Pub Date : 2022-11-17DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2147890
Wenling Liu, Chenyi Du, Tingru Yang, Shuqin Jin
ABSTRACT Climate change has profound impacts on agricultural production, to which farmers must adapt, but the role of farmers in climate change adaptation is largely unaddressed. This research targeted to construct an integrated picture of the farm level adaptation to climate change in north China. We performed a field survey in Hebei province, and uncover which farmer behaviours in reality constitute an adaptation and analyses the characteristics and heterogeneity of these behaviours. The results show that farmer adaptation is mostly limited to spontaneous behavioural adjustment. The most widely adopted adaptation strategy remains the use of fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation techniques that were widely used, whilst the adoption of advanced adaptation technologies is not yet sufficient. Farming experience and involvement into off-farm work probably restrict farmers’ involvement in adaptation. Farmers’ perception of climate change risks and recognition of the effectiveness of adaptation would drive the adoption of adaptation strategies, however, obstacles remain with regards to the availability of policy, technology, and infrastructure support at government level. The study recommends that governments need to provide more adaptation support while also focus on the dissemination of information on adaptation provision, as well as strengthen people’s perceptions of climate risks and the effectiveness of adaptation.
{"title":"Farm level adaptation to climate change in north China: behavioural practices and potential drivers","authors":"Wenling Liu, Chenyi Du, Tingru Yang, Shuqin Jin","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2147890","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2147890","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Climate change has profound impacts on agricultural production, to which farmers must adapt, but the role of farmers in climate change adaptation is largely unaddressed. This research targeted to construct an integrated picture of the farm level adaptation to climate change in north China. We performed a field survey in Hebei province, and uncover which farmer behaviours in reality constitute an adaptation and analyses the characteristics and heterogeneity of these behaviours. The results show that farmer adaptation is mostly limited to spontaneous behavioural adjustment. The most widely adopted adaptation strategy remains the use of fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation techniques that were widely used, whilst the adoption of advanced adaptation technologies is not yet sufficient. Farming experience and involvement into off-farm work probably restrict farmers’ involvement in adaptation. Farmers’ perception of climate change risks and recognition of the effectiveness of adaptation would drive the adoption of adaptation strategies, however, obstacles remain with regards to the availability of policy, technology, and infrastructure support at government level. The study recommends that governments need to provide more adaptation support while also focus on the dissemination of information on adaptation provision, as well as strengthen people’s perceptions of climate risks and the effectiveness of adaptation.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"216 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45291666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-16DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2148154
Karin M. Gustafsson
ABSTRACT By studying the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as a community of practice and learning space for academic identity development, this paper studies the creation of environmental expertise within expert organizations. The study focuses its analysis on how IPBES through its fellowship programme contributes to academic identity development among early-career researchers, including providing new contextual references to understand what it means to engage in and balance biodiversity research, teaching, and service. The study is based on interviews with early-career researchers who participated in the production of the IPBES’s Global Assessment Report. The study shows how the IPBES fellowship programme, by introducing its fellows into the organization’s community of practice simultaneously, contributes to their academic identity development and the creation and maintenance of the boundaries of environmental expertise. The analysis further shows how the fellows develop an academic identity that unites two different communities of practice of equal importance for their understanding of what they are supposed to do as academics and widens their understanding of what it means to be a successful academic.
{"title":"Expert organizations as a space for early-career development: Engaging in service while balancing expectations on research and teaching","authors":"Karin M. Gustafsson","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2148154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2148154","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT By studying the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as a community of practice and learning space for academic identity development, this paper studies the creation of environmental expertise within expert organizations. The study focuses its analysis on how IPBES through its fellowship programme contributes to academic identity development among early-career researchers, including providing new contextual references to understand what it means to engage in and balance biodiversity research, teaching, and service. The study is based on interviews with early-career researchers who participated in the production of the IPBES’s Global Assessment Report. The study shows how the IPBES fellowship programme, by introducing its fellows into the organization’s community of practice simultaneously, contributes to their academic identity development and the creation and maintenance of the boundaries of environmental expertise. The analysis further shows how the fellows develop an academic identity that unites two different communities of practice of equal importance for their understanding of what they are supposed to do as academics and widens their understanding of what it means to be a successful academic.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"190 - 199"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46583605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-11DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2144476
Valerie Berseth
ABSTRACT This paper uses the case of genomics-assisted selective breeding in Pacific salmon hatcheries to investigate how people weigh the risks of adapting nature to changing climate conditions. Drawing on 105 interviews with people involved in salmon management, this study embeds risk assessments of selective breeding in the context of present interventions into salmon life cycles. While responses to novel technologies are frequently plotted along a support-opposition continuum, the debate over selective breeding Pacific salmon is multivalent, with respondents supporting selective breeding in some contexts while opposing it in others. Nearly half of respondents supported selective breeding to fix the mistakes of past interventions and rewild salmon. Given that past problems have stemmed from technological responses, these findings paradoxically suggest that further interventions may not necessarily be perceived as violating values of naturalness or wildness. Genomic technologies offer new pathways for climate adaptation. In doing so, they expand ethical debates about the role of humans and novel technologies in conserving and managing wildlife.
