Chapter I Theoretical Framework on Political...
Transcript of Chapter I Theoretical Framework on Political...
Chapter I
Theoretical Framework on Political Ecology and Social Movements
Political ecology analyses the complexity of social and environmental change as some
thing produced by intersecting and conflicting economic, social, and ecological
processes operating at different scales. I Political ecology as an analytical framework
originated in the 19705 with a paper by Eric Wolf is seen as the earliest work of
political ecology.
The path breaking work of Piers Blaikie powerfully and explicitly merged
environmental studies with political economy. The book focused on the ways in
which the development of capitalism affects the peasants and pastoralists and thereby
the ways in which they use the environment. He argued that capitalism extracted
surpluses from peasants and pastoralists who then, in their need for money, over
utilized their natural resources, "taking out of the soil, pastures and forests what they
cannot afford to put back. This tendency was exacerbated by land-users, displacement
and often confinement into a small land area". In this way, Blaikie attributed
environmental events and environmental status to political economy, understood in
terms of world system theory. They connect local struggles and changes related to
land, labour which are contested are drawn upon the historical background of the
current process, highlight the dynamics related to inequality, and attend to critical
developments in the larger political economies. It also emphasizes the importance of
asymmetries of power, the unequal relations between different actors, in explaining
the interaction of society and environment.
The multidisciplinary, multilevel scope of political ecology has been used as a
rubric to explain environmental degradation or environmental change, and to
understand their significance for different groups within society. Political ecology
approach is an inquiry into the political sources, conditions and ramification of
environmental change while embracing different social and ecological scales, and
I Peter, J Taylor (1999): "Mapping Complex Social-Natural Relationships: Cases from Mexico and Africa" in Living with Nature: Environmental Politics as Cultural Discourse, (Ed) Frank Fischer and Marten, A.Hajer, Oxford University Press, p-l22.
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relates to inter-related research areas? The other influential book in the growth of
political ecology by Blaikie, Piers and Harold Brookfield argued for the deeper causes
of land degradation was more in the social problem rather in terms of characteristics
of soil, geology and climate and purely physical constraints of natural sciences.
Political ecology is grounded less in a coherent theory and seek to integrate its
analysis and encompasses a wide variety of interpretations drawn from ideological
spectrum from the political right (Neo-classical thought) to the political left (Neo-
Marxism) based on ideas drawn from political economy. Balikie and Brookfield has
suggested that third world political ecology is about the combined "concerns of
ecology and broadly defined political economy". Political ecology argues for
consideration of environmental degradation within its 'historical, political and
economic context' as well as its ecological one.3
The constantly shifting dialectic between society and land based resources
with regular attention to the role of the 'marginalized' peasants and the interaction of
scales - or chains of exploitation that radiate outward from individual resource users
to peasant communities and to regional, national, and global political and economic
relations. It stresses that the most effective way of addressing this problem is not
through a grand theoretical exposition, but rather through a selective engagement with
the political-economy literature as and when it is appropriate. The aim is built on a
multiple interpretation of 'political economy' rather than to assert in a single 'correct' . . 4 InterpretatIOn.
Political ecology explores the complexities by taking into account the
contextual sources of environmental impacts of the state and its policies, inter state
relations and global capitalism. The second approach investigates the local - specific
peasants and other socially disadvantaged groups in struggles to protect the
environmental foundations of their livelihood. It also tries to understand both
historical and contemporary dynamics of struggle. The third approach were political
2 Piers, Blaikie and Harold Brookfield (1987): Land Degradation and Society, London Methun, pp.l-17.
3. See Piers, Blaikie, (1987): The Political Ecology of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries, Longman, London, pp. 7-9.
4 Ibid, pp. 14-28.
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ramifications of environment change has been guided by what extent are the costs of
environment change are borne by socially disadvantaged groups, and how does this
unequal distribution of costs mediate existing socio-economic inequalities and does
this modify political process.
There were several reasons for the slow development of the field of political
ecologl because of the negative connotations it had on the political left and also due
to the association with the works at that time. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring which
showed the inter-connectedness between seemingly minute levels of pesticides which
could become concentrated in food chains and thus pose a serious environmental
problem.6 But banning for the few toxins, the chemical industry triumphed, seeing an
expansion of the production of chemicals. 7 She influenced many works like Hardin's
'The tragedy of Commons' model has been influenced by William Forster Lloyd
(1794-1852) was made on the two critical assumptions: First common property
. resources are open access and second that such resources held in common leads to
over-exploitation since resources are individualistic and unable to co-operate in favor
of a common interest. The Hardin model concludes that resources must be either
privatized or state controlled by the state to ensure sustainable use. This had
influenced the third world countries and the dominant models of development had far
reaching implications in the management of national parks as they are open to all
without limit the parks themselves are limited in extent and whereas population seems
to grow without limit.8
An extreme ecological stand was taken by the Limits to Growth study
produced by the Club of Rome. It predicted that unless technology changed its current
course, the world was in danger and running out of its resources. This was supported
with Paul Ehrlich (1968)9 predicted that the world faced imminent social and
5 Eckersley (1997): Environmentalism and Political Theory, UCl Press, london, pp.8-1 o. 6 J Bellamy, Foster and Brett Clark (2008): "Rachel Carson's Ecological Critique", Analytical Monthly Review, Vol.5, No.ll, pp.l-5.
7 Andrew, Jamison, (2001): The Making of Green Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, U.K, pp.80-85.
8 Garrett, Hardin, and John Baden (1977): Managing the Commons, (Ed), W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, p-21.
9 P.R Enrlich, and Enrlich (1968): The Population Bomb linking population, New York.
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environmental catastrophe due to high population growth 10 presumes that resource
scarcities and consequent limits to growth and population pressure is the heart of the
environmental and ecological issue. The widely held notion that the principle cause of
environmental destruction is the alarming growth of population.
It was against this backdrop that the UN decided to hold the famous
conference on the environment at Stockholm in 1972. The economic growth was
considered to have taken place at the expense of ecological integrity and ecological
sustainability was viewed as separate from economic growth. The political debate
during that time was centered as a crisis of participation whereby excluded groups
sought to ensure a more equitable distribution of goods but it tended to reinforce,
rather than challenge the prevailing view of environment as being just another
resource there for human consumption. In recent years, however authoritarian
solutions to the environmental crisis have been abandoned, but there is always an
authoritarian edge somewhere in ecological politics which rests upon scientific-
technical rationality that is science-led solutions within an administrative state armed
with strong regulatory bureaucratic process of political-economic decision making. I I
Hans Magnus Enzensberger an influential and comparatively early critic on
the left raised the central question that why did "environment movements" emerge
only in the 1970s, but the conditions of the working poor deteriorated after the
industrial revolution. The latter were termed as neo-Malthusians because for its
anxiety over the population question like environmental degradation, food insecurity,
famine and land conflicts have looked to population pressures which lead to the
burden on scarce resources. 12 The emergence of cultural ecology or ecological
10 See Michael, Richards (1997): "Common Property Resource Institutions and Forest Management in Latin America", Development and Change, Vo1.28, Blackwell Publishers, p-97. Also see Meadows, D.H, Meadows, D.L and Randers, J (1972): The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project for the Predicament of Mankind, London.
II David, Harvey, (1993): "The Nature of Environment-Dialectics of Social and Environmental Change", Socialist Register, p-21.
I~ The arguments of uncontrolled population growth is exclusively from North American sources and the liberation movements in 1950 and 1960s of the third world countries began to become a central problem for imperialist power. On the other hand the rate of increase in population had begun to rise much earlier, in the 1930s and 1940s. See Hans Magnus, Enzensberger (1974): "A critique of political ecology", New Left Review, 84, 3-31. The effects of neo-malthus in India in the work of D'Souza,
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anthropology as a separate strand in the evolution of third world political ecology in
1960s sought to explain the links between cultural fonn and management practices in
tenns of adaptive behavior within a closed ecosystem. 13
The environment was seen as an additional structural feature of the analysis,
often portrayed as fixed, or subject to major, disruptive change due to capitalist
penetration of peasant societies due to market integration, commercialization, and the
dislocation of customary fonns of resource management-rather than adaptation and
homeostasis-became the cornerstone of a critical alternative to older cultural or
human ecology. The major criticism against cultural ecology, which stressed the self-
regulatory characteristics and stability, and by detennining the boundaries of the
systems and minimizing the defined local populations by social conflict was excluded
and as the territoriality in which they are embedded are politically and economically
constructed. The word "ecology" was used to emphasize the homeostatic and
apolitical nature of human-environmental interaction. This critique also promoted a
growing interest in the connection between politics and environmental change in the
third world as a political process.
In combing political economy with ecology, political ecology tried to rectify
the deficiencies in both frameworks, which resulted in the emergence of political
ecology. The relationship between politics and ecology is not in equal tenns but the
role of politics in shaping ecology in the Third World environmental problems is
much greater today and it is only through political means that a solution will be
devised. 14 Political ecologist seeking to integrate place and non-place-based analysis
Rohan (2003): "Ecological politics in India" (ed) Smitu Kothari, Imtiaz Ahmad, Helmut Reifeld, The Value of Nature, New Delhi Rainbow Publishers, pp.23-38. -
13 In anthropology the ecological issue has stimulated in the field of ecological anthropology, cultural ecology and human ecology around questions about non-western societies live with nature. A significant body of work emerged in the 1950s with cultural ecology; the ecosystems approach (Rappaport) and cultural materialism. The major work of Roy Rappaport's argued that the ritual cycles were used to regulate the growth of pig populations, swidden fallow cycles and the cyclical patterns of war and peace with neighboring Maring groups argued for the close interaction of natural and social systems as a functional whole. David, Harvey, (1993): "The Nature of Environment-Dialectics of Social and Environmental Change", Socialist Register, pp. 1-51.
