Skip to main content

Political Ecologies of Displacement

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Handbook of Displacement
  • 1818 Accesses

Abstract

Political ecology embraces a diverse range of conceptual approaches, methodologies, and political strategies that broadly centre on rethinking society–nature relations coupled with a normative commitment to social justice, environmental ethics, and attentiveness to the politics of knowledge. Early studies in this field drew on Marx to root displacement in spatial injustice and related this to the social construction of environmental degradation, hazards, and risk. More recently, focus has been on technical fixes such as infrastructure development, conservation, and environmental restoration that rework society–nature relations. Elmhirst shows how across a diverse range of contexts, political ecologies of displacement foreground the materiality of nature, focus on the knowledge politics that make displacement a ‘natural’ outcome, and demonstrate the embodied politics of resistance that challenge its inevitability.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Acosta, A. (2013). Extractivism and neoextractivism: Two sides of the same curse. In M. Lang & D. Mokrani (Eds.), Beyond development alternative visions from Latin America (pp. 61–86). Amsterdam: Transnational Institute and Quito, Ecuador: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams, V., Van Hattum, T., & English, D. (2009). Chronic disaster syndrome: Displacement, disaster capitalism, and the eviction of the poor from New Orleans. American Ethnologist, 36(4), 615–636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adams, W. M., & Hutton, J. (2007). People, parks and poverty: Political ecology and biodiversity conservation. Conservation and Society, 5, 147–183.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bebbington, A. (2012). Underground political ecologies: The second annual lecture of the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. Geoforum, 43(6), 1152–1162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bigger, P., & Dempsey, J. (2018). The ins and outs of neoliberal natures. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 1(1–2), 25–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blaikie, P., & Brookfield, H. (1987). Land degradation and society. London: Longman Development Series.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I., & Wisner, B. (1994). At risk: Natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bose, P. S. (2016). Vulnerabilities and displacements: Adaptation and mitigation to climate change as a new development mantra. Area, 48(2), 168–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brockington, D., & Igoe, J. (2006). Eviction for conservation: A global overview. Conservation and Society, 4(3), 424–470.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collard, R. C., Dempsey, J., & Sundberg, J. (2015). A manifesto for abundant futures. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(2), 322–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, T. W. (2008). The political ecology of hazard vulnerability: Marginalization, facilitation and the production of differential risk to urban wildfires in Arizona’s White Mountains. Journal of Political Ecology, 15(1), 21–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doshi, S. (2019). Greening displacements, displacing green: Environmental subjectivity, slum clearance, and the embodied political ecologies of dispossession in Mumbai. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 43(1), 112–132.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dressler, W. H., & McDermott, M. H. (2010). Indigenous peoples and migrants: Social categories, rights, and policies for protected areas in the Philippine Uplands. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 29(2–4), 328–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elmhirst, R. (2012). Displacement, resettlement, and multi-local livelihoods: Positioning migrant legitimacy in Lampung, Indonesia. Critical Asian Studies, 44(1), 131–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elmhirst, R., Siscawati, M., Sijapati Basnett, B., & Ekowati, D. (2017). Gender and generation in engagements with oil palm in East Kalimantan, Indonesia: Insights from feminist political ecology. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 44(6), 1135–1157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fairhead, J., Leach, M., & Scoones, I. (2012). Green grabbing: A new appropriation of nature? Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(2), 237–261.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fletcher, R. (2010). Neoliberal environmentality: Towards a poststructuralist political ecology of the conservation debate. Conservation and Society, 8(3), 171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, M. (2003). Partitioned nature, privileged knowledge: Community-based conservation in Tanzania. Development and Change, 34(3), 833–862.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • González-Hidalgo, M., & Zografos, C. (2017). How sovereignty claims and ‘negative’ emotions influence the process of subject-making: Evidence from a case of conflict over tree plantations from Southern Chile. Geoforum, 78, 61–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greiner, C., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2016). Migration, environment and inequality: Perspectives of a political ecology of translocal relations. In J. Schade, T. Faist, & R. McLeman (Eds.), Environmental migration and social inequality (pp. 151–163). Dordrecht, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Grundy-Warr, C., & Rigg, J. (2016). The reconfiguration of political, economic and cultural landscapes in post-tsunami, Thailand. In P. Daley & R. M. Freener (Eds.), Rebuilding Asia following natural disasters: Approaches to reconstruction in the Asia-Pacific (pp. 210–235). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gudynas, E. (2010). The new extractivism of the 21st century: Ten urgent theses about extractivism in relation to current South American progressivism. Americas Program Report, 21, 1–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunewardena, N. (2008). Peddling paradise, rebuilding Serendib: The 100-meter refugees versus the tourism industry in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. In N. Gunewardena & M. Schuller (Eds.), Capitalizing on catastrophe: Neoliberal strategies in disaster reconstruction (pp. 69–92). Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harms, E., & Baird, I. G. (2014). Wastelands, degraded lands and forests, and the class(ification) struggle: Three critical perspectives from mainland Southeast Asia. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 35(3), 289–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill, A. (2017). Blue grabbing: Reviewing marine conservation in Redang Island marine park, Malaysia. Geoforum, 79, 97–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huber, A., Gorostiza, S., Kotsila, P., Beltrán, M. J., & Armiero, M. (2017). Beyond “socially constructed” disasters: Re-politicizing the debate on large dams through a political ecology of risk. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 28(3), 48–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • ICTA-UAB (Institute of Environmental Science and Technology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). (n.d.). Environmental justice Atlas. Retrieved June 9, 2019, from https://www.ejatlas.org

