This paper offers theoretical reflections on a series of questions raised by the shift in political ecology from the Third World to the First: what precisely constitutes a context for political ecology? How does something come to be a space or region that calls for political ecology? To respond to these questions, I argue for a turn to the thought of Edward Said, who articulates a Gramscian approach to geography that calls into question the constitution of the world.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BlaikiePBrookfieldH (Eds), 1987Land Degradation and Society (Methuen, New York).
2.
BraunB, 2002The Intemperate Rainforest (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN).
3.
BryantR, 1997Third World Political Ecology (Routledge, New York).
4.
Castro-GómezS, 2003, “Latin American philosophy as critical ontology of the present: Themes and motifs for a ‘critique of Latin American reason’”Latin America and Postmodernity: A Contemporary Reader Eds Lange-ChurionPMendietaE (Humanity Books, Amherst, NY) pp 68–79.
5.
ChomskyN, 2003Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (Metropolitan Books, New York).
6.
DavisM, 2003Dead Cities: And Other Tales (New Press, New York).
7.
EscobarA, 1999, “After nature: Steps to an anti-essentialist political ecology”Current Anthropology40(1) 1–30.
8.
GramsciA, 1991 [1957] The Modern Prince and Other Writings (International Publishers, New York).
9.
GramsciA, 1995 [1926] The Southern Question translated by P Verdicchio (Bordighera, West Lafayette, IN).
HarawayD, 1996, “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective”, in Human Geography: An Essential Anthology Eds AgnewJLivingstoneDRogersA (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 108–128.
12.
HarveyD, 2003The New Imperialism (Oxford University Press, New York).
13.
HechtSCockburnA, 1989The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers, and Defenders of the Amazon (Verso, New York).
14.
HeideggerM, 1996 [1927] Being and Time (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY).
15.
HitchensC, 2003, “Where the twain should have met”Atlantic Monthly292(2) 153–159.
16.
McCarthyJ, 2001, “Environmental enclosures and the state of nature in the American West”, in Violent Environments Eds PelusoNWattsM (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY) pp 117–145.
17.
McCarthyJ, 2002, “First world political ecology: Lessons from the Wise Use movement”Environment and Planning A341281–1302.
18.
MooreD, 1996, “Marxism, culture, and political ecology: Environmental struggles in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands”, in Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements Eds PeetRWattsM (Routledge, London) pp 125–147.
19.
MudimbeV Y, 1988, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN).
20.
PrudhamW S, 2003, “Taming trees: Capital, science, and nature in Pacific Slope tree improvement”Annals of the Association of American Geographers93636–656.
21.
PrudhamW S, 2004, “Poisoning the well: Neo-liberalism and the contamination of municipal water in Walkerton, Ontario”Geoforum35343–359.
22.
RafflesH, 2002, In Amazonia (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ).
23.
RobbinsP, 2002, “Letter to the editor. Obstacles to a First World political ecology? Looking near without looking up”Environment and Planning A341509–1513.
24.
RobbinsPSharpJ, 2003a, “The lawn chemical economy and its discontents”Antipode35955–979.
25.
RobbinsPSharpJ, 2003b, “Producing and consuming chemicals: The moral economy of the American lawn”Economic Geography79425–451.
26.
RobertsonM, 2000, “No net loss: Wetland restoration and the incomplete capitalization of nature”Antipode32463–493.
27.
RobertsonM, 2004, “The neoliberalization of ecosystem services: Wetland mitigation banking and problems in environmental governance”Geoforum35361–373.
28.
SaidE, 1966Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
29.
SaidE, 1975Beginnings: Intention and Method (Basic Books, New York).
30.
SaidE, 1976a, “Between chance and determinism: Lukács' Aesthetik”Times Literary Supplement 6 February, reprinted in E Said, 2002 Reflections on Exile (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA), pp 61–69.
31.
SaidE, 1976b, “Beginnings: Interview with Edward Said”Diacritics6(3), reprinted in E Said, 2001 Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews with Edward Said Ed. ViswanathanG (Random House, New York) pp 3–38.
32.
SaidE, 1978Orientalism (Vintage, New York).
33.
SaidE, 1981Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (Pantheon, New York).
34.
SaidE, 1994 [1993] Culture and Imperialism (Vintage, New York).
35.
SaidE, 1994Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (Pantheon, New York).
36.
SaidE, 1996 [1993], “Facts, facts, and more facts”, in Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process (Vintage, New York) pp 26–31.
37.
SaidE, 2002 [1993], “Culture and imperialism: An interview with J. Buttigieg and P. Bové”, in Power, Politics, and Culture (Vintage, New York) pp 183–207.
38.
SaidE, 2002 [1995], “History, literature, and geography”, in Reflections on Exile (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 453–473.
WainwrightJ, 2004Decolonizing Development: Mayanism, Agriculture, and Colonialism in Southern Belize PhD dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN).
41.
WainwrightJRobertsonM, 2003, “Territorialization, science, and the postcolonial state: The case of Highway 55 in Minneapolis, USA”Cultural Geographies10197–217.
42.
WilsonR, 1999, “‘Placing nature’: The politics of collaboration and representation in the struggle for La Sierra in San Luis, Colorado”Ecumene6(1) 122–128.
43.
WrightG, 2003, “World-renowned scholar Edward Said dies”The Guardian 25 September.
