Title Participants Abstract "Managing inequality: the political ecology of a small-scale fishery, Mweru-Luapula, Zambia" "Bram Verelst" "This paper starts from the perspective on resource management approaches as based upon a body of environmental knowledge. By analysing fisheries management in Mweru-Luapula, Zambia, we argue that this body of environmental knowledge has (i) remained largely unchanged throughout the recent shift to co-management and (ii) is to a great extent based upon general paradigmatic conventions with regard to common property regimes. We therefore simultaneously studied the historical trajectories of both resource management as the political ecology of Mweru-LuapulaU+2019s fishing economy. Using a relational perspective U+2013 by looking at interaction of the local fishing economy with external developments, but also by examining socioeconomic relations between individual actors U+2013 this study exposes constraints and incentives within the local fishing economy that are not absorbed in the current co-management regime. These findings challenge both policy goals as community-based resource management itself. We therefore argue that governance of small-scale fisheries U+2013 in order to close the gap between locally based understandings, policy and legislation U+2013 should always be built upon all dimensions (social, economic, ecological, political) that define a fisheries system." "Conservation in violent environments : introduction to a special issue on the political ecology of conservation amidst violent conflict" "Esther Marijnen, Lotje de Vries, Rosaleen Duffy" "The urban political ecology of ecosystem services: The case of Barcelona" "Yaella Depietri, Giorgos Kallis, Claudio Cattaneo" "This paper advances two arguments. First, the liveability of modern cities depends to a large extent upon urban and peri-urban ecosystems and their services. Second, these services are not only a gift of nature, but co-produced by human labour. Ecosystem services, in other words, are not just natural; they are also the outcome of historical, political, economic and social endeavours. We support our case with a study of the city of Barcelona and the adjacent Collserola Natural Park. Through an inter-disciplinary project combining biophysical, historical, and archival research, interviews and activist research we show that, first, the liveability of Barcelona highly improves because of the services provided by the ecosystem of Collserola. Second, that Collserola was not originally a pristine forest; it became one after agricultural abandonment institutional interventions and the action of social movements. If ecosystem services are co-produced by human action, and social struggles, as we argue is the case of Collserola, then this has implications for the ways ecological economists think about ecosystem services, their value and valuation. Whereas the social production of ecosystem services may seem an obvious and intuitive idea, it certainly challenges the foundational aspects of monetary valuation." "On reproduction : re-imagining the political ecology of urbanism : proceedings of the 9th International PhD Seminar in Urbanism and Urbanization" "A political ecology of land degradation: the case of North Ethiopia" "Sil Lanckriet, Jan Nyssen, Ben Derudder, J Naudts, Amaury Frankl" "Severe environmental degradation in the north Ethiopian Highlands is often thought to result from mismanagement, overpopulation and climate drying. However, here, we investigate the linkages of land degradation with the historical dynamics of the politicalU+2013ecological system and regional land policies. We performed semi-structured interviews with 93 farmers in eight villages in the Tigray region (north Ethiopia) and gathered a number of paleoenvironmental proxies (climate, floodplain aggradation and pollen) to conceptualize a politicalU+2013ecological model of land tenure and degradation changes for the region. Results show that different land policies caused and still cause land degradation in several ways. Interviews reveal that the unequal character of land rights during feudal times played an important role in 19th and 20th century land degradation. In particular, poor farmers were forced to construct their farms on marginal terrains, such as steep slopes in dry areas and marshes in cold and humid areas, increasing the catchment water runoff and degradation. The data further suggest that after the Derg regime (1974U+20131991), environmental conservation strategies were successfully implemented at larger scales. Interacting with the occurrence of droughts, land policies have had impacts on environmental degradation and have left clear fingerprints on the physical landscape of northern Ethiopia." "Between the borders and the spirits: A historical political ecology of water from the perspective of a Himalayan village community" "Arjun Sharma" "Mountain communities are today bearing the brunt of the adverse socio-economic and environmental impacts of human induced climate change, including the erratic and decreasing water supply caused by receding glaciers. Besides their on-going response to climate change, economists, anthropologists, and environmentalists have been studying mountain communities as models of how to sustainably manage natural resources with minimal intervention by the state or the market. However, both the economic and conservationist perspectives have been criticised for overestimating the autonomy of mountain natural resource management communities from external state and market apparatuses, while underemphasising their political embeddedness and historical evolution. Such critiques have encouraged a more nuanced appraisal of water management communities, but there is still a limited understanding of what a community is; what its relationship with water means and, finally, how the meaning of this relationship changes over time under the influence of broader processes of environmental change and state formation. This study examines these questions from the perspective of a village community in the ecologically and politically fragile Indian