Political Ecology: Nature and Society against the Grain

Abstract

This essay advances the argument for James C. Scott as a preeminent political ecologist, despite the fact that he has not claimed such a title for himself. While he is variously described as an (errant) political scientist, an (adopted) anthropologist, and a (most of the time) Southeast Asianist, he has not usually been called a card-carrying political ecologist. But in fact, his many works have foreshadowed a number of the topical concerns of political ecologists of Asia, such as his attention to subsistence strategies of peasants, to hegemony and resistance, to state power and simplifications, to anarchism and self-organization, and to ecological transitions and human-nonhuman interactions. The fact that Scott is one of the most-cited theorists in the field of political ecology is further proof of his influence, with authors using Scottian themes to launch critical investigations of how power shapes environmental relations and how politics plays a role in the co-constitution of nature and society.