The environmentalism of the poor - a study of ecological conflicts and valuation

By J. Pádua. 2005

882 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This text has the explicit intention of helping to establish two emerging fields of study - political ecology and ecological economics - whilst also investigating the relations between them. The book analyses several manifestations of the growing "environmental justice system", and also of "popular environmentalism" and the "environmentalism of the poor", which will be seen in the coming decades as driving forces in the process to achieve an ecologically sustainable society. The author studies in detail many ecological distribution conflicts in history and at present, in urban and rural settings, showing how poor people often favour resource conservation. The environment is thus not so much a luxury of the rich as a necessity of the poor. It concludes with the fundamental questions: who has the right to impose a language of valuation and who has the power to simplify complexity? Joan Martinez-Alier combines the study of ecological conflicts and the study of environmental evaluation in an appraoch that should appeal to a wide cross-section of academics, ecologists and environmentalists.

Subfields: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Urban Studies

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f2e431668dc31ebca0961ae1e4889ab1263d9b7

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In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

In Urban Studies

Citations in the corpus

Shipbreaking at Alang-Sosiya (India): An ecological distribution conflict (2010, background): “People who struggle for environmental justice potentially contribute to the environmental sustainability of the economy (Martínez-Alier, 2002).”
In defence of degrowth (2011, background): “Externalities are cost-shifting successes (Martinez-Alier, 2002).”
Ecologically Unequal Exchange and Ecological Debt (2016, background): “The grassroots concept of "ecological debt" (Martinez-Alier et al. 2014), on the other hand, was born from the fertile minds of some EJOs around 1990, and was later taken up by academics (Martinez-Alier 2002; Warlenius et al. 2015a, 2015b).”
Environmental Behavior in Cross-National Perspective (2017, background): “Environmental problems are on average more severe in the Global South and low-income and minority communities from the Global North, which may motivate the emergence of environmental activism (Escobar, 2006; Martinez-Alier, 2003; Pellow & Brulle, 2005).”
How Much is that Ecosystem in the Window? The One with the Bio-diverse Trail (2008, background): “Actually the poor are too often confronted by ʻdevelopment ̓with the loss of the ecosystems they strive to conserve (Martinez-Alier, 2002).”
The environmental state and the glass ceiling of transformation (2020, background): “States never improved everybody’s lifeworld – there are numerous instances where environmental risks have been shifted to poor neighborhoods, communities of colour or indigenous communities, notably in North America (Martínez Alier 2002).”
Ecologically Unequal Exchange, Ecological Debt, and Climate Justice (2009, background): “…Spanish economist Joan Martinez-Alier and the Ecuadorian environmental group Acción Ecológica, is that wealthy nations have been running up a huge debt over centuries by exploiting the raw materials and ecosystems of poor nations (Acción Ecológica, 2003; Martinez-Alier, 2003; Simms et al., 2004).”
The Politics of Sustainability and Development (2016, background): “People living in poverty may also express local concerns around environmental issues, articulating a so-called “environmentalism of the poor” (166).”
Equity, climate justice and fossil fuel extraction: principles for a managed phase out (2020, background): “Extraction has often been undertaken in developing countries, but with its benefits realised in Northern countries (Martinez-Alier 2003b; Roberts and Parks 2009).”
Commodities Consensus: Neoextractivism and Enclosure of the Commons in Latin America (2015, background): “These struggles recognize new languages for valuing territory and natural resources (Martínez-Alier 2003), leading to the emergence of expert knowledge independent from dominant discourses and the valorization of local knowledges, often with campesino-indigenous roots.”
Economic valuation and the commodification of ecosystem services (2011, background): “…the literature on political ecology has devoted much attention to the social and political struggles taking place at the border of the commodity frontier, as markets extend into new ecosystems and societies where they are not the prevalent institutions for allocation (Martı́nez-Alier, 2002).”
Jatropha plantations for biodiesel in Tamil Nadu, India: Viability, livelihood trade-offs, and latent conflict (2010, background): “Ecological distribution conflicts (Martínez-Alier, 2002) are usually in the form of tussles between the state or corporate entities and local communities, and take the form of public protests, movements, or agitations.”
The Brave New World of Carbon Trading (2009, background): “The poor sell cheaply, as Martinez-Alier (2002) has noted, and are easily exploited by the powerful for their own ends when the dollars start flowing.”