Political Ecology Class # 2

1. PoliticalEcologyClass # 2 Bill Derman, Noragric

2. Outline for today • Reviewwhat is a politicalecologyapproach or framework • A bit ofmarx • Politicalecologyofcoffee

3. Urban politicalecology • Reigningthe River: Urban Ecologies and PoliticalTransformation by Anne Rademacher • Duke University Press, 2011 • Shedoesn’tcall it politicalecologybut it is: theintersectionsofpolitics, religion, history, ecology, socialmovements in theefforts to restoretheBagmati River

4. Essenceof PE Political ecology is pluralistic in its basic concepts but it almost always includes: understanding ‘the complex relations between nature and society through a careful analysis of. . .access and control over resources and their implications for environmental health and sustainable livelihoods’ and explaining ‘environmental conflict especially in terms of struggles over ‘knowledge, power and practice’ and ‘politics, justice and governance’’.

5. North-South • Political ecologists tend to attribute the explanation for many destructive ecological practices to the enclosure or appropriation of forests, lands and waters by private interests. Most generally it is explored as commodifying the environment and using the market to change or conserve ’nature, or the conversion of nature into commodities. This is often referred to as the commodification of nature. This is a long-term trend but has intensified in recent years.

6. What makes up a politicalecologyapproach? • The study of how decisions are made about the environment? Who has the power to make decisions about the environment? • The studyofwhobenefits, who loses, whoarethewinners and whoarethe losers in environmentaldecision making • A focusonthe spatial scalesinvolved – it’susuallyphrased as global, national, localbutthis is toosimplisticbecause global markets, for example, caninteractdirectlywiththelocal. Global miningcompaniesextractcopper in a particularplace at a particular time • Takeshistoryseriously in howtheenvironment has beenchanged over sometimeslongperiodof time, or howcroppingpatternschange

7. PE Approach 2 5. Struggles over meaning as well as over the resource itself. For example, over animals lions, elephants, cattle. Humans place different values on the lives of other living beings. 6. Focus on how knowledge about society and the environment is produced. Whose knowledge is seen as definitive. 7. How is science used in the making of environmental and resource policies 8. Very often a normative approach – what the political ecologist thinks is best in light of concerns of poor, marginalized, and the local.

8. RelevanceofPoliticalEcology PE addresses the natural resource conflicts which of course are played out in local, national and international arenas. 1. environmental, degradation. Example – the Niger oil delta in Nigeria 2. conservation. The appropriation of pastoralist lands in eastern Tanzania 3. the neoliberalisation of nature and its ongoing rounds of accumulation, enclosure and dispossession. For example, the appropriate of agricultural lands by governments on behalf of foreign countries or multinational corporations. 4. The consequencesofdevelopment programs and projectsupontheenvironment and those dependent uponthatenvironment for theirlivelihoods. The outcomesof huge dams upon rivers and thepeoplewhodependuponthem.

9. The Metabolic Rift • Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical transformations within the cells of living organisms. These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. • It is used as a metaphor for humans and nature, humans and theirenvironments.

10. The metabolic rift • A numberofresearchersareusingthisconceptwhich is a metaphor to make marxism more relevant for understandingenvironmentalissues. Adding a secondcontradiction to thestrugglebetweencapital and labor. The secondcontradiction is betweencapitalism and nature.

11. labor • There is a metabolic interaction between humans and the earth, and the earth is what supports life. Labor according to Marx is an eternal natural necessity which mediates the metabolism between man and nature, and therefore human life itself. In a broad sense the metabolic processes are eating, drinking, breathing, and the bases of exchanges with the environment which permits organisms to stay alive.

12. Coffee • Coffee is a plant native to Ethiopia • Itsspread from there has transformedecologies and societies in thesubtropical and tropical areas ofthe world • Today 25 million people in 60 countriesproducearound 12 billion poundsofcoffee a year • Retail sales arearound $70 billion. • In the world market ofcommoditiesonly petroleum has greatermonetaryvalue

13. Papua New Guinea • Coffeeintroducedinto New Guinea at the end ofthe 19th century • Expanded in the 1930s • Then as a colonycoffeewasseen as a growthindustry • In the 1950s land opened up for white settlers mainly from Australia • Indigenouspeoplealsobegan making profits from coffee

14. Coffee • Restrictedsoils and ecologies for coffee in terms ofaltitude • Majorityofcoffee harvested by hand (whetheronplantations or small holdings) • Coffeeberriesare red and they have to be pulped, fermented, dried, processed, shipped, roasted, packaged and thenmarketedbeforebeingconsumed

15. Coffee • Throughoutthisprocessthebeansarebought and sold many times and moved to numerous locations. • With eachrelocationtheireconomic and socialvalue as well as theirsocial and symbolicmeaningchanges. • Coffee – like so manyothercommodities – movesaroundthe planet carried by farmers ontheir backs, in wheelbarrowson donkey carts, on trucks, cars, ships, airplanes, and ships.

