CAPE Features

NEAR-TERM FUTURE OF CAPE EMERGING FROM THE NEAR-TERM PASTB. L. Turner II

Revised presentation for CAPE Special Sessions

Association of American Geographers

Philadelphia, PA, March 2004

Nos. below linked to Nos. on Fig.

1. The more distant the moment, the more simplified it is rendered. Culturalecology as it emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s was never a uniform endeavor. Variants existed as informed by systems (e.g., Karl Butzer and DavidStoddart), by decision making/behavioral science (e.g., “early” Harold Brookfield), and interpretations of both as influenced by cultural ecology in anthropology linked to the second and third generation Carl Sauer legacy.

2. Marking these variants, however, was an attempt to improve the empirical and systematic rigor of the research project from that associated (appropriately or not) with “cultural” geography. Some variants employed a hypo-deductive approach, while others used generalizations as a heuristic only. Almost all theory addressed was that of the “mid-range”, with little attempt to work into a meta-frameworks. For the most part, cultural ecologists were insufficiently skilled quantitatively to engage sophisticated tests of their problems. Those self-labeling as CEs did so to distinguish their work as speaking to science-social science interface as opposed to those variants of human-environment work speaking to social science-humanities interface.

3. Political ecology first emerged from the expansion of political economy and critical theory interests that had first developed in economic/human geography. This developed occurred first in critiques of risk-hazard studies as found in Watts and from the “down-under” researchers linked to Harold Brookfield, who himself had expanded beyond household decision making to the role of societal structures in shaping landscapes. This moment—which perhaps overly shapes the views of many researchers of my generation—quickly transitioned to that in which a large array of political ecologies were revealed (e.g., feminist). The self-labeling signaled a separation from the “other” ecology (usually cultural ecology). While some claim that this identity was related to the closed system approach of CE, I believe the far more critical markers were an emphasis on societal structures, power, marginalization.

4. Political ecology has now been challenged by a variety of constructivist views— post-colonial, postmodern, and so on as they have entered geography through its contemporary humanist interests. It is perhaps too early to determine if these reverberations will retain the label of political ecology. Regardless, there is large body of human-environment work that employs structural or constructivist frameworks which currently claims the political ecology label.

5. Postpositivistic versions of human-environment work, loosely attached intellectually to cultural ecology, have also emerged. These are variously labeled global change, land change, and sustainability science and are link former CE interests in landscapes to researchers entering land studies from environment science and GISc. This body of research weds agency and structures, and typically focuses on landscape outcomes, registered as coupled human-environment systems. As a body, it differs from PE because it employs approaches, problem framing, and language that PE would label “mainstream” science.

6. Interestingly and perhaps fortunately, an increasing number of practitioners question the division between political ecology and the “sciences” as articulated in #5 above. These “hybrid” ecologists employ multiple ways of framing problems, multiple methods, and different languages to speak to different clusters of researchers and users.

7. Both political ecology and the land sciences (LS,as I identify them above) have both launched vigorous efforts under the label of vulnerability studies. Returning to themes raised by risk-hazard studies and their critique, these studies hold some promise of a middle-ground for research.

COMMENT

In the end, the labels of CE, PE, are LS are irrelevant inasmuch as they designate “favored” ways of viewing the world or problem set up and resolution. The critical marker is what real-world problem resolutions and what general principles and concepts have emanated from the practices. On these terms, we are far less stable—as is geography as a whole.

WHAT I LEARNED

Listening to a large number of excellent papers in CAPE sessions and loosely labeled political ecology, it seems to me that the number of “hybrid ecologists” is growing significantly. Some of these folks are aware that when they frame problems in postpositivistic way, speak to “mainstream” science, and, especially, address landscape outcomes they are not engaging political ecology per se (if labels have any meaning). Others, however, appear to label such work “political ecology” because other parts of their work are, in fact, truly political ecology; thus political ecology becomes whatever a self-defined political ecologist does. (Recall the old but not useful definition of geography as whatever a geographer does.) In this sense, we are speaking past one another and reconciliation is a relatively easy matter.

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