Political ecology, development, and human exceptionalism

Abstract

The sub-discipline of Political Ecology devotes much critical attention to the complex and often pernicious socio-ecological impacts of mainstream development-developmentality-across the world. However, despite the 'ecology' in its name, Political Ecology continues to be predominantly anthropocentric which, we contend, compromises its critique of developmentality's excesses. Drawing on recent literatures in philosophy, political theory, and human geography, we argue that both the more-than-human and social impacts of developmentality are enabled by zoöpolitical logics of human exceptionalism which support anthropocentrism. We suggest that the adverse effects of development are co-constituted with the positive vision of human wellbeing which runs through developmentality. Thus, an effective critique of development will necessarily have to address the zoöpolitical logics that underpin anthropocentrism. Doing so will strengthen the rigour of political ecology's engagement with developmentality and widen its attention to the diversity of life harmed by mainstream development.

The production of human-wildlife conflict: A political animal geography of encounter

“…The second theoretical intervention of this paper aligns with recent debates within the pages of this journal on the position of the non-human in political ecology studies of conservation (Srinivasan and Kasturirangan 2016;Menon and Karthik 2016). This debate centers around whether political ecology, in consistently levelling critiques at conservation practices rather than the broader development agendas through which conservation has emerged, fails to attend to the many kinds of lives (human as well as non-human) that often suffer as a result of uneven development (Srinivasan and Kasturirangan 2016;Menon and Karthik 2016). What concerns Srinivasan and Kasturirangan (2017) is that this anthropocentrism in political ecology seems to have produced the outcome that "conservation, and nonhuman life more generally, thus become scapegoats in conflicts between different human groups" (87).…”

Beyond the green panopticon: New directions in research exploring environmental governmentality

“…A final point of contention follows from the emphasis of Foucault's own analyses on social processes and actors rather than the nonhumans with whom people are entangled. This lack of serious consideration of the role of nonhumans in shaping environmental politics is a critique that has been levelled at social scientific studies of such politics more generally (Hommes et al, 2020;Srinivasan and Kasturirangan, 2016;Whatmore, 2006). Yet others suggest that this inattention is not inherent in Foucault's (2007) approach, and that his explicit recognition that governance entails the 'imbrication of men [sic] and things' (97) offers an entry point for inclusion of nonhumans within a governmentality perspective (Lemke, 2015).…”

Animal geographies II

“…She grounds post-humanist political ecology in performative aspects of nonhumans and builds upon relational hybrid and networked metaphors to account for situated politics-in-action where all bodies are participants in bringing the world into being. Srinivasan and Kasturirangan (2016) challenge political ecology to recognize the adverse effects of mainstream development efforts as shaped by a human/animal dichotomy and discourse of human exceptionalism. They claim that development efforts focused on the pursuit of human wellbeing must embrace the wellbeing of nonhuman nature.…”