Latin American Political Ecology and the World Ecological Crisis. Recent developments, contributions and dialogues with the Global Field

FACUNDO MARTÍN

Varsovia

Conferencia; 8th Pan-European Conference on International Relations; 2013

European International Studies Asociation-The Polish Asociation of International Studies-Institute of International Relation, Warsaw University

The field of global-scale political ecology has gained notable political and academic interest. This is due to both the relative consolidation of its research perspective and, fundamentally, the process of global climate change, interwoven with politics and science, which is certainly a big problem for all mankind. Studies coming from different countries and from different academic traditions have increasingly turned their interest to the processes of articulation or re-articulation of society-nature relationships. Thus, a field that so far had remained more or less fragmented by language or geographic barriers is currently showing a special concern for overcoming these barriers, providing new audiences with "debate communities" coming from different places (Brand & Daiber, 2012; Brand & Löwy, 2011, Ecologie & politique 46, 2013).  In the same sense, we note an effort for reinforcing the perspective of global political ecology, clarifying the assumptions, emphasis and ways of argumentation of each tradition. In this work we make no attempt to thoroughly account for this complex process but limit ourselves to analyzing the trajectory of Latin American political ecology in relation to its constitution as an original perspective in terms of its understanding of the global ecological crisis. This will allow us to shed light on the possible contributions of this current to strengthening a global political ecology. Our most general argument holds that, because of its "border" place of enunciation, Latin American political ecology can provide a perspective that is relevant to the global field, based on its historical and political understanding of the power and knowledge relations that regulate the processes of social-ecological appropriation and reproduction.