Exam overview Economy and Ecology
Part 1: Political economy
Lecture 1: Introduction to political ecology
In this world there are multiple crises. These crises are seen as separate problems in sperate boxes
(climate, pollution, biodiversity, etc.) It is not right to consider these typical crises as separate because
the basic principle is that everything affects everything. The goal of this goal is to explain to core
concepts and connect all these different boxes.
(Example: Some people say the corona crisis is just a health crisis, but in reality, it did affects other
parts as well, like economic, social and cultural.)
Key questions of the course:
How do political economies shape nature?
Vice versa
How do natures make political economies?
Political economy
Economy = full system of production
How does political economy change the meaning of system of production?
The aspect that the political interfere with the economics
Relations to production (who produces what)
Political ecology
Before it was called political ecology, there were other terms used.
Cultural ecology = ways in which different cultures adapt to giving environments
Behaviour ecology = focus more on evolution that the culture, fits more by biological scientist.
But from the 1980 they started to call it political ecology.
There are multiple terms to describe the same thing. The meanings are different but very close in
meaning:
- nature
- wilderness
- environment
- ecology
In this course we call it ecology, because there is a specific field of literature who use the term
ecology.
1
,Ecology is not about nature!
Bruno Latour: “Nature is not in question in ecology; on the contrary, ecology dissolves boundaries…
one has to abandon the false conceit that ecology has anything to do with nature as such.”
Political ecology challenges:
The “nature” and “culture” / “environment and society” / “wilderness and civilization”
(different terms)
Boundaries between the boxes
Political ecology
says we can’t understand environmental problems without considering the bigger political
and economic systems, especially capitalism. It shows how global forces take advantage of
both people and nature, leading to environmental crises, especially in poorer areas.
has shifted from a simple view of nature and society to a more integrated perspective. It now
looks at how local and global factors connect, how these interactions shape specific places,
and how local communities play a significant role in influencing global processes.
Core concepts
Metabolism
= description of how humans interact with nature through work. When people work, they take
resources from nature and change them to make things they need.
Labour is a way humans “metabolize” nature. We transform natural resources into useful things like
food, clothes or tools.
- Karl Marx came up with the term metabolism as a way to explain how capitalism harms both
people and the planet.
Bête machine
= idea that animals are like machines, without minds or souls. Their actions are purely mechanical
based on physical processes.
there is a strict separation between the mind (which only humans have) and the body (which animals
and humans both have). Humans are different from animals because humans possess a rational mind
or soul.
(Literally: “animal machine”)
- René Descartes came up with this in the 17-century.
This was also a Christian perspective that human stands above animals.
Immanuel Kant
Kant had different view of animals and their place in nature than Descartes.
= He saw animals as part of the natural world but distinct from humans due to their lack of reason
and morality.
He thought that humans matter, because of the autonomy of their freedom. They can use everything
because they have the power to use the animals and nature things. Only humans find God.
2
, “Everything in creation which he wishes and over which he has power can be used merely as a means:
only man… is an end in himself. He is the subject of the moral law which is holy, because of the
autonomy of his freedom… this condition requires that man never be used simply as a means but at
the same time as an end itself.
Sociocentrism
= when a society or group focuses only on its own values and beliefs, often ignoring or excluding
others who think or live differently. It’s a way of seeing the world where the group believes their way
is the only right way.
a.k.a. everything is just about the humans, without caring about the nature.
- William Connolly came up with this term.
“It is often connected to perspectives that treat nature as a set of resources to extract.”
- Geertz: “Believing… that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has
spun, I take culture to be those webs”
Webs of significance = webs of meanings
Dualism
First there was a theory of first and second nature.
First Nature:
- This is nature as it existed before human influence—untouched and primal.
Second Nature:
- This is nature that has been altered by human activity. It reflects how humans have changed
the environment through their actions and ideas.
But as we can read in the article by Cronon, we cannot view nature and culture as completely
separate. So contemporary political ecology explores how they influence each other!
Things we get wrong
1. We place the human outside their environment
Humans are affected by the environment
- Microplastic in our bodies and brains. We are partly made of plastic
- Tattoos are heavy metals, produced by industrial minerals
2. We place nature outside culture
- Many by so called nature, is actually the home of indigenous people who shaped the
landscape. The indigenous people are expelled of their homeland.
Ecologize
Bruno Latour: “To modernize or ecologize? That is the question.”
He means this as a way of thinking.
Ecologize = following the nature processes along the nature processes. Instead of assuming
difference spheres with boundaries. One ecology that includes the human, the nature, the
economics, the culture and the social!
David Harvey: “Understanding how things cannot be understood or talked about independently of the
relations they have with other things.”