  • Jenkins, K. (2015). Unearthing women’s anti-mining activism in the Andes: Pachamama and the ‘Mad Old Women’. Antipode, 47(2), 442–460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kay, C. (2017). Contemporary dynamics of agrarian change. In H. Veltmeyer & P. Bowles (Eds.), The essential guide to critical development studies (pp. 291–300). London: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Klein, N. (2007). The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism. London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lawhon, M., Ernstson, H., & Silver, J. (2014). Provincializing urban political ecology: Towards a situated UPE through African urbanism. Antipode, 46(2), 497–516.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leff, E. (2015). The power-full distribution of knowledge in political ecology. In T. Perreault, G. Bridge, & J. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of political ecology (pp. 64–75). London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lestrilin, G. (2011). Rethinking state–ethnic minority relations in Laos: Internal resettlement, land reform and counter-territorialization. Political Geography, 30(6), 311–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lunstrum, E., Bose, P., & Zalik, A. (2016). Environmental displacement: The common ground of climate change, extraction and conservation. Area, 48(2), 130–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martinez-Alier, J. (2014). The environmentalism of the poor. Geoforum, 54, 239–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Middleton, C., Elmhirst, R., & Chantavanich, S. (Eds.). (2017). Living with floods in a mobile Southeast Asia: A political ecology of vulnerability, migration and environmental change. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milne, S., & Adams, B. (2012). Market masquerades: Uncovering the politics of community-level payments for environmental services in Cambodia. Development and Change, 43(1), 133–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mollett, S. (2015). ‘Displaced futures’: Indigeneity, land struggle, and mothering in Honduras. Politics, Groups and Identities, 3(4), 678–683.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrissey, J. (2012). Rethinking the ‘debate on environmental refugees’: From ‘maximilists and minimalists’ to ‘proponents and critics’. Journal of Political Ecology, 19(1), 36–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neumann, R. P. (1996). Dukes, earls, and ersatz Edens: Aristocratic nature preservationists in colonial Africa. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 14(1), 79–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nightingale, A. J. (2019). Commoning for inclusion? Political communities, commons, exclusion, property and socio-natural becomings. International Journal of the Commons, 13(1), 16–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Boston: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Keefe, P., Westgate, K., & Wisner, B. (1976). Taking the naturalness out of natural disasters. Nature, 260, 566–567.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ojeda, D. (2012). Green pretexts: Ecotourism, neoliberal conservation and land grabbing in Tayrona National Natural Park, Colombia. Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(2), 357–375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliver-Smith, A. (2012). Debating environmental migration: Society, nature and population displacement in climate change. Journal of International Development, 24(8), 1058–1070.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Osborne, T. (2015). Tradeoffs in carbon commodification: A political ecology of common property forest governance. Geoforum, 67, 64–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peluso, N. L., & Lund, C. (2011). New frontiers of land control: Introduction. Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(4), 667–681.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perreault, T. (2013). Dispossession by accumulation? Mining, water and the nature of enclosure on the Bolivian Altiplano. Antipode, 45(5), 1050–1069.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perreault, T., Bridge, G., & McCarthy, J. (2015). The Routledge handbook of political ecology. Oxford: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Radcliffe, S. A. (2014). Gendered frontiers of land control: Indigenous territory, women and contests over land in Ecuador. Gender, Place & Culture, 21(7), 854–871.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ranganathan, M. (2015). Storm drains as assemblages: The political ecology of flood risk in post-colonial Bangalore. Antipode, 47(5), 1300–1320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rangarajan, M., & Shahabuddin, G. (2006). Displacement and relocation from protected areas: Towards a biological and historical synthesis. Conservation and Society, 4, 359–378.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, P. (2011). Political ecology: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rocheleau, D. (2016). Rooted networks, webs of relation, and the power of situated science: Bringing the models back down to earth in Zambrana. In W. Harcourt (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of gender and development (pp. 213–231). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Roth, R. J. (2008). ‘Fixing’ the forest: The spatiality of conservation conflict in Thailand. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 98(2), 373–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, S. (2013). Banking nature? The spectacular financialisation of environmental conservation. Antipode, 45(1), 198–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tetreault, D. (2017). Three forms of political ecology. Ethics and the Environment, 22(2), 1–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Timms, B. F. (2011). The (mis) use of disaster as opportunity: Coerced relocation from Celaque National Park, Honduras. Antipode, 43(4), 1357–1379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vandergeest, P. (2003). Land to some tillers: Development-induced displacement in Laos. International Social Science Journal, 55(175), 47–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaz-Jones, L. (2018). Struggles over land, livelihood and future possibilities: Reframing displacement through feminist political ecology. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(3), 711–735.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watts, M. J. (1983). Silent violence: Food, famine, and peasantry in northern Nigeria. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press..

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, Q. (2018). Managing sandstorms through resettling pastoralists in China: How multiple forms of power govern the environment at/across scales. Journal of Political Ecology, 25(1), 364–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rebecca Elmhirst .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Elmhirst, R. (2020). Political Ecologies of Displacement. In: Adey, P., et al. The Handbook of Displacement. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47178-1_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47178-1_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-47177-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-47178-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics