrei Marin, Kristen Nordhaug,
Knut Nustad, Mariel Aguilar Støen, Nicholas Tyler and Andreas Ytterstad.
Research is a collective effort, especially in an interdisciplinary field such as
political ecology, in terms of both building on the previous work of colleagues and
carrying out the research together. Most of the examples, case studies and conceptual ideas in this book have been studied or developed in collaboration with colleagues who we have enjoyed working with. We therefore acknowledge with
appreciation the contributions by Jens Aune, Boubacar Ba, Mikael Bergius, Ian
Bryceson, Connor Cavanagh, Inger Marie Gaup Eira, Pierre Hiernaux, Kathrine
Johnsen, Thembela Kepe, Faustin Maganga, Mikkel Nils Sara, Sayuni Mariki,
This book provides an introduction to political ecology, which is an interdisciplinary field of critical studies of environmental issues. We present many case studies
and examples from local sites in both the Global South and Global North, linking
local environmental processes to the national and global levels. We believe that the
book can be used to introduce students to political ecology at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, but we also think it may be of interest to a general readership engaged in environmental issues.
Political ecology has grown as an academic field during the last few decades,
attracting in particular many young scholars and students from social, human and
natural sciences. This is a critical approach examining power in environmental governance, and especially related to injustice and environmental decline. Being critical also means studying knowledge production and the exercise of power within
science itself and its links to policy-making. Our intention is to equip students with
tools to question what is often taken for granted in environmental policy formulations and in environmental science.
The book presents a number of such examples of examining what tends to be
taken for granted. It is based on a textbook in political ecology first published in
Norwegian by Universitetsforlaget (Scandinavian University Press) in 2010 and in
a revised version in 2017. This English edition is not merely a translation. It is an
extensively revised version compared to the last Norwegian edition. All chapters
have been reworked, some more than others. While 7 Chaps. 2 and 10 are completely new, 7 Chaps. 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 have been updated and rewritten with new
cases.
Political ecology has become a broad field including several directions, and we
do not pretend to cover all of the current trends. Theoretically, we first of all draw
on discourse theory, Marxist political economy, various other social science theories and insights from natural science. Most of the examples and case studies are
taken from our own empirical research, mostly in Africa and Norway.
We are grateful to the following colleagues who commented on single chapters
or the whole manuscript in Norwegian: Jørund Aasetre, Hans Petter Andersen,
Mikael Bergius, Axel Borchgrevink, Halvard Buhaug, Karoline Daugstad, Nils
Petter Gleditsch, Ingrid Guldvik, Eirik Jansen, Andrei Marin, Kristen Nordhaug,
Knut Nustad, Mariel Aguilar Støen, Nicholas Tyler and Andreas Ytterstad.
Research is a collective effort, especially in an interdisciplinary field such as
political ecology, in terms of both building on the previous work of colleagues and
carrying out the research together. Most of the examples, case studies and conceptual ideas in this book have been studied or developed in collaboration with colleagues who we have enjoyed working with. We therefore acknowledge with
appreciation the contributions by Jens Aune, Boubacar Ba, Mikael Bergius, Ian
Bryceson, Connor Cavanagh, Inger Marie Gaup Eira, Pierre Hiernaux, Kathrine
Johnsen, Thembela Kepe, Faustin Maganga, Mikkel Nils Sara, Sayuni Mariki,