This volume is the latest addition to the growing political ecology literature, a field of study that examines how power relations mediate human-nature relations. Its particular aim is to examine where political ecology has been and where it is headed. It invites readers to ‘reimagine’ political ecology, that is, to reflect upon meaning-centred approaches and to place the tensions between neo- and post-Marxist perspectives at the centre of political ecology. It also aims to prioritize a research agenda for the near term, highlighting the need for more collaboration across disciplines. Thus, the volume is a fitting addition to the series, New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century, which seeks to stimulate dialogue amongst those engaged in transforming understanding and practice of nature-culture relations.
The book consists of eleven chapters, organized into an introduction and four sections. In the introduction, Biersack sets the framework for the entire volume, but rather than providing an in-depth review of the political ecology literature, she highlights five theoretical reorientations. These include its critique of a human-nature binary, its considerations of the dynamics of local-global articulations and its engagement with feminism and other issues. She argues for a research agenda that carries these issues forward, highlighting the role of anthropology. Biersack coins the term ‘ethnography of nature’ (p. 7) to describe the examination of the institutionalization and conventionalization of human-nature relations that is at the heart of the volume. She also discusses the legacy of ecological anthropologist Roy Rappaport, whose work is used throughout the volume as a centre point for discussion.
The second section contains chapters that are broad critiques of modernist ecologies, including tendencies to divide nature and culture, its faith in scientific management and its tendency to dismiss local knowledge. Michael Dove's chapter compares his own work with Rappaport's in the context of changing ecological theory and research contexts, while Gísli Pálsson explores modernist scientific approaches and implications of state management for fishing in Iceland. The next three sections consist of case studies based on research conducted in a range of geographical locations, from Belize and the Gulf of California to Borneo and the Porgera valley in Papua New Guinea. The first four cases, in a section entitled ‘Constructing and Appropriating Nature’, examine the political, historical and cultural dimensions of human-nature interactions. Greenberg's analysis of fisheries developments in Gulf of California and how problems relate to the commoditization, rather than a tragedy, of the commons is particularly compelling.
The next section, ‘Ethnographies of Nature’, consist of three case studies that contain ‘thick descriptions’ of the complex politics involved when nature is appropriated by humans. The final section, entitled ‘Between Nature and Culture’, consists of an analysis of Balinese water management. Together, these case studies well illustrate the evolution of political ecology beyond neo-Marxism and human-nature dualisms to its contemporary focus on complex and varied interconnections between nature and culture and between scales ranging from local to global.
The volume thus achieves its aim of reviewing the roots of political ecology and its current and potential contributions. However important this is, the book seems to retrace ‘second generation’ political ecology already well documented by Peet and Watts (Reference Peet and Watts2004). In addition, while Biersack argues that the language of political ecology is now ‘not only inter- but postdisciplinary’(p. 34), only one essay in the volume is actually interdisciplinary, the final chapter by Lansing et al., which is also the only essay to demonstrate a clear methodological contribution.
The volume is, without doubt, an interesting addition to the political ecology literature. Its importance lies not just in its clear restatement of the evolution of the field, but also in its analysis of developments in relation to the work of Roy Rappaport and ecological theory. This approach is particularly informative and serves to illustrate the contribution of anthropology to the evolution of political ecology. This volume will be a welcome addition to the book shelves of all those interested in this field of inquiry and in understanding and addressing the challenges of human-nature relations.