{"title":"Should we adapt nature to climate change? Weighing the risks of selective breeding in Pacific salmon","authors":"Valerie Berseth","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2144476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2144476","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper uses the case of genomics-assisted selective breeding in Pacific salmon hatcheries to investigate how people weigh the risks of adapting nature to changing climate conditions. Drawing on 105 interviews with people involved in salmon management, this study embeds risk assessments of selective breeding in the context of present interventions into salmon life cycles. While responses to novel technologies are frequently plotted along a support-opposition continuum, the debate over selective breeding Pacific salmon is multivalent, with respondents supporting selective breeding in some contexts while opposing it in others. Nearly half of respondents supported selective breeding to fix the mistakes of past interventions and rewild salmon. Given that past problems have stemmed from technological responses, these findings paradoxically suggest that further interventions may not necessarily be perceived as violating values of naturalness or wildness. Genomic technologies offer new pathways for climate adaptation. In doing so, they expand ethical debates about the role of humans and novel technologies in conserving and managing wildlife.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"20 - 30"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44470799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-30DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2135063
Violeta Gutiérrez-Zamora, I. Mustalahti, Diego García-Osorio
ABSTRACT Community forestry has been suggested as a viable alternative to balance the needs of people and forest sustainability. Drawing upon analytical frameworks of environmental justice, we explore how community forestry has reshaped the plural values of forest and the collective capacities of communities. Based on an ethnographic study in a community in Oaxaca, we investigate the plural values of forests presented in the daily practices of community members and how such values are recognized in decision-making spaces. In our analysis two key aspects are considered: deliberation and social accountability. The study shows that deliberation in the community has mainly focused on assessing the instrumental values placed on the forest and expanding the economic capacities of the community. Social accountability is prominent in the community but is still limited due to limited access of community members to accountability in multilevel governance. We conclude that deliberation and social accountability as collective capacities are crucial for evaluating the actions and performances of the authorities and representatives, and for appraisal of the shared values community members hold of forests. Yet the exclusion of women from spaces of decision-making limits the recognition of the plural values of forests.
{"title":"Plural values of forests and the formation of collective capabilities: learnings from Mexico’s community forestry","authors":"Violeta Gutiérrez-Zamora, I. Mustalahti, Diego García-Osorio","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2135063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2135063","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Community forestry has been suggested as a viable alternative to balance the needs of people and forest sustainability. Drawing upon analytical frameworks of environmental justice, we explore how community forestry has reshaped the plural values of forest and the collective capacities of communities. Based on an ethnographic study in a community in Oaxaca, we investigate the plural values of forests presented in the daily practices of community members and how such values are recognized in decision-making spaces. In our analysis two key aspects are considered: deliberation and social accountability. The study shows that deliberation in the community has mainly focused on assessing the instrumental values placed on the forest and expanding the economic capacities of the community. Social accountability is prominent in the community but is still limited due to limited access of community members to accountability in multilevel governance. We conclude that deliberation and social accountability as collective capacities are crucial for evaluating the actions and performances of the authorities and representatives, and for appraisal of the shared values community members hold of forests. Yet the exclusion of women from spaces of decision-making limits the recognition of the plural values of forests.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"117 - 135"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44859826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-12DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2132629
Xiyao Fu, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, M. J. Montefrio
ABSTRACT An emerging area of research concerns the phenomenon of young people factoring climate change into their reproductive plans and choices, but existing scholarship and popular discourse have focused exclusively on Western and developed countries. This paper examines whether young people in China are also connecting their reproductive plans and choices to climate change, and why. Based on the quantitative and qualitative results from an exploratory survey of 173 young, educated, climate-alarmed or climate-concerned Chinese, we found that reproductive climate concerns are reported by many young Chinese. Respondents expressed deep and multi-layered concerns about the wellbeing of their (potential) children in a climate-changed future, though they did not rank climate change highly among other factors that might influence their reproductive choices. Climate-alarmed Chinese reported lower levels of reproductive climate concerns and more positive visions of the future than a similar group of US-Americans. We attribute these findings to China’s history of family planning, state-constructed climate discourse, stage of development, and hierarchical cultural worldview. As the first study on reproductive climate concerns in Asia, this research addresses a major gap in our knowledge, with implications for the sociology of climate change, the sociology of reproduction, environmental psychology, Asian studies, and demography.
{"title":"The reproductive climate concerns of young, educated Chinese: ‘when the nest is upset, no egg is left intact’","authors":"Xiyao Fu, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, M. J. Montefrio","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2132629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2132629","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT An emerging area of research concerns the phenomenon of young people factoring climate change into their reproductive plans and choices, but existing scholarship and popular discourse have focused exclusively on Western and developed countries. This paper examines whether young people in China are also connecting their reproductive plans and choices to climate change, and why. Based on the quantitative and qualitative results from an exploratory survey of 173 young, educated, climate-alarmed or climate-concerned Chinese, we found that reproductive climate concerns are reported by many young Chinese. Respondents expressed deep and multi-layered concerns about the wellbeing of their (potential) children in a climate-changed future, though they did not rank climate change highly among other factors that might influence their reproductive choices. Climate-alarmed Chinese reported lower levels of reproductive climate concerns and more positive visions of the future than a similar group of US-Americans. We attribute these findings to China’s history of family planning, state-constructed climate discourse, stage of development, and hierarchical cultural worldview. As the first study on reproductive climate concerns in Asia, this research addresses a major gap in our knowledge, with implications for the sociology of climate change, the sociology of reproduction, environmental psychology, Asian studies, and demography.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"200 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46485266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-12DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2135062
Vinay Sankar
ABSTRACT As India is releasing its third National Water Policy in the last 20 years, this paper seeks to review the earlier policies relevant to a critical yet under-studied surface water ecosystem of rural community ponds. The paper examines how the notion of commodification informed the policies on water, land and local democracy, impacting the governance of rural community ponds in the state of Kerala, India. The review shows that while earlier country-level policies largely showed a tendency to treat water as a commodity, decommodification tendencies are perceptible in the water policy of Kerala. Nonetheless, the land reforms in Kerala resulted in Dalit Bahujans being systematically excluded from accessing land, even though it ended the operation of commoditised human bodies, and enforced land ceilings. Huge tracts of plantations were kept out of the purview of land reforms, signifying the operation of commodification. A positive aspect of the land ceilings was that many private enclosures like rural ponds were transferred to the state. The reforms in local democracy, to a great extent, led to accessible policy-making. The framework of ‘double movement’ is useful in analysing the trends in environmental sociology and evaluating policies related to socio-ecological systems.
{"title":"Commons, communities and commodification: a review of reforms in land, water and local democracy in Kerala, India","authors":"Vinay Sankar","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2135062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2135062","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As India is releasing its third National Water Policy in the last 20 years, this paper seeks to review the earlier policies relevant to a critical yet under-studied surface water ecosystem of rural community ponds. The paper examines how the notion of commodification informed the policies on water, land and local democracy, impacting the governance of rural community ponds in the state of Kerala, India. The review shows that while earlier country-level policies largely showed a tendency to treat water as a commodity, decommodification tendencies are perceptible in the water policy of Kerala. Nonetheless, the land reforms in Kerala resulted in Dalit Bahujans being systematically excluded from accessing land, even though it ended the operation of commoditised human bodies, and enforced land ceilings. Huge tracts of plantations were kept out of the purview of land reforms, signifying the operation of commodification. A positive aspect of the land ceilings was that many private enclosures like rural ponds were transferred to the state. The reforms in local democracy, to a great extent, led to accessible policy-making. The framework of ‘double movement’ is useful in analysing the trends in environmental sociology and evaluating policies related to socio-ecological systems.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"165 - 175"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48509090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-24DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2124623
N. Weins, A. Zhu, J. Qian, Fabiana Barbi Seleguim, Leila da Costa Ferreira
ABSTRACT In the Anthropocene, debates about global climate risks have taken carbon as a measure of policy success, with land-based mitigation strategies like afforestation receiving particular scrutiny. While scientists and policymakers discuss forestry as a potential climate solution, China has been implementing massive forestry projects for decades, drastically transforming environments under the Ecological Civilization framework. This article showcases China’s globally emerging paradigm of Eco-Civilization and its implications for the climate-forestry nexus. Drawing parallels with Ulrich Beck’s concept of ‘metamorphosis’ and Bruno Latour’s concept of ‘mutation,’ we argue that China’s Eco-Civilization aspires to a fundamental transformation in worldview – but one that is promoted as distinctly non-Western. We use the case of forestry to illuminate the potentially unique features of Chinese environmentalism as encapsulated in Eco-Civilization. We find that Eco-Civilization affords a strong role for the central state in actively building and constructing an ecological future in which the natural and the socio-political are not considered separate. This is in contrast to certain Western visions of preserving nature from human encroachment through grassroots environmental movements. We conclude by highlighting the theoretical contributions more pluralized debates about China’s environmental rise could bring to environmental sociology.
{"title":"Ecological Civilization in the making: the ‘construction’ of China’s climate-forestry nexus","authors":"N. Weins, A. Zhu, J. Qian, Fabiana Barbi Seleguim, Leila da Costa Ferreira","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2124623","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2124623","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the Anthropocene, debates about global climate risks have taken carbon as a measure of policy success, with land-based mitigation strategies like afforestation receiving particular scrutiny. While scientists and policymakers discuss forestry as a potential climate solution, China has been implementing massive forestry projects for decades, drastically transforming environments under the Ecological Civilization framework. This article showcases China’s globally emerging paradigm of Eco-Civilization and its implications for the climate-forestry nexus. Drawing parallels with Ulrich Beck’s concept of ‘metamorphosis’ and Bruno Latour’s concept of ‘mutation,’ we argue that China’s Eco-Civilization aspires to a fundamental transformation in worldview – but one that is promoted as distinctly non-Western. We use the case of forestry to illuminate the potentially unique features of Chinese environmentalism as encapsulated in Eco-Civilization. We find that Eco-Civilization affords a strong role for the central state in actively building and constructing an ecological future in which the natural and the socio-political are not considered separate. This is in contrast to certain Western visions of preserving nature from human encroachment through grassroots environmental movements. We conclude by highlighting the theoretical contributions more pluralized debates about China’s environmental rise could bring to environmental sociology.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"6 - 19"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48121064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2124622
Sebastian Abrahamsson
ABSTRACT This article is an empirical analysis of food waste management and food recycling in Sweden. Currently, across Sweden, attempts are being made to achieve a circular economy whereby food wastes are transformed into resources. Food waste is used to produce biogas and bio fertilizer, and the enactment of food waste as a resource turns the waste into a raw material over which waste management organizations compete. Against this backdrop, the article interferes with research in ‘waste studies’ that highlight transformation of waste into something valuable, and proposes instead to ‘defend’ waste against the CE. The paper contributes to ‘waste studies’ and research on the circular economy by cautioning about the risks involved both in the establishment of a circular economy, and the treatment of waste as valuable. The empirical material used draws on a research project in which interviews were carried out with ‘waste workers’ in Swedish waste management organizations.
{"title":"A defense of waste: the case of municipal food recycling in Sweden","authors":"Sebastian Abrahamsson","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2124622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2124622","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article is an empirical analysis of food waste management and food recycling in Sweden. Currently, across Sweden, attempts are being made to achieve a circular economy whereby food wastes are transformed into resources. Food waste is used to produce biogas and bio fertilizer, and the enactment of food waste as a resource turns the waste into a raw material over which waste management organizations compete. Against this backdrop, the article interferes with research in ‘waste studies’ that highlight transformation of waste into something valuable, and proposes instead to ‘defend’ waste against the CE. The paper contributes to ‘waste studies’ and research on the circular economy by cautioning about the risks involved both in the establishment of a circular economy, and the treatment of waste as valuable. The empirical material used draws on a research project in which interviews were carried out with ‘waste workers’ in Swedish waste management organizations.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"107 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46446627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-19DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2124621
M. Paredes
ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how the toxic consequences of extractive industries like mining have reconfigured both local topographies and introduced new structures and meanings regarding environmental justice and mobilization for communities living in polluted areas. Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of the case of Espinar in Peru, the paper explains how the company and the government’s management of uncertainty regarding land and water pollution have transformed the meaning of mobilization for communities and their capacities for cleaning or at least improving their environment. I argue that local and global connections and transnational support still open opportunities for meaningful local mobilization despite uncertainty and ambiguity in managing environmental pollution, which weakens social cohesion and fragments the positions of inhabitants concerning collective and political action. However, communities can unwillingly embrace toxic conflicts: low intense, fragmented, but persistent forms of mobilization to bargain for some form of partial compensation from the company and the state. This form of conflict reinforces the internal fragmentation of the overall community and runs against environmental justice aspirations.
{"title":"Toxic mobilization: mining, pollution and power in the highlands of Peru","authors":"M. Paredes","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2124621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2124621","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how the toxic consequences of extractive industries like mining have reconfigured both local topographies and introduced new structures and meanings regarding environmental justice and mobilization for communities living in polluted areas. Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of the case of Espinar in Peru, the paper explains how the company and the government’s management of uncertainty regarding land and water pollution have transformed the meaning of mobilization for communities and their capacities for cleaning or at least improving their environment. I argue that local and global connections and transnational support still open opportunities for meaningful local mobilization despite uncertainty and ambiguity in managing environmental pollution, which weakens social cohesion and fragments the positions of inhabitants concerning collective and political action. However, communities can unwillingly embrace toxic conflicts: low intense, fragmented, but persistent forms of mobilization to bargain for some form of partial compensation from the company and the state. This form of conflict reinforces the internal fragmentation of the overall community and runs against environmental justice aspirations.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"136 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59992114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-17DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2124625
R. Sony, Daniel Münster, S. Krishnan
ABSTRACT Scientific evidence and knowledge are central to movements for environmental justice. Cases of pesticide toxicity have often led to the emergence of controversies around the nature of evidence and its causal connection to observed pathologies. Toxic effects depend on multiple, situated socioecological conditions such as time and place, duration, and mode of administration, making quantifiable etiology tenuous. Research on toxic exposure issues has shown limitations of regulatory sciences in establishing causality and argued for bringing various ways of knowing to understand, acknowledge and act against harms due to exposure. This article draws on sociological research carried out in northern Kerala, where continued use of the insecticide endosulfan between 1977 and 2000 has had significant health impacts on farmworkers and the general population. We present the case of endosulfan poisoning as an instance of controversy over evidence and uncertainty about causality emerging from agriculture scientists’ insistence on proof of etiology that has effectively jeopardized justice for endosulfan victims. We argue that, in cases of economy-oriented production agriculture, powerful actors like agriculture scientists, governments and the pesticide industry use science as a tool to maintain uncertainty as a resource to obscure the truth, making claims about reparative policies and actions impossible.
{"title":"What counts as evidence? Examining the controversy over pesticide exposure and etiology in an environmental justice movement in Kerala, India","authors":"R. Sony, Daniel Münster, S. Krishnan","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2124625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2124625","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Scientific evidence and knowledge are central to movements for environmental justice. Cases of pesticide toxicity have often led to the emergence of controversies around the nature of evidence and its causal connection to observed pathologies. Toxic effects depend on multiple, situated socioecological conditions such as time and place, duration, and mode of administration, making quantifiable etiology tenuous. Research on toxic exposure issues has shown limitations of regulatory sciences in establishing causality and argued for bringing various ways of knowing to understand, acknowledge and act against harms due to exposure. This article draws on sociological research carried out in northern Kerala, where continued use of the insecticide endosulfan between 1977 and 2000 has had significant health impacts on farmworkers and the general population. We present the case of endosulfan poisoning as an instance of controversy over evidence and uncertainty about causality emerging from agriculture scientists’ insistence on proof of etiology that has effectively jeopardized justice for endosulfan victims. We argue that, in cases of economy-oriented production agriculture, powerful actors like agriculture scientists, governments and the pesticide industry use science as a tool to maintain uncertainty as a resource to obscure the truth, making claims about reparative policies and actions impossible.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"148 - 164"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47946182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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