Payments for ecosystem services and the gift paradigm: Sharing the burden and joy of environmental care

Singh, Neera M.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.06.011

Cited by 67 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 55 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Specifically with regard to human-nature relationships, feminist theories of care can: a) foreground the role of empathy [28] and of emotions as drivers for nature conservation [29], for example in terms of feelings of connectedness or grief when "treasured aspects of the natural environment are lost" [30: 974]; b) focus on the irreplaceable qualities of particular ecosystems and landscapes and voice the unique, constituting relationships among their human and nonhuman inhabitants in a particular community, thus challenging reductive instrumental language, commodification, and compensation offers [31]. As such they offer a solid basis for the articulation and justification of non-instrumental relational values; c) highlight the constituting role of (re)productive activities 6 and 'sustaining services' [33,32] and the mediation through which ecosystem potentials are mobilized by human agency and labour [34,35,36]; d) articulate the reciprocity of human-nature relationships (reciprocal restoration [30]; gift paradigm [31]) and the idea that a necessary condition to become care-givers is to acknowledge one's own condition as care-receivers (beneficiaries of care), i.e. of the fundamental reliance on constituting relations with the natural environment and with others [37].…”

Section: The Concept Of Care (For Nature) In Feminist Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Caring for nature matters: a relational approach for understanding nature’s contributions to human well-being

Jax

Calestani

Chan

et al. 2018

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

149

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ecosystem services frameworks effectively assume that nature's contributions to human well-being derive from people receiving benefits from nature. At the same time, efforts (money, time, or energy) for conservation, restoration or stewardship are often considered costs to be minimized. But what if caring for nature is itself an essential component of human well-being? Taking up and developing the concept of relational values, we explore the idea that well-being cannot be reduced to the reception of benefits, and that instead much derives from positive agency including caring for nature. In this paper, we ask specifically, a) how can "care" be conceptualised with respect to nature, b) how does caring for nature matter both to protecting nature and to people's well-being, and c) what are the implications for research and practice?We describe the theoretical background, drawing especially from (eco)feminist philosophy, and explore its (mostly) implicit uses in the conservation literature. Based on this analysis we propose a preliminary framework of caring for nature and discuss its potential to enrich the spectrum of moral 1 Corresponding author: email: kurt.jax@ufz.de, phone: +49-341-2351648 3 relations to/with nature. We explore both its consequences for environmental research and for the practice of conservation.

show abstract

Section: The Concept Of Care (For Nature) In Feminist Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…as well as social processes (caring for children, for elderly or sick people, friendship), and their mediation (nourishing and cooking, storing seeds, healing, repairing, etc. )[31,25].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Caring for nature matters: a relational approach for understanding nature’s contributions to human well-being

Jax

Calestani

Chan

et al. 2018

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

149

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…National and international support is directed to commodification, capital expansion and extraction, rather than to non-market-oriented care for (and restoration of) ecosystems and socioecological abundance (Collard et al 2014;Singh, 2015;Sullivan, 2009Sullivan, , 2019b. Meanwhile, public relations and social engineering efforts are 'rolled out', backed by security forces, to open new environmental markets (as discussed above).…”

Section: Poverty-pushed Market-based Environmentalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

A faultline in neoliberal environmental governance scholarship? Or, why accumulation-by-alienation matters

Dunlap

Sullivan

2019

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article identifies an emerging faultline in critical geography and political ecology scholarship by reviewing recent debates on three neoliberal environmental governance initiatives: Payments for Ecosystem Services, the United Nations programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and carbon-biodiversity offsetting. These three approaches, we argue, are characterized by varying degrees of contextual and procedural – or superficial – difference, meanwhile exhibiting significant structural similarities that invite critique, perhaps even rejection. Specifically, we identify three largely neglected ‘social engineering’ outcomes as more foundational to Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and carbon-biodiversity offsetting than often acknowledged, suggesting that neoliberal environmental governance approaches warrant greater critical attention for their contributions to advancing processes of colonization, state territorialization and security policy. Examining the structural accumulation strategies accompanying neoliberal environmental governance approaches, we offer the term ‘accumulation-by-alienation’ to highlight both the objective appropriations accompanying Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and offsetting and the relational deficiencies accompanying the various commodifying instrumentalizations at the heart of these initiatives. We concur with David Harvey’s recent work proposing that understanding the iterative and consequential connections between objective/material and subjective/psychological dimensions of alienation offers ‘one vital key to unlock the door of a progressive politics for the future’. We conclude (with others) by urging critical geography and political ecology scholars to cultivate research directions that affirm more radical alternatives, rather than reinforcing a narrowing focus on how to improve Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and offsetting in practice.

show abstract

“…Muradian et al, 2010;Schomers and Matzdorf, 2013;Sommerville et al, 2009;Tacconi, 2012;Chan et al, 2017). Alternative theoretical frameworks for PES shaped by ecological economists, geographers, and anthropologists provide more nuanced perspectives (Dempsey and Robertson, 2012;Muradian et al, 2010;Pirard, 2012;Singh, 2015), emphasizing that not everything labelled PES has been driven by a neoliberal agenda. Clearly, some initial international funders promoted a vision of PES in line with neoliberal ideologies (Pagiola et al, 2002; see also Pasgaard et al, 2017;Kolinjivadi et al, 2017b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silencing Agency in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Essentializing a Neoliberal ‘Monster’ Into Being: A Response to Fletcher & Büscher's ‘PES Conceit’

Hecken

Kolinjivadi

Windey

et al. 2018

Ecological Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A B S T R A C TIn this commentary we respond to Fletcher and Büscher's (2017) recent article in this journal on Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) as neoliberal 'conceit'. The authors claim that focusing attention on the micro-politics of PES design and implementation fails to expose an underlying neoliberal governmentality, and therefore only reinforces neoliberal capitalism as both the problem and solution of ecological crises. In response, we argue that a focus on the actions of local actors is key to understanding how and why such governmentality fails or succeeds in performing as theorized. Grand generalizations fixated on a particular hegemonic and neoliberal PES ontology overlook how actors intertwine theory and practice in ways which cannot be explained by a dominant structural theory. Such generalizations risk obscuring the complexity and situational history, practice and scale of the processes involved. Rather than relegating variegated and hybrid forms of what actually emerges from PES interventions as neoliberal conceit, we argue that an actor-oriented, 'weak theory' approach permits PES praxis to inform knowledge generation. This would open up a more inclusive and politically engaging space for thinking about and realizing political change.

show abstract

Payments for ecosystem services and the gift paradigm: Sharing the burden and joy of environmental care

Cited by 67 publications

References 55 publications

Caring for nature matters: a relational approach for understanding nature’s contributions to human well-being

Caring for nature matters: a relational approach for understanding nature’s contributions to human well-being

A faultline in neoliberal environmental governance scholarship? Or, why accumulation-by-alienation matters

Silencing Agency in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Essentializing a Neoliberal ‘Monster’ Into Being: A Response to Fletcher & Büscher's ‘PES Conceit’

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About