14 David, Harvey, (1974): "Population, Resources and the Ideology of science", Economic Geography, 50, pp.256-77.
'~b40
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turned mainly to Neo-Marxism l5 as a way of avoiding a-politicism of cultural
ecologist and Neo-Malthusian work. The neo-Marxism based on dependency theoryl6
of Andre Gunder Frank, focused on the power relations between regions in analyzing
uneven development on a world scale - described as development and
underdevelopment. The dependency theorist like Frank believed that the
underdevelopment of Third World countries was a consequence of unequal exchange
with the developed countries with the west characterized by dual societies divided
between dynamic zones into modem capitalism and backward zones in relation to
feudal isolation. The dependency approach had eclipsed modernization theory and
lacked adequate conceptualization of the class structure and state to accompany its
economic analysis.
Political ecology turned to the "World System theory" of Immanuel
Wallerstein 17 focused on the different stages or levels of national development within
. what appears to be a global political economy. The world-system theorists opposed
the 'dualism' in development studies on the basis that the countries could achieve
modernization of resources could be shifted from the traditional sector of their
economies into the modem sector and opposed the tactics of the communist parties
which favored alliances with the national bourgeoisies of the developing countries
against feudal land owners and multinational corporations. This basic categories of
analysis were core!semi-periphery!, periphery! core! periphery, metropolis or satellite
and its rejection of the development model (the west as ideal type) of modernization
theory. They countered such dualist analysis with 'monist' analysis as a single whole,
which is the capitalist world economy. The general weakness of world system through
its formal stratification criteria of differentiation subsumes specific class differences
into general developmental categories and subordinates notions of class conflict to
15 Biersack, Aletta (2006): "Reimagining Political Ecology: Culture/PowerlHistory Nature" in Aletta Biersack and James B Greeberg (Ed) Reclaiming Political Ecology, Duke University Press, London, p-3.
16 See Thomas, Patterson, (1999): Change and Development in the Twentieth Century, Oxford International publishers, p-124.
17 Ibid., p-132. The World System theory points out that neither the socialist countries nor those of third world constituted distinct by non-capitalist economic relations. The states never exist in isolation, like but rather participate in capitalist world system forged by the expansion of commerce and maintained by an enforced international division of labour shaped economic structures and directed change.
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mechanisms of international social mobility.18 The World System theory points out
that neither the socialist countries nor those of third world constituted distinct by non-
capitalist economic relations. The states never exist in isolation, like but rather
participate in capitalist world system forged by the expansion of commerce and
maintained by an enforced international division oflabour shaped economic structures
and directed change.
The first generation of political ecology wedded ecology to system theory that
envisioned the world as organized into a single class system, first-world nations
owning the means of production and third world nations supplying the labour and
producing the surplus value tended to think in terms of structures, systems, and
interlocking variables and did not focus on the local-global articulation, the emphasis
of today.19 The Indian Environmentalism of political ecology started with chipko
movement from the 1970s referred as social movement because much of the work
theorizing social movements begins with Marxism, Historical materialism, and
dialectical theory of social and environmental change saw collective mobilization
from the perspective of class based drawing on the classical Marxist, neo-Marxist and
functionalist traditions like the trade union politics, peasant, tribal, and other
movements. 20 The expansion occurred in the 1980s with integrating environment and
political activism for the environment problems of the Third world countries of Asia,
Africa and Latin America.2I
Social Movements
Social movement's studies on the collective action can be defined as a collective
effort of a section of people to pursue certain shared objectives, goals, and values
18 Richard, Muir, (1997): Political Geography: A New Introduction, Macmillan Press, pp. 213-236.
19 Ibid., p- 4.
20 Glyan, Williams, and Emma Mawdsley (2006): "India's Evolving Political Ecologies" in Colonial and Post-Colonial Geographies of India (Ed) by Saraswati Raju, M.Satish Kumar, and Stuart Corbridge, Sage publications, pp. 261-78.
21 Bryant, L Raymond (1992): "Political ecology: An emerging research agenda in third world countries", Journal of Political Geography, VoUl, No.1, p-12.
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even in the face of opposition and conflict are seen in an isolated form rather than
interconnectedness. Collective conflicts may assume various forms of actions ranging
from organized modes of protest such as dharnas (sit-ins), boycotts, hartals (strikes),
picketing and peaceful slogan shouting protest marches to active and violent outbursts
of people in the non-institutions means of resistance through "revolution" in a social
movement. But many forms of interpersonal, dispersed and unshared conflicts, even
when involving groups do not lead to collective action.22 The major divide which
differentiates mobilizations of different types directed towards change with reference
to a social system is based on the question whether the collective mobilizations is
seeking to bargain for a greater share of the rewards and facilities by the existing
system or alter the system itself.
