Political ecology I

Abstract

Resilience is an ecological term that has proven to be exceedingly malleable as it has grown in usage across a range of scholarly and policy communities. Despite its malleability, resilience does introduce particular ideas of society-nature relations into scholarly and policy discourse. In this political ecology progress report, I explore the relationship between political ecology and resilience thinking. I first explore common features of the intellectual histories of resilience thinking and political ecology. Despite parallel and common influences and reactions, the two fields diverge significantly along two dimensions: in their normative commitments and adherence to systems thinking. Given these divergences, I argue that intellectual engagement between these fields will prove to be most productive if circumscribed around land-use ecology – an area of inquiry important to both fields.