Revisiting and revitalizing political ecology in the American West

Abstract

Political ecology, initially conceived to better understand the power relations implicit in management and distribution of natural resources in the developing world, came "home" to the American West in the 1990s and 2000s. This groundswell of research did much to problematize socio-environmental conflicts in the region, long typified by tensions over land and resources, identity and belonging, autonomy and authority. Since first touching down in the West, however, the "big tent" of political ecology has only grown bigger, incorporating new perspectives, epistemologies, and ontologies. At the same time, the nexus of environment and society is perhaps even more salient today, amid a regional conjuncture of populist revolt, climate change, and rapid political economic transformation. Here we reflect on three longstanding regional concerns-energy development, wolf reintroduction, and participatory governance-leveraging the pluralism of contemporary political ecology to better understand their contemporary incarnations. In so doing, we highlight the need to bring together insights from both "traditional" approaches and newer directions to better understand and engage contemporary challenges, with their heightened stakes and complexity. Such an approach demonstrates what we might learn about global processes in this place, as well as what insights regional praxis (often woefully provincial) might gain from elsewhere-new ways of seeing and doing political ecology. Our goal is to generate discussion among and between political ecologists and regional critical scholars, initiating new collaborative engagements that might serve the next wave of political ecology in the 21st century American West.

The Emotional Dimensions of Animal Disease Management: A Political Ecology Perspective for a Time of Heightened Biosecurity

“…Hence, preventing the spread of pneumonia presents not only as an issue of biosecurity, but one of wildlife conservation and land management and their varied and historied politics (Brugger et al, 2019). This patterns aligns the emotional dimensions of animal disease management with other assessments of environmental conflict where emotionfueled debates about resource management become refracted through older and deeper struggles over identity, livelihood, and place (Martin et al, 2019;Martin, 2020).…”

Between Scylla and Charybdis: Environmental governance and illegibility in the American West

“…These lineages can be productively (and geographically) grounded in the western United States (cf. Martin et al, 2019). By the classic view of "centralization, coherence, and autonomy… as intrinsic features of 'strong' states," the U.S. is a notable outlier: historically, it has been both powerful and decentralized (Morgan and Orloff, 2017, 6, 14).…”

Peace in the valley? Qualitative insights on collaborative coexistence from the Wood River Wolf Project

“…Toward these ends, I leave aside cognitive questions of attitudes, values, and tolerance emphasized in the literature (cf. Bruskotter & Wilson, 2014; Carter, Riley, & Liu, 2012; Manfredo et al, 2016; Treves & Bruskotter, 2014) in favor of a structural analysis informed by political ecology in the interest of conflict transformation (Büscher & Fletcher, 2019; Madden & McQuinn, 2014; Martin et al, 2019). Between 2015 and 2017, I conducted an intensive case study of the WRWP and its partners in Blaine County, Idaho and the surrounding region, using a mixed methods approach centered on the Project's history, practices, and broader context.…”

“…Anti‐wolf sentiment is deep‐seated, bound up with long‐standing societal tensions around belonging, appropriateness, and regional transformation (cf. Baden & Snow, 1997; Brick & Cawley, 1996; Cronon, 1996; Hays, 2017; Martin et al, 2019; Wilkinson, 1992). What is an acceptable risk of depredation thus becomes deeply political, with wolves understood in profoundly different ways than other threats to livestock or even other predators, based in part on how they have been enrolled in broader regional politics.…”