The social structures are described by more than one variant like caste, class,
religious groups, stratification in terms of education, wealth and so on.23 The
collective actions which are generally manifested more in a society with social
structure defined by hierarchy, harsh social inequality and social injustice. Thus
scholars have drawn on actor-oriented approach which seeks to understand conflicts
as an outcome of the interaction of different actors pursuing often quite distinctive
aims and interests. The potential power of grassroots actors such as poor farmers and
shifting cultivators in environmental conflicts has been emphasized with reference to
everyday resistance as part of an attempt to link political ecology to developments in
social movements theorizing to demonstrate the more complex understanding of
power relations mediate between human-environment interactions. 24
The major works were influenced by everyday resistance with the critique of
structural variant of Marxist theories which widens the spectrum of social movements
opposing hegemony-of productive resources to include culture, ideology and way of
22 Rajendra, Singh, (2001): Social Movements Old and New: A Post-Modernist Critique, Sage publications, New Delhi, pp. 1-42.
23 Partha Nath, Mukerji, (1977): "Social Movements and Social Change: Towards a Conceptual Clarification and Theoretical framework", Sociological Bulletin, p-43.
24 Ramachandra, Guha, (1989): The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya, Delhi. Peluso links the historiography of criminality with every day resistance to show how state forest management is contested by Indonesian in Java. Peluso, Nancy Lee (1992): Rich F ores/s, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java, Berkeley.
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life. Gramsi made a distinction between three interconnected spheres: civil society,
political society and economic formations. 25 Civil society refers to organizations that
are neither part of the process of material production in the economy nor part of state-
funded organizations that are relatively long-lasting institutions supported and run by
people outside the other two major spheres. Political society (the "state") consists of
the means of violence (such as the police and army) within a given territory, together
with the state-funded bureaucracies, such as the civil service, legal, welfare and
educational institutions. Economic formations refer to the dominant mode of
production in a territory that is built upon the differential ways classes are related to
the ownership of the means of production. The most important factor for social
movements to emerge is to challenge hegemonic ideas in society and to make public
debates that were previously taken for granted?6
Ramachandra Guha must be credited for firmly establishing this field in India
and uses the term social ecology modelled on the discipline of 'ecology' in the natural
science were social ecology systematically includes the human species within this
framework. The Chipko marked the beginning of a public debate on the environment
and emergence of alternative solutions to environment management is placed within
the historical framework of India's colonial legacy. The British are seen as having
undermined pre-colonial community based environmental management systems, and
as having treated nature as a resource to be exploited for the benefit of evolving
colonial economy. Chipko has been widely regarded as the assertion of the rights of
villagers against the urban industrial sector for the right to practice traditional values
in forest use, which represents a fundamental critique of development process.
The Dasholi Gram Swaraja MandaI (DGSM) led by C.P.Bhat27, which was
instrumental in the first protest was formed in 1964 to promote concepts of gramdan
25. See Routledge, Paul (1995): Terrains of Resistance: Nonviolent Social Movements and the Contestation of Place in India, Praeger Publishers, pp.19-38.
26 James, Scott (1985): Weapons of the Weak: Evelyday Forms of Resistance, Yale University press, New Haven, Pp-29-30. Also see See Pellicani, Luciano (1981): Gramsci: An Alternative Communisml Hoover Institute Press, Stanford, California, p-40-59. Henry, Veltmeyer, (1997): "New Social Movements in Latin America", Vo1.24, No.4, The Journal of Peasant Studies, pp .144-145
27 It may be noted that Mr. Chandi Prasad Bhat activism was a low profile and democratic and well known figure in the region. But Sundarlal Bahuguna is more popular among the metropolitan environmentalist.
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of a non-violent, self reliant village society, based on cottage industries. However
competition from established firms led the forest department to supply raw materials
to industrialists rather than local enterprises. The another strand of chipko represented
by Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini (USV) who disassociate themselves from what they
perceive as the conservationist of mainstream and considered uneven development in
Uttarakhand in forests and wider economy. The numerous shades of the movement
brings out critical facets like chipko as a women's movement and the religious
dimensions had received attention due to the support of Vandana Shiva eco-feminist
analyses that Indian attitude to nature differs significantly from the west. She sees the
crisis of the environment which is a manifestation of a process in which the feminine
principle has been subjugated in favour of a male-centered idea of development.28
The chipko movement had its influence in other movements like Appiko
movement in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka which was against the commercial
demands in the context of ecological stability and survival and the activists believed
that basic products of forests in the Western Ghats are soil, water and pure air. The
protest was led by the rural elite to protect arecanut, a highly commercialised garden crop.29
The popular defence of customary rights against the allotment of village
pastures by the state government to Polyfibre industry which intended to grow
eucalyptus saplings. The peasants of kusnur organized a 'pluck and plant' satyagraha
demonstrations on November 14 1987 in Karnataka. 3o In the Indian environment
debate, major has quickly filled the space vacated by forests dams and mining. The
river valley projects like Silent Valley crusade which was never a people's struggle to
save the valley, because the local people were not convinced by the knowledge of
nature conservation, which they had never experienced. The Silent Valley Hyde!
project was a symbol of the aspirations of the people of Malabar for a long period and
mass organizations and political parties were committed to its implementation long
28 Vandana, Shiva, (1989): Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, London: Zed Books, p-56.
29M, Nadkami (1989): The Political Economy of Forest Policy, Sage publication, Delhi, pp.I-I5.
30 Madhav Gadgil, and Ramachandra Guha (1994): "Ecological Conflicts and the Environmental Movement in India", Development and Change, Vol.25, pp.106-7.
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before the ecological questions were raised by the scientists. The silent valley is one
of the richest biospheres in the whole world, but the people of Malabar were more
interested in the question of energy, employment and development than the necessity
of protecting the unique biosphere of silent valley.31 The opposition to the project was
led by Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, an organization dedicated to popular science
education. The reasons cited for opposing due to the techno economic appraisal of
energy generating alternatives. In another example, groups affected by large dams
have not always been tribal like the Bedthi project in Uttara Kannada district of
Karnataka, which abandoned due to the protest from the influential commercial
farming whose lands were to be submerged, by the project. The protests against the
koel-karo hydroelectric project in lharkhand have been one of the most sustained
struggles for identity and justice. The project targeted to generate a 710 Mw of
electricity, comprises of two dams, one each on the river koel and its tributary, karo.
According to the official estimates, the project would displace 7063 families from 112
villages in the predominantly adivasi districts of Rachi, Gumla and Singbhuum. The
community estimates suggest that the actual displacement will be of about 20,000
people. The estimate regarding the people affected is always contentious in the
environment movement. In India, the two thirds of nineral resources exist in the three
states of Orissa, lharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The major struggles against the mining
industry, imposed with ruthlessness and insensitivity towards its tribal people and the
environment. The Memorandum of understandings signed by these states to hand over
the country's forests, rivers and wildlife resources and to sacrifice the lives of its local
people to big corporate companies. People's resistance to these projects is suppressed
like the firing in Maikanch, Kalinganagar and the repressive Salwa ludum in
Chattisgarh.
The development of Indian Environmentalism has moved forward even as it
acknowledged Guha's Contribution which tried to build distinct environmentalism
that seeks to redress injustices through state led capitalism but posts moral economy
or Gandhian way of reshaping development projects to the local level. The defense of
31 Monte'D, Danyl (1985): Temples or Tombs?: Industry versus Environment, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, pp. 29-61.
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common property resources and the restoration of community- based environment
management which gives priority to the subsistence of the poor farmers, forest
gatherers against the extractive state with different ideological groups that co-exist
within the movement.32 The criticism against Guha's work as it embraces ideas of the
'indigenous' and the 'traditional' that are dubious because of its political agenda. In
its more extreme forms, this valorization of tradition can lead to readings of the
environment based upon Hindu metaphors which have uneasy relationships with the
Hindu right.33 For example in the 1990s, many Bhilala adivasis in western Madhya
Pradesh joined the battle for Hindu supremacy, attacking Christian adivasis and later
Muslims.34 The protests against the Tehri Dam were people protests against the
closure of two tunnels and demanded full and final settlements of their claims. Ashok
Singal from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad also joined the fast for preserving the purity
of river Ganga brining the work to standstill for few days. The second criticism is that
by posting the rural poor as its principal subject and their livelihoods as the principal
site of their struggles, has its social and geographical restrictions. By implicitly
locating its concerns with the 'marginal' populations have failed to demonstrate that
middle-class actors forcing their view of the good or simple life. The ecological
traditions of local- self sufficiency offer little in the way of solutions for city dwellers,
rich or poor were political action is unlikely to be found in an idealized, colonial and
rural past.
The environmental activism involves the growing participation of Courts in
environmental matters through Public Interest litigation cases in a process that has
ambivalent consequences for environmental justice and sustainability. The emerging
research against pollution seeks to uncover the complex class dynamics involved.
Amita Baviskar has shown the complex and contradictory linkages that exist between
Delhi's Master plan and the presence of slums, and forms of environmental cleansing
32 Guha, Ramachandra (1988): "Ideological Trends in Indian Environmentalism", Economic and Political Weekly, 23, No.49, Economic and Political Weekly, pp.2578-81.
