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19 - Political Ecologies of State Land Management

from Part IV - Politics, Power, State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2020

By
John Zinda
Edited by
Katharine Legun ,
Julie C. Keller ,
Michael Carolan  and
Michael M. Bell
Katharine Legun
Affiliation:
Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands
Julie C. Keller
Affiliation:
University of Rhode Island
Michael Carolan
Affiliation:
Colorado State University
Michael M. Bell
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Summary

Land and state efforts in management have surged onto environmental sociologists’ agenda, but our tools for examining concerns around land are limited. Practitioners of political ecology have examined just these issues in great depth, and there is much we can learn from them. Their work on how states steer development projects details how states and capitalists advance projects that displace or enlist people for productive efforts that can devastate landscapes. Their studies of land enclosure for conservation or forestry make sense of the push and pull among groups concerned with wildlife, profit, and the welfare of residents. Examining ecological restoration efforts, political ecologists identify the conditions under which these projects succeed and fail, showing how processes policymakers fail to consider often cause surprising outcomes. A further opening of the conversation between environmental sociologists and political ecologists bears great promise for cross-fertilization.

Keywords

landstatespolitical ecologydevelopmentprotected areasforest restoration
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology , pp. 315 - 330
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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