Furthering post-human political ecologies

Abstract

This critical review aims to facilitate explicit, ongoing consideration for how post-human geographies and political ecology stand to benefit one another empirically and theoretically. In it, we argue that post-human political ecologies are well-equipped to ensure that the broader post-human turn in geographical thought engages critically with the roles that humans and non-humans play in enactments of injustice Ð both as subjects of (in)justice and as beings whose actions have justice implications for myriad forms of life. By engaging with empirics drawn from research on tiger conservation in India, we deploy myth as a conceptual tool and as an heuristic device to illustrate how post-human political ecologies might further engage with the politics and power asymmetries embedded in conservation science and practice. To conclude, this critical review summarizes the merits of bringing the Ôcutting edgeÕ of post-human geographical literature into dialogue with the traditional concerns of political ecology and recaps the potential power that myth retains as an analytic in post-human political ecologies.

Storing value: The infrastructural ecologies of commodity storage

“…Commodities have been described as “dead labour”: ossified social relations produced through the sensuous practical engagement with the natural world (Kirsch and Mitchell, 2004). A recent strand of scholarship, that bridges posthumanist and political economic approaches to critical human(ish) geography, however, argues that commodities are not dead, but inherently lively (Arboleda, 2017; Barua, 2019; Collard and Dempsey, 2013; Margulies and Bersaglio, 2018). Rooted primarily, but not exclusively, in the rich tradition of animal geographies, this work frames commodities as vital and generative actors in the constitution of political economies from the very start.…”

Online and Offline Representations of Biocultural Diversity: A Political Ecology Perspective on Nature-Based Tourism and Indigenous Communities in the Brazilian Pantanal

“…Hinchcliff (2008) asserts that political ecology should look beyond presence, inclusion or accumulation and more carefully consider "uncertainties, precautionary measures and looser forms of assemblage" [19] (p. 89). A growing body of literature addresses political ecology's anthropocentrism, and poses related questions of how the approach could be opened up to post-human geographies [20,21]. In their recent political ecology study of tiger conservation in India, Margulies and Bersaglio (2018) use myths as a conceptual tool to analyse power asymmetries.…”

“…A growing body of literature addresses political ecology's anthropocentrism, and poses related questions of how the approach could be opened up to post-human geographies [20,21]. In their recent political ecology study of tiger conservation in India, Margulies and Bersaglio (2018) use myths as a conceptual tool to analyse power asymmetries. The authors state: "myths, as ways of making sense of worlds, are always rooted in specific onto-epistemological traditions; power-laden narratives that work to re-produce particular ways of being and knowing while foreclosing alternative possibilities" [20] (p. 105).…”

“…In their recent political ecology study of tiger conservation in India, Margulies and Bersaglio (2018) use myths as a conceptual tool to analyse power asymmetries. The authors state: "myths, as ways of making sense of worlds, are always rooted in specific onto-epistemological traditions; power-laden narratives that work to re-produce particular ways of being and knowing while foreclosing alternative possibilities" [20] (p. 105). In the same way the authors critically evaluate dominant ecological narratives about tigers as myths, we aim to evaluate dominant myths about the Pantanal and its inhabitants reproduced by the tourist sector.…”

“…In the same way the authors critically evaluate dominant ecological narratives about tigers as myths, we aim to evaluate dominant myths about the Pantanal and its inhabitants reproduced by the tourist sector. Thereby, we aim to "reveal some of the politics, power asymmetries, and particularities that trouble claims of objectivity and universality" [20] (p. 105), which may underpin dominant engagements with the Pantanal.…”