Political Ecology (Anthropology)

This study critically examines 20 years of geography and political ecology literature on the energy justice implications of climate change mitigation. Grounded in an expert guided literature review of 198 studies and their corresponding 332 case studies, it assesses the linkages between low carbon transitions-including renewable electricity, biofuel, nuclear power, smart grids, electric vehicles, and land use management-with degradation, dispossession and destruction. It draws on a framework that envisions the political ecology of low-carbon transitions as consisting of four distinct processes: enclosure (capture of land or resources), exclusion (unfair planning), encroachment (destruction of the environment), or entrenchment (worsening of inequality or vulnerability). The study vigorously interrogates how these elements play out by country and across countries, by type of mitigation option, by type of victim or affected group, by process, and by severity, e.g. from modern slavery to organized crime, from violence, murder and torture to the exacerbation of child prostitution or the destruction of pristine ecosystems. It also closely examines the locations, disciplinary affiliations, methods and spatial units of analysis employed by this corpus of research, with clear and compelling insights for future work in the space of geography, climate change, and energy transitions. It suggest five critical avenues for future research: greater inclusivity and diversity, rigor and comparative analysis, focus on mundane technologies and non-Western case studies, multi-scalar analysis, and focus on policy and recommendations. At times, low-carbon transitions and climate action can promote squalor over sustainability and leave angry communities, disgruntled workers, scorned business partners, and degraded landscapes in their wake. Nevertheless, ample opportunities exist to make a future low-carbon world more pluralistic, democratic, and just.

In this paper I trace an important conceptual shift which emerged during my fieldwork with fishermen in the South West of Ireland. I begin by describing how my role as a social researcher was interpreted as a valuable 'bridge' between different (epistemological) positions, namely the fishermen and scientists. This approach rests on the belief that individual actors occupy discrete subject-positions capable of being articulated and understood within consensus-making processes. Going to sea marked, for me, a literal and metaphorical departure from this understanding. Rather than thinking of fishermen as bounded, individual subjects acting on and in a 'dumb' external world, and thus having a 'position' from which to make themselves understood, I began to attend to experiences which extended across and between people, places and things. In part two I analyze how the concept of 'continuous experience' helps us to think about experience as relational and contingent, unsettling the (governing) call to identify one's position. Attending to the ways in which experience unfolds through the immediate mattering of relations between people, places and things also allows us to move beyond explanatory modes which seek to identify how subjects are produced through particular structuring relations. In the final part of the paper I describe how the excess of sociability can suspend normal roles and relations, including those which exist between 'researcher' and 'subject'.

El carácter multidimensional de las causas y consecuencias de la pandemia global de la COVID-19 ha configurado un mundo-pandemia. Lo que está en crisis no es sólo la dimensión sanitaria, sino todo el orden de la vida en la Tierra, profundamente intoxicado de capitalismo y modernidad. Desde esta perspectiva, entendemos también esta pandemia como un problema socio-ambiental, derivado de una manera depredadora de relacionarnos con la naturaleza, y que ha hecho que hoy, nos encontremos al interior de un sistema-Tierra enfermo. ¿Cómo este shock social y subjetivo que ha provocado la pandemia nos puede aproximar, de maneras más profundas, a una comprensión y conexión sobre los orígenes de la crisis civilizatoria? ¿Cómo podemos vincular estos evidentes peligros a nuestra salud personal con la situación de enfermedad del sistema-Tierra? En este artículo, desde una perspectiva crítica a la cosmovisión moderno/colonial, vinculado a concepciones convencionales de la salud y la enfermedad individualizadas, mecanicistas, fragmentarias y cuantitativistas, se propone recuperar la noción "cuerpo-Tierra" como recurso para repensar otras nociones de salud/enfermedad, otras formas de ser y estar en el planeta; como una estrategia de reconexión ontológica y epistémica con las tramas de la vida planetaria. El artículo establece también una ruta para una fundamental transformación metabólica planetaria: sanar/desintoxicar; restaurar y reforzar.

