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A Research Agenda for Environmental Geopolitics
Challenging the mainstream view of the environment as either threatening or valuable, this book considers how geographic knowledge can be applied to offer a more nuanced understanding. Framed within geopolitics and using a range of methodologies, the chapters encapsulate different approaches to demonstrate how selective forms of knowledge, measurement, and spatial focus both embody and stabilize power, shaping how people perceive and respond to changing features of human-environment interactions.
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Critical Acclaim
Contributors
Contents
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Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary.
Challenging the mainstream view of the environment as either threatening or valuable, this book considers how geographic knowledge can be applied to offer a more nuanced understanding. Framed within geopolitics and using a range of methodologies, the chapters encapsulate different approaches to demonstrate how selective forms of knowledge, measurement, and spatial focus both embody and stabilize power, shaping how people perceive and respond to changing features of human-environment interactions.
With key case studies analyzed throughout, this will be a timely read for geography and environmental studies scholars. It will also be beneficial to those studying political science and regional studies, as well as those working in NGOs and think tanks.
Challenging the mainstream view of the environment as either threatening or valuable, this book considers how geographic knowledge can be applied to offer a more nuanced understanding. Framed within geopolitics and using a range of methodologies, the chapters encapsulate different approaches to demonstrate how selective forms of knowledge, measurement, and spatial focus both embody and stabilize power, shaping how people perceive and respond to changing features of human-environment interactions.
With key case studies analyzed throughout, this will be a timely read for geography and environmental studies scholars. It will also be beneficial to those studying political science and regional studies, as well as those working in NGOs and think tanks.
Critical Acclaim
‘The volume is both interesting and engaging, covering an impressive range of industries and country case studies which will be of interest to a wide reaching, cross-disciplinary audience.’
– Thomas Hastings, Eurasian Geography and Economics
‘A Research Agenda for Environmental Geopolitics lays bare our assumptions about what we mean by environment and by geopolitics. O’Lear and her contributors give us the tools to make explicit the impacts of power, actors, and interests in shaping placed-based decision-making and policy (in)action.’
– Geoffrey Dabelko, Ohio University, US
‘This book offers refreshing, new perspectives on environmental geopolitics that go far beyond established concerns with global environmental governance and local political ecology. In addition to shedding light on how politics influences the way we manage the environment, O’Lear and contributors reveal the myriad ways in which politics shapes how we understand and encounter the socio-natural world in which we live.’
– Philip Steinberg, Durham University, UK
‘This book maps out new research terrain by showing how geopolitics has environmental dimensions that go well beyond the national state and international relations. The rich chapters present case studies that put flesh on the bones of the programmatic arguments of Shannon O’Lear.’
– Noel Castree, Manchester University, UK and the University of Wollongong, Australia
– Thomas Hastings, Eurasian Geography and Economics
‘A Research Agenda for Environmental Geopolitics lays bare our assumptions about what we mean by environment and by geopolitics. O’Lear and her contributors give us the tools to make explicit the impacts of power, actors, and interests in shaping placed-based decision-making and policy (in)action.’
– Geoffrey Dabelko, Ohio University, US
‘This book offers refreshing, new perspectives on environmental geopolitics that go far beyond established concerns with global environmental governance and local political ecology. In addition to shedding light on how politics influences the way we manage the environment, O’Lear and contributors reveal the myriad ways in which politics shapes how we understand and encounter the socio-natural world in which we live.’
– Philip Steinberg, Durham University, UK
‘This book maps out new research terrain by showing how geopolitics has environmental dimensions that go well beyond the national state and international relations. The rich chapters present case studies that put flesh on the bones of the programmatic arguments of Shannon O’Lear.’
– Noel Castree, Manchester University, UK and the University of Wollongong, Australia
Contributors
Contributors: L. Acton, B. Blue, L.M. Campbell, S. Dalby, O. Evrard, C.A. Fox, N.J. Gray, M. Himley, C. Johnson, F. Lasserre, P. Le Billon, M. Mostafanezhad, S. O’Lear, L. Olman, B. Schneider, L. Shykora, C. Sneddon, J. Swann-Quinn, M. Tadaki, P.-L. Têtu, S.D. VanDeveer
Contents
Contents:
1 Environmental geopolitics: an introduction to questions and research
approaches 1
Shannon O’Lear
PART I INTERPRETING AND MEASURING THE ENVIRONMENT
2 Getting the measure of nature: the inconspicuous geopolitics of
environmental measurement 16
Brendon Blue and Marc Tadaki
3 Science, territory, and the geopolitics of high seas conservation 30
Noella J. Gray, Leslie Acton, and Lisa M. Campbell
4 The geopolitics of environmental global mapping services: an analysis
of Global Forest Watch 44
Birgit Schneider and Lynda Olman
PART II POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN–ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS
5 Conflicts, commodities and the environmental geopolitics of supply chains 59
Philippe Le Billon and Lauren Shykora
6 Underground geopolitics: science, race, and territory in Peru during the
late nineteenth century 74
Matthew Himley
7 Local knowledges and environmental governance: making space for
alternative futures in the Arctic circumpolar region and the
Mekong River Basin 88
Coleen A. Fox and Christopher Sneddon
PART III OVERCOMING SELECTIVE SPATIAL FOCUS
8 The geopolitics of transportation in the melting Arctic 105
Frédéric Lasserre and Pierre-Louis Têtu
9 Environmental geopolitics of rumor: the sociality of uncertainty
during northern Thailand’s smoky season 121
Mary Mostafanezhad and Olivier Evrard
10 Digging deep: crossing scale in the Georgian mining industry 136
Jesse Swann-Quinn
11 Looking ahead: environmental geopolitics research 151
Shannon O’Lear, Simon Dalby, Corey Johnson, and Stacy D. VanDeveer
Index 167
1 Environmental geopolitics: an introduction to questions and research
approaches 1
Shannon O’Lear
PART I INTERPRETING AND MEASURING THE ENVIRONMENT
2 Getting the measure of nature: the inconspicuous geopolitics of
environmental measurement 16
Brendon Blue and Marc Tadaki
3 Science, territory, and the geopolitics of high seas conservation 30
Noella J. Gray, Leslie Acton, and Lisa M. Campbell
4 The geopolitics of environmental global mapping services: an analysis
of Global Forest Watch 44
Birgit Schneider and Lynda Olman
PART II POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN–ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS
5 Conflicts, commodities and the environmental geopolitics of supply chains 59
Philippe Le Billon and Lauren Shykora
6 Underground geopolitics: science, race, and territory in Peru during the
late nineteenth century 74
Matthew Himley
7 Local knowledges and environmental governance: making space for
alternative futures in the Arctic circumpolar region and the
Mekong River Basin 88
Coleen A. Fox and Christopher Sneddon
PART III OVERCOMING SELECTIVE SPATIAL FOCUS
8 The geopolitics of transportation in the melting Arctic 105
Frédéric Lasserre and Pierre-Louis Têtu
9 Environmental geopolitics of rumor: the sociality of uncertainty
during northern Thailand’s smoky season 121
Mary Mostafanezhad and Olivier Evrard
10 Digging deep: crossing scale in the Georgian mining industry 136
Jesse Swann-Quinn
11 Looking ahead: environmental geopolitics research 151
Shannon O’Lear, Simon Dalby, Corey Johnson, and Stacy D. VanDeveer
Index 167