Himalayan border region of Ladakh. It employs a historical political ecology approach, which combines traditional archival research with in-depth field-work using ethnographic methods, quantitative household surveys, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) aided analysis to understand landscape level change. Based on an interpretation of the historical and empirical evidence gathered using this approach, I present my analysis in the form of six interrelated propositions to portray the historical relationship between community, water, place, and state formation. Further, I introduce the concept of 'modes of territoriality' to address the theoretical and practical shortcomings of existing approaches to studying state formation in postcolonial societies. Together, these propositions constitute a frame of reference to synthesise and direct future research on community based resource management in mountain environments." "A Political Ecology Perspective of Land Degradation in the North Ethiopian Highlands" "Ben Derudder, Jozef A. Deckers" "© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Severe environmental degradation in the north Ethiopian Highlands is among others the result of mismanagement, overpopulation and droughts. However, here, we investigate the linkages of land degradation with the historical dynamics of the political-ecological system and regional land policies. We performed semi-structured interviews with 93 farmers in eight villages in the Tigray region (north Ethiopia) and conceptualised a political-ecological model of land tenure and degradation changes for the region. Results show that different land policies caused and still cause land degradation in several ways. Interviews reveal that the unequal character of land rights during feudal times played an important role in 19th and 20th century land degradation. In particular, poor farmers were forced to construct their farms on marginal terrains, such as steep slopes in dry areas and marshes in cold and humid areas, increasing the catchment water runoff and degradation. The interviews further suggest that after the Derg regime (1974-1991), environmental conservation strategies were successfully implemented at larger scales. Overall, feudal, Derg and contemporary land policies have all had impacts on environmental degradation and have left their fingerprints on the physical landscape of northern Ethiopia." "Exploring the love triangle of authoritarianism, populism, and COVID-19 through political ecology" "Noémi Gonda, José Pablo Prado Córdova, Frédéric Huybrechs, Gert Van Hecken" "Authoritarian and populist regimes have used the coronavirus pandemic as another excuse to further push back on democracy. Through the lens of boundary-making, we discuss power processes in pandemic politics of three countries whose governments and power constellations rely on authoritarian and/or populist politics (Hungary, Nicaragua, and Guatemala). Our aim is to envision the conceptual and practical possibilities for breaking up the unhealthy love relationship amid pandemic politics, authoritarianism, and populism, and for ultimately dismantling all three. On the basis of secondary data, personal communications, and our lived experiences, we analyze pandemic politics in authoritarian and populist contexts, exploring their ambiguous and co-constitutive effects through three apparent contradictions. First, we discuss control, or the ways in which the framing of the pandemic by authoritarian and populist regimes as an emergency, a quasi-war situation, or an excuse for political opportunism entails an attempt to justify command-and-control policies upon public behavior, intimate daily life, and subject classification. However, these control measures also bring about contestation through self-quarantine calls, accountability-driven demands of epidemiological data, and/or counter-narratives. Second, we engage with the contradiction of knowledge, by pointing out how authoritarian knowledge politics regarding the pandemic are based on over-centralized decision-making processes, manipulation of epidemiological data, and the silencing of unauthorized voices. Simultaneously, these measures are challenged and resisted by counter-knowledge alternatives on pandemic data and the struggles for subaltern forms of knowledge that could make relevant contributions to public health. Third, we discuss the contradiction of subjectivation processes. Authoritarian regimes make extraordinary efforts to draw a line between those bodies and subjects that deserve state protection and those that do not. In this situation, multiple forms of exclusion intersect and are reinforced based on ethnic, political, national, and gender differences. The manipulation of emotions is crucial in these divisions, often creating “worthy” and “unworthy” subjects. This highlights interconnectedness among vulnerabilities and emphasizes how care and solidarity are important elements in defying authoritarian populism. Finally, we conclude by proposing strategies that would allow political ecology to support prospects of emancipation for social justice, desperately needed in a pandemic-prone foreseeable future." "Methodological reflections for an anthropologic approximation to socio-environmental conflicts in terms of political ecology" "Carlos Del Cairo, Iván Montenegro-Perini, Juan Sebastian Velez Triana" "This article proposes a strategy for developing anthropological research about socio-environmental conflicts by articulating four perspectives (historical, political, economic and subject-oriented) with the main dimensions that political ecology privileges (multi-scale, multi-temporal, multi-sited and multi-agent). To illustrate this methodology, the article discusses the case of rural communities in the Guaviare region that have been the target of environmental conservation policies in recent years. The argument highlights the relevance of anthropology to address the dense and multi-causal nature of environmental conflicts." "'Absolutely not smelly': The political ecology of disengaged slum tours in Mumbai, India" "Anya Diekmann"