33 E.E, Mawdsley, (1998): "After Chipko: From Environment to Region in Uttaranchal", Journal of Peasant Studies, 25 (4), pp.36-54. Also See Sharma, (2002): 'Saffronising Greens', Seminar: A Symposium of the Changing Contours of Indian Environmentalism, 51 6:pp.26-30.
34 Amita, Baviskar, (2005): "Adivasi Encounters with Hindu Nationalism in Madhya Pradesh", Economic and Political Weekly, November 26, pp. 5105-5113.
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through 'city beautification'. The beautification plan speaks to versions of
'authoritarian environmentalism' that appeal to the middle class which is eager to
distance itself from their own environmental footprints and from the poor. 35 The role
of the state in the neo-liberal era is not to deny the major and often threatening role
that the state plays in the lives of the rural poor. However, some early political
ecology analyses were criticized for their 'overly deterministic vision of social
structure and an overemphasis of material struggles. Moore has criticized political
ecology as being insufficiently political in nature because of its structuralist legacy
and too little effort given to 'micro politics' and further the interests and actions of the
actors involved in such conflict like state, elites, peasants or workers which were
portrayed as 'monolithic' as little effort made to study the internal complexity or
differentiated concerns ofthe state or other actors. However State continues to act as a
major player, but we need to look beyond as it is not a single or uniform actor, in
projects of resource extraction from the rural poor. 36
New Social Movements
In the 1980s, European and American societies witnessed the emergence of large-
scale movements around issues which were basically humanist, cultural and non-
materialistic in nature have been referred to as "new social movements.,,37 The Post-
development refers not to the theoretical conviction instead questions 'development'
itself and the critic against post-development have often restricted their analysis to
critique without exploring alternatives. Escobar argues that local concerns and
politics, as articulated by new social movements are portrayed as reflecting the
35 Amita Baviskar, (2003): "Between Violence and Desire: Space, power and Identity in the Making of Metropolitan Delhi", International Social Science Journal, 55, I, pp.89-98. Also See Dembowski, H (1999): "Courts, Civil Society and Public Sphere: Environmental Litigation in Calcutta", Economic and Political Weekly, 34, 1&2, pp. 49-56.
36 Moore, D.S. (1993): "Contesting terrain in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands; Political ecology, ethnography and peasant resources struggles", Economic Geography, Vo1.69, No.4, pp.380-40 I.
37 Social movements may be expressions of cultural struggles over meaning, but the meanings for which they fight are not always clear when we consider the material struggles alongside these cultural contestations. See Anthony, Bebbington, (2007): "Social Movements and the Politicization of Chronic Poverty", Development and Change, Vo1.38, No.5, p- 740.
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immediate place-based concerns of local communities and able to respond to these
concerns in the future. The site of radical and plural struggle is used to fill the gap
created by the withdrawal of artificially naturalized ideal state, modeled upon the
'developed' west comprised of institutions, processes, practices, languages has
diversified the diverse range of social, cultural, political systems which have failed to
deliver their promises for better societies.38 Escobar argues for a post structural
political ecology because of the retheorizing political economy and environment at
different levels. The traditional Marxist theory of Capitalism relates to the
contradictions between capitalist productive forces and production relations. Whereas
political economy looks at the historical intersection of capital and the state, political
ecology adds nature to the equation and addresses the lack of attention paid to the
natural world by traditional political economy approaches and avoids making
unnecessary assumption about forms of integration or previous ecological
equilibrium, but examines how real political and economic systems interact with
nature through time. At this junction the central question of nature which is
transformed into commodities in terms of Karl Polyani as 'fictitious commodities'
because the land and labour are not produced and reproduced in accordance with
market forces or the law of nature are transformed into pseudo commodities made
available for sale, which is termed as second contradiction of capitalism that has
aggravated to ecological crisis and the social forms of protest. 39
In India under the rubric of new social movements like civil rights, farmers,
and environment movements have been taken up by civil society against the state
which is seen an oppressive and unable to solve the problems of exploitation, poverty,
and uneven development.4o The issue-based politics of movements based on shared
38 McGregor, Andrew (2007): "Development, Foreign Aid and Post-development in Timor-Leste", Third World Quarterly, Vol.28, No.1, pp. 156-7.
39 See Arturo, Escobar, (1996): Constructing Nature: Elements of a post structural political ecology in Liberation Ecologies (Ed) by Richard Peet and Michael Watts, New York, pp.46-85. Also See Greenberg, B. James (2006): The Political Ecology of fisheries in the Upper Gulf of California in Aletta Biersack and James B Greeberg (Ed) Reclaiming Political Ecology, Duke University Press, London, pp.126-27. See Michael, Watts (1993): "Development I: Power, knowledge, discursive practice", Progress in Human Geography, 17,2, p.267.
40 James, Petras, (2000): "The Third Way: Myth and Reality", Monthly Review, Vo1.51, No. 10, March, pp.19-35.
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identities and common characteristics of not only class, but also gender, race,
ethnicity, religion, and other cultural criteria have developed "new oppositional
counter-discursive forms of consciousness and action ".
