Peet, R., Robbins, P. and Watts, M. J. (eds.) (2011) Global Political Ecology, Routledge

Peet, R., Robbins, P. and Watts, M. J. (eds.) (2011) Global Political Ecology, Routledge (pg. 444)

Paul Robbins (2004), in his book “Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction”, defines the purpose of political ecology as an emergent field as making visible “all the struggle hidden behind the quiet vista”. This critical insight to a developing body of literature calls for a move from studies of environmental “destruction” to “production”, from “peasants” to “producers” and from the “chains” to “networks” of explanation. In a similar vein, the second edition of the edited volume by Peet and Watts (2004), titled “Liberation Ecologies”, published in the same year challenges us all by daring to ask “what’s next?” for liberating the political ecology.

Answers to these challenges come in the shape of an edited volume by the very own authors of the books mentioned above. Published 7 years after these books, Global Political Ecology edited by Peet, Robbins and Watts (2011) is a profound attempt to bring together state of the art in a field that links the “political economy of global capitalism with the political ecology of environmental disasters and failed environmental policies”. Opening up with a discussion of failed climate change policies of post-COP15 era, the book starts by dissecting climate change debate as an exemplar of political ecology’s promise to see beyond what is on the surface. In this regard, Peet, Robbins and Watts identify what seems to embody the central issues in contemporary political ecology literature which are respectively (i) planetary characters of the ecological crisis, (ii) centrality of expert knowledges, (iii) global problems of basic provisioning services to keep ecosystems running and energetic basis of modernity itself and (iv) a particular alignment of environmental rule (pg. 10-11).

In their introductory chapted setting ground rules of the volume, authors take up the challenge to lay down the theoretical basis of neo-Marxist and poststructuralist lineages in political ecology research successfully. By doing so, they both pay attention to global flows of capital and materials as well as power-knowledge nexus in defining a road map for a global political ecology of the 21st century. Authors’ detailed analysis of main issues in political ecology establishes a firm ground to be used as an introductory text in any political ecology class. To illustrate the central issues emerging from this analysis, this edited volume is divided into 7 sections, each taking up the challenge to present a radical insight into the most pressing ecological issues of our times. It opens up with a section on food, health and the body where agriculture, livestock breeding, fisheries policy and public health issues are problematized with a critical insight. However rich in substance in regards to latter 3 topics, this section remains a little short of what might be analyzed among the overarching political ecology topics in global agriculture. Thus a rather US-EU dominated vision of “global” political ecology of agriculture in this chapter doesn’t fulfill the promise of the book fully.

The next chapter is structured on the political ecology of the slum world. Recalling Mary Douglas’ (1966) remark that “[d]irt offends against order”, this chapter critically analyzes two intrinsicly intermeshed topics which are global flows of garbage and green evictions in the third world both of which are in turn linked to dominant discourses on “lack of purity”. Following this, third chapter in this volume is dedicated to the modalities of environmental governance which find its manifestations in ecolabelling, insurance sector and management of risk and carbon offsetting schemes. Providing critical insights into global environmental governance, this chapter only falls short in addressing the recent REDD+ and payments for ecosystem services debates.

The consequent two chapters on political ecology of security and political ecology of energy scarcity provide a complementary understanding of the nature-security nexus as well as energy scarcity discourse as a means to securitize geographies and populations. Starting with internalization of “the natural” to be used in modern warfare (ie. use of honeybee and mutant ecologies), the fourth chapter continues with a discussion on production of national natures through extensive use of coercive state tactiques in stripping jungles to make managable forests and populations. Fifth chapter in this volume builds the energy basis on top of these discussions. Despite being limited on political ecologies of oil, this chapter successfully address construction of energy scarcity and its geopolitical consequences.

Arriving later in the volume is a rather short but comprehensive chapter on political ecologies of water. This chapter open with a discussion on water privatization and water as commons and follows with a discussion on social construction of water scarcity and its consequences. The volume comes to an end with a chapter on biopolitics of life focusing on political ecologies of genetic manipulation. Foucauldian concept of biopower/biopolitics and technologies of government seems to be connecting a few articles in the volume theoretically (Sections 5, 12, 18).
This well-established volume calls for a deeper understanding of “the world as it is” as David Harvey would call it. Thus it hinges itself on the political ecology of the possible, that is a world in which artificial separations of man vs. nature and ecology vs. economy disappears and deconstructs the common knowledge on the inevitability of catastrophic self-destruction of mankind. Despite some minor shortcomings (ie. little methodological diversity), this volume will probably be at the top of the reference book pile in political ecology in years to come.

References:
1) Douglas, M. (1966) “Purity and Danger”, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
2) Peet, R. and Watts, M. J. (2004): “Liberation Ecologies”. Routledge, London.
3) Robbins, P. (2004): “Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction”. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Malden.