16. Production to consumption • Once a coffeeleavesthe farm it is graded and given a quality. • In Papua New Guinea, for example, coffee is the symbol ofmodernity. It is the most important cash crop and theway by which farmers see it as themeansofsocial and economicadvancement. Theyseethemselves as part of a global commercialeconomyaccording to theanthropologistPaige West. • Howeverhowtheyviewthecoffeedisappearsonce it leaves New Guinea. The coffee from Papua New Guinea takeson a differentsymbolicmeaning. • This symbolicmeaning has changed.

17. Coffeeconsumption • For consumersofcoffeeit’sgood to feelthatyouare making otherpeoples’ lives betterwhenyouenjoyreallygoodcoffee. • Images are used to sellcoffee and these images change over time. • In thepasttherewaslittleemphasisuponwherethecoffeecame from, whogrew it and under whatconditions it wasgrown. • Therewaslittleattention to theecologyofcoffee farms and plantations. • This has changedsincethe 1980s – in shortsomethingveryrecent

18. National differences • In the U.S. a market for fair trade and in theNetherlands • Didn’ttakeplace in Germanyuntilmuch later. • ApparentlyGermansdidn’tpaymuchattention to wherethecoffeecame from and theconditions under which it wasgrownbut to the taste. • Why do peoplebuywhatthey do, whataretheywilling to spend, how do they spend theirmoney • Importanceofconsumption and the images thatarecreated by companies to meetthe images and fantasiesofconsumers.

19. New symbolicvalue • Coffee from Papua New Guinea is now sold as single origin • Organic • Fair Trade • Theseare terms invented and developed by coffeecompanies and sometimessocialactivists to improvetheecologicalcircumstances in whichcoffee is grown, to have higherbenefits for producers and to create a market niche to have higherprofits • Theyarealso an effort to givecoffee a story whichmeans progress for thevillagerswhoproducethecoffee

20. Market not sufficient to establish ’fair trade’ • Certificationprocesses • Organic • Ifworkersinvolved, conditionsofworkers • Wages • Involvementofwomen • Qualityofcoffeecontrol • Accuratelabeling to consumers • Consumerswill be willing to pay more in thenameof fairness, environment and development

21. Images of Papua New Guinea • Primitives, living in remotevillages, untouched, authentic • Poverty stricken • Hidehistoryofdominanceofcoffee in the lives of Papua New Guineans • Can do politicalecologythroughthestudyofcommodities and theirtransformations

22. Conflict and coffee (1) • Political ecology has relevance for conflict but it’s also about how to understand and frame issues of environment and society. • One process which affects the environment is consumption, and how a commodity is affected by how it’s marketed. In the case of New Guinea there’s a hidden deception in marketing commodities in a way that distorts the way communities view their production and products. • Growing coffee by giving New Guineans relief from forced labor was a coercive if not a form of structural violence

23. Conflict and coffee (2) • In Central America in the highlands large amounts of indigenous land was taken for coffee production by the elites. In short coffee growing was based the violent taking of land. • In Angola Portugese settlers used the power of the colonial power to also take land to grow plantation coffee. They used their power to force Angolans to work on the coffee plantations. • In parts of Indonesia Dutch planters used the power of the colonial state to take land from Indonesians to grow coffee • In short during the colonial period in parts of Africa, Asia, Central America and South America land was violently taken. • However, the colonial period is now over. Coffee growing is very different. There are large and significant differences between plantation coffee and small-holder coffee. And there are significant cooperative-grown coffees.

24. Coffee and conflict (3) • There are significant capital\labor issues. Farm workers around the world are poorly paid, highly vulnerable and face many difficulties in organizing for their interests. • As with other commodities, large farm owners use a variety of forms of violence to keep wages low and conditions difficult. • While a single commodity importance of context. • What are the best ways to grow coffee? How does one change the distribution of profits along the value chain from grower to consumer?

25. Global politicalecologicalquestion • Can we sustain human life as we engage in capital accumulation appropriating and diminishing the stock upon which human life depends? This is the global political ecological question. One way of putting it for Marxists is the following:

26. capitalism versus nature? Capital’s insatiable appetite for ever-higher levels of profit and accumulation is reinforced by the domination of exchange value over use value, competition and the concentration and centralization of capital. The incessant accumulation amplifies the social metabolism of society, increasing the demands placed on nature. New technologies are used above all to expand production and to lower labor costs. Capital’s social metabolism is increasingly in contradiction with the natural metabolism, producing various metabolic rifts and forms of ecological degradation that have and continue to threaten the ecosystems upon which life depends.

27. Global problem butdifferentialresponsibilities • The most extreme example of global ecological change is climate. The mismatch between the nature and scale of ecological problems which do not respect national boundaries and the division of the world into nation-states desperately striving to keep national sovereignty pinpoints many dilemmas.