These 'new' social movements claimed to be a new way of doing politics
amounting to social change without state power. The social bases of these new social
movements saw the emergence and the strengthening of middle class-led NGOs
which joined with the International Financ-ial Institutions in attacking public welfare
and promoting private ownership in the public policy fonnulation. 41 New Social
movements may be expressions of cultural struggles over meaning, ideas and
practices constitute one of the most important terrains in which social movements
operate and which seek to change is not always clear but complicated alongside with
material struggles.42 The claim to achieve empowerment by NGOs at the grassroots
by using non-party/ 'a-political,43 has lead to de-politicized mobilization towards the
existing class structure and diverting mobilization from each other. This has resulted
in the emergence of varied NGOs like Green peace, Friend of the Earth, the Sierra
Club, Earth First, World Wild Fund for Nature and a whole variety of less formal
organizations and groups. They received substantial funding from International
Financial Institutions despite their occasional bursts against neo-liberalism. These
associations with globally based networks are allied with each other through their
overlapping membership, frequent communication and joint campaigns44 with one
41 James Petras, and Henry Veltmeyer (2007): "The 'Development State' in Latin America: Whose Development, Whose State?" Journal of Peasant Studies, VoI.34, No. 3&4, July-October, p-393.
42 Ibid., p-742.
43 Tom, Brass, (2000): Peasants, Populism and Postmodernism: The Return of the Agrarian Myth, Frank Class, London, p-151.
44 Diani's work, especially his definition of social movements as networks has certainly aided this trend in the sociological literature. Net working goes beyond organizational form; it becomes the mode of organizational function. Decentralization, diversification, and democratization drive networks, as opposed to the centralized and hierarchical practice of past movements and present mainstream organizing. See Diani Mario (1992): 'The Concept of Social Movement', Sociological Review, 40, pp.l-25. Also see Sutton, Philip. W (2004): Nature, Environment and Society, Palgrave McMillan, p-43.
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another and fomi coalitions and seek to establish claims on national and global civil . 45 socIety.
The interface of movements would have to foster complex learning that does
not happen locally. The numerous organizations also raises the questions of
accountability, democracy and representation which is far from clear as they are open
structures which are able to expand without limits, integrating new modes as long as
they are able to communicate within the network of organizations through internet to
its own evolution in shaping the development of privatizing dynamics that remain
unaccountable.46 The focus on the local-global nexus becomes more compelling given
the interconnections between environmental issues and those pertaining to rights. 47
According to Fuentes and Frank these NSMs are popular social movements
and expressions of people's struggles against exploitation and oppression in a
complex dependent society.48 Omvedt in contrast has argued that the shift in the
traditional class-based movements towards those of women, lower castes, indigenous
groups are a process of redefining those spheres of exploitation mainly economic
which has not been addressed by conventional Marxist analysis.49 We have used the
term social movements because the claims of the new social movements may be
contested, but the question ofland continues to be on the agenda in different forms.
The first phase of political ecology focused exclusively on rural areas in
analysis of land degradation in peasant societies. This rural emphasis makes sense but
45 Global civil society as the sphere of ideas, values, institutions, organizations, networks, and individual located between the family, the state and the market and operating beyond the confines of national societies, politics and economies. Jogdand, P.G and S.M. Michael (2003): Globalization and Social Movements: Struggle for a Humane Society, (Ed) Rawat publications, Jaipur.
46 Ramachandra, Guha, and J. Martinez-Alier (1997): Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South, Earth Scan Publications, London, pp. 96-7.
47 Marc, Edelman, (2005): "When Networks Don't Work: The Rise and fall and Rise of Civil Society Initiatives in Central America" in Social Movements: an Anthropological Reader, (Ed) by June Nash, Blackwell Publishing, p-4l.
48 M Fuentes, and AG. Frank (1989): " Ten theses on Social Movements", World Development, Vol.l7 No.2
49 The traditional social movements drawing on the Marxist traditions unlike the trade union politics which is class based, but differing significantly regarding the connection between contradictions, crises and urban social conflicts which led to the rise of protest movements in 1960s and 70s like civil rights, students, feminist, environmental which came to be referred as the new social movements. Gail, Omvedt (1993): Reinventing Revolution: New Social Movements and the Socialist Tradition in India, East Gate Book, London, pp. 127-153.
