Lecture #11

Political ecology (part 1):

Communitarian Ecology

Achterberg ‘s

“Sustainability, Community and Democracy”

Carter’s

“Worker Co-operatives and Green Political Theory”

Lockean ‘property rights’

The Tragedy of the Commons

Shallow ecology

Deep ecology’s bio-regionalism / minority tradition

“Values of community”

Reacting to “liberal environmentalism”:

Maintenance of existing institutions: the status quo

Rights and obligations

Values of personal freedom, autonomy, rule of law, and democracy

“Liberal environmentalism is too willing to rely on government, typically federal governments, to protect the environment and natural resources”

“Whether the problem is global warming, toxic waste, or clean water, the majority of environmental groups can generally be counted on to argue that giving governments greater authority or more funding is the answer”

Sustainability, Community and Democracy

“Sustainability cannot be achieved without institutional changes in liberal democratic societies”

What’s needed is a shift towards “associative democracy”, which would “broaden and enhance the democratic character of society”

Associative democracy strengthens community ties and thereby makes it more probable that sustainability will be achieved

Background to anti-domination theories

Environmental Racism

World Bank Memo

The Chipko movement

Eco-feminism

Ecofeminists have frequently pointed out linguistic connections between oppression of women and land. Consider common concepts like the following:

Mother Nature

Mother Earth

Taming nature

Reaping nature's bounty

Raping the land

Key concepts:

Patriarchy

Conceptual framework

Oppressive conceptual framework

The “logic of domination”

‘Patriarchy’…

“The concept of patriarchy refers to a general expectation that men have the primary legitimate power and responsibility for the community as a whole”

Conceptual Framework:

A set of basic beliefs, values attitudes and assumptions which shape and reflect how one views oneself and the world (age, class, nationality, religion)

Personal identity

Socially constructed identity (i.e., not determined strictly by nature & instinct alone)

Oppressive Conceptual Framework

Explains or justifies relationships of domination subordination

Dehumanization of slaves

Creation of ‘artificial’ racial caste groups (‘dalits’ in India, Roma (or ‘gypsies) in Europe)

Value dualisms

Disjunctive pairs: oppositional & exclusive

Examples:

Mind/body

Reason/emotion

Male/female

Value hierarchical thinking

Up-down ranking of similar phenomena

Places status and prestige on phenomena ranked at the top of the hierarchy

Logic of domination

Pattern of thinking in which two groups (men/women) are distinguished by some characteristics (rationality/emotion)

A value hierarchy is attributed to this attributed to these

One group is said to justly subordinated based on the hierarchy

Two arguments forms leading to domination

Argument A:

Humans do, and plants and rocks do not, have the capacity to consciously and radically change the community in which they live

Whatever has this capacity is morally superior to whatever lacks it

THEREFORE Humans are morally superior to plants and rocks

For any X and Y, if X is superior to Y, X is justified in dominating or subordinating Y

THEREFORE humans are morally justified in dominating plants and rocks

Argument B:

Men are identified with the mental/human whereas women are identified with the physical/natural

Whatever is identified with mental/human is superior to its opposite

THEREFORE Women are inferior to men

For any X and Y, if X is superior to Y, X is justified in dominating or subordinating Y

THEREFORE Men are justified in dominating and subordinating women