3
Part 1: Political economy
Lecture 1: Introduction to political ecology
In this world there are multiple crises. These crises are seen as separate problems in sperate boxes
(climate, pollution, biodiversity, etc.) It is not right to consider these typical crises as separate because
the basic principle is that everything affects everything. The goal of this goal is to explain to core
concepts and connect all these different boxes.
(Example: Some people say the corona crisis is just a health crisis, but in reality, it did affects other
parts as well, like economic, social and cultural.)
Key questions of the course:
How do political economies shape nature?
Vice versa
How do natures make political economies?
Political economy
Economy = full system of production
How does political economy change the meaning of system of production?
The aspect that the political interfere with the economics
Relations to production (who produces what)
Political ecology
Before it was called political ecology, there were other terms used.
Cultural ecology = ways in which different cultures adapt to giving environments
Behaviour ecology = focus more on evolution that the culture, fits more by biological scientist.
But from the 1980 they started to call it political ecology.
There are multiple terms to describe the same thing. The meanings are different but very close in
meaning:
- nature
- wilderness
- environment
- ecology
In this course we call it ecology, because there is a specific field of literature who use the term
ecology.
1
,Ecology is not about nature!
Bruno Latour: “Nature is not in question in ecology; on the contrary, ecology dissolves boundaries…
one has to abandon the false conceit that ecology has anything to do with nature as such.”
Political ecology challenges:
The “nature” and “culture” / “environment and society” / “wilderness and civilization”
(different terms)
Boundaries between the boxes
Political ecology
says we can’t understand environmental problems without considering the bigger political
and economic systems, especially capitalism. It shows how global forces take advantage of
both people and nature, leading to environmental crises, especially in poorer areas.
has shifted from a simple view of nature and society to a more integrated perspective. It now
looks at how local and global factors connect, how these interactions shape specific places,
and how local communities play a significant role in influencing global processes.
Core concepts
Metabolism
= description of how humans interact with nature through work. When people work, they take
resources from nature and change them to make things they need.
Labour is a way humans “metabolize” nature. We transform natural resources into useful things like
food, clothes or tools.
- Karl Marx came up with the term metabolism as a way to explain how capitalism harms both
people and the planet.
Bête machine
= idea that animals are like machines, without minds or souls. Their actions are purely mechanical
based on physical processes.
there is a strict separation between the mind (which only humans have) and the body (which animals
and humans both have). Humans are different from animals because humans possess a rational mind
or soul.
(Literally: “animal machine”)
- René Descartes came up with this in the 17-century.
This was also a Christian perspective that human stands above animals.
Immanuel Kant
Kant had different view of animals and their place in nature than Descartes.
= He saw animals as part of the natural world but distinct from humans due to their lack of reason
and morality.
He thought that humans matter, because of the autonomy of their freedom. They can use everything
because they have the power to use the animals and nature things. Only humans find God.
2
, “Everything in creation which he wishes and over which he has power can be used merely as a means:
only man… is an end in himself. He is the subject of the moral law which is holy, because of the
autonomy of his freedom… this condition requires that man never be used simply as a means but at
the same time as an end itself.
Sociocentrism
= when a society or group focuses only on its own values and beliefs, often ignoring or excluding
others who think or live differently. It’s a way of seeing the world where the group believes their way
is the only right way.
a.k.a. everything is just about the humans, without caring about the nature.
- William Connolly came up with this term.
“It is often connected to perspectives that treat nature as a set of resources to extract.”
- Geertz: “Believing… that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has
spun, I take culture to be those webs”
Webs of significance = webs of meanings
Dualism
First there was a theory of first and second nature.
First Nature:
- This is nature as it existed before human influence—untouched and primal.
Second Nature:
- This is nature that has been altered by human activity. It reflects how humans have changed
the environment through their actions and ideas.
But as we can read in the article by Cronon, we cannot view nature and culture as completely
separate. So contemporary political ecology explores how they influence each other!
Things we get wrong
1. We place the human outside their environment
Humans are affected by the environment
- Microplastic in our bodies and brains. We are partly made of plastic
- Tattoos are heavy metals, produced by industrial minerals
2. We place nature outside culture
- Many by so called nature, is actually the home of indigenous people who shaped the
landscape. The indigenous people are expelled of their homeland.
Ecologize
Bruno Latour: “To modernize or ecologize? That is the question.”
He means this as a way of thinking.
Ecologize = following the nature processes along the nature processes. Instead of assuming
difference spheres with boundaries. One ecology that includes the human, the nature, the
economics, the culture and the social!
David Harvey: “Understanding how things cannot be understood or talked about independently of the
relations they have with other things.”
3