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gives an incomplete picture, so political ecology has begun room for the 'nuances of
different social actors' livelihood struggles and uses of 'cultural idioms in the changed
context of local politics' and also paying attention to social actors in urban settings50
and their connection with degradation process.51 Political ecology has also centered
on urban issues has shown that "environment movements" is not that they represent
an environmentalism of the poor but emerge through collaborations of the middle-
class actors and audiences.52 The middle class is very fragile and it is har-d to access
accurately the size and significantly of the urban middle class in India is
heterogeneous and encompasses a range of attributes in terms of income and
consumption, education, occupation and property ownership. Different waves of
environmentalism brought in different actors with varying social projects. If the
earlier social movements revolved around social issues of equity and justice the urban
movements have deployed "Environmental law" as a tool for dominating the masses
and controlling their resistance which operates at multiple levels in framing their
demands and engaging in action from International, National and local level context.53
The theoretical coherence remains in question identified under the political
ecology because of its diverse objectives, epistemologies, and method that can be
discussed under various 'subfield' with diverse areas lacking any single coherent
theoretical approach or message. 54 The way social movements today link local
struggles with international networks- for example in the environmental movements
50 G. Myers (1999): "Political ecology and Urbanization: Zanzibar's construction materials industry", Journal of Modern African Studies, 37, I, pp. 83-108. Also see Heynes, Nik, Harold. A. Perkins and Parama Ray (2006): "The political economy in Race and Ethnicity in producing environment inequality in Milwaukee", Urban Affairs Review, VoL42, No.1, pp. 3-25.
51 D. Moore (1993): "Contesting terrain in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands: Political ecology, ethnography and peasant resource struggles", Economic Geography, 69, p-38 I.
52 See Leena, Fernandes, (2006): Liberalization, Democracy and Middle class politics, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp.I93-94. Also see Emma Mawdsley's (2004): "India's Middle Class and the Environment", Development and Change, 35 (I), pp.79-I03. Amita, Baviskar, (2005): "Red in Tooth and Claw? Looking for class in struggles over Nature in Social Movements in India, Poverty ", Power and Politics (Ed) by Raka Ray and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, pp. 161-79.
53 Balakrishnan, Rajagopal, (2004): "Limits of law in Counter-Hegemonic Globalization: The Indian Supreme Court and the Narmada Valley Struggle", Working paper series, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, lawaharlal Nehru University, pp. 1-5.
54 Peter. A Walker, (2006): "Political Ecology: Where is the policy?", Progress in Human Geography, 30,3, pp.384.
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seems to imply a completely new agenda for research on social movements. The
social movements have perceived the opportunities posed by these global trends and
mobilized resistance against their consequences at the local level exploitation of
natural resources and the reassertion of traditional rights at the community level. The
political ecology as a field that emerged from the critique of the Hardins 'Tragedy of
the Commons' and Ehrlich's 'Population Bomb' still largely dominates policy
discourses because it has not able to provide alternative to the mainstream policies has -
resulted in marginalization of political ecology in the broader public debate. 55
The political ecology of the 2000s has moved forward along with different
fronts like "violent environments" as an arena of contested entitlements in which
conflicts and claims over property, assets, labour and the politics of recognition are
played out. It addresses alternate ways of understanding the relations between
environment and violence as a site-specific phenomenon rooted in environment
histories and social relation, particularly in power relations. 56 Michael Watts in
reference to political ecology has argued that that the subfield should celebrate its
diversity by saying 'Let the flowers of openness and dialogue bloom', which has
blossomed in a wide assortment of colures who wish to engage policy may find useful
to point out when communicating with the 'messy, constrained world outside' .57
The political ecology framework for analysis centered on the idea of a
'politicised environment' is used to understand the politics of environmental change
in the third world. It explores the types of actors that are involved in environmental
conflict like discussion of states, multilateral institutions, businesses, environmental
non-governmental organizations and grassroot actors. This addresses the
comprehensive picture of the motivations, interests and actions of the actors in
55 Michael Watts and Richard Peet (1996): Liberation Ecologies (Ed), Routledge Publications, New York, p.8.
56 Peulso and Watts (2001): "Violent Environments" in N. Peluso and M. Watts (eds) Violent Environments, Ithaca, New York, Cornell university press, pp-3-38. Also see Bohle, Hans-georg and Hartmut Funfgeld (2007): 'The political ecology of Violence in Eastern Sri Lanka", Development and Change, Vo1.38, Number 4, pp.665-87.
57 Michael Watts and Peet, Richard (1996): Liberation Ecologies (Ed), Routledge Publications, New York, p-389.
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manners that is not possible through local studies, but tends to obscure the
complexities and contradictions associated with the actions of all actors. 58
Political ecology inspired perspective has been successfully utilized in
analyses of the historical circumstances leading to local patterns of resource use and
control to understand the contemporary struggles. In order to reveal the changing
social relationships that broadens the corresponding economic and political events on
the regional, national and global scales that affect local systems of production. 59
58 Martinez. Alier (2004): The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation, Oxford University Press, pp.I-15.
59 Anja, Nygren, (2000): "Development Discourses and Peasant-Forest Relations: Natural resource Utilization as Social Process", Development and Change, Vol.3l, p-14. ,
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