In this paper, I argue that frontiers are dilemmas composed of multiple dualities, be they exclusive and inclusive powers, connected space and national periphery, or modernity and primitiveness. These dilemmas, in consequence, become the mechanism to create a leeway for the state to ‘tailor’ different meanings of frontier to meet the contingent market demands. I use tea production on China’s southwest frontier as an example to demonstrate that dilemma is not an end result, but a mechanism to rearticulate the relationship among frontier, the state and the market economy. Specifically, I argue that dilemmas on China’s southwest frontier have been forged by the Chinese state with its incompatible desires between ‘modernisation’ and ‘primitiveness’ of the tea landscapes in Yunnan, a province on China’s southwest frontier. Meanwhile, the incompatible desires and the resulting dilemmas on China’s southwest frontier have further mobilised the state to flexibly rework its power to reconstruct the frontier to meet contingent market demand. Based on the shifting meanings of tea landscapes, the state has flexibly ‘shuttled through’ the dilemmas between development of modernisation and preservation of primitiveness on the frontier.

For a traditional Maya forest gardener, one's identity is inextricably linked with one's relationship to the landscape. Through a contextualized analysis of one contemporary Maya forest gardener in the Cayo District of Belize, this paper illuminates Narciso Torres's landscape ideology. Through a blending of cultural and political ecology, I will explain how Narciso's worldview stands on its own merit and offers an alternative approach to human-environmental interactions. Narciso's ideology toward his landscape offers a unique and sustainable perspective linking environmental stewardship and human-social relations. I will address the implications of this perspective for Maya ethnobotany.

El campo de la política en temas ambientales. Clasificaciones y tendencias en EP revisadas. Campos de acción distinguidos: interaccionistas, normativistas, politólogos. Impactos de ecologizar la política o politizar la ecología. Meta-políticas de las EP de acuerdo a los sujetos de derechos y los actores políticos (derechos de la Naturaleza, actores políticos no-humanos). Discusión de tres tipos de EP. Prioridades y orientaciones para América Latina. Texto base del taller dictado por el autor en el Congreso Latinoamericano de Ecología Política 2014.

This course investigates a wide variety of environmental conservation projects in Africa.  We will examine efforts by colonial and post-colonial states to preserve wilderness in national parks, and how local residents have responded.  We will study projects developed by international organizations which link environmental conservation with economic benefits for local people. Finally, we will look at indigenous African efforts to conserve natural resources and to restore degraded lands.  Throughout the course, we will compare and contrast the perspectives and interests of conservation biologists, government officials, and local residents, among others.

El tradicional paradigma ecológico ha sido desplazado por una concepción radicalmente distinta de la Naturaleza y de sus procesos fundamentales. Característico del paradigma ecológico es la visión de la Naturaleza como un reino autónomo marcado por el equilibrio al que resulta imperativo referirnos para la construcción de una civilización sostenible. Sin embargo, el nuevo paradigma post-ecológico afirma que esta visión arcádica de la Naturaleza es una construcción puramente intelectual y, lejos de la referencialidad, nos propone que lo necesario es recrearla. Tras considerar la relación de este viraje con la tradicional discusión Modernidad/Posmodernidad, señalamos cuatro figuras actuales de la post-ecología y qué retos plantean para la bioética.

The coastal Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca, Mexico – known locally as the Istmo – is regarded as one of the best wind energy generating sites in the world. Marketed as a preeminent solution to mitigating climate change, wind energy is now applying increasing pressure on indigenous groups in the region. The article begins by outlining a definition of colonialism that assists in identifying the temporal continuity of the colonial project to understand its relationship with wind energy development. The next section briefly reviews colonial genocide studies, discussing disciplinary debates between liberal and post-liberal genocide scholars, the relevance of self-management within colonial systems, the genocide-ecocide nexus and the ‘intent’ of destructive development projects. This leads into reviewing the claims and findings that emerged from fieldwork in the Istmo, which is divided into the north and south to show the different, yet similar dynamics taking place in the region. Finally, the article concludes that wind energy development as a ‘solution’ to climate change not only distracts from its dependence on fossil fuels and mining, but renews and continues a slow industrial genocide, assimilating and targeting (indigenous) people who continue to value their land, sea and cultural relationships.

The articles included in this special collection examine the implementation of varied conservation agendas, seeking to integrate the strengths of a political ecology framework with insights derived from Science and Technology Studies (STS). By taking an ethnographic approach to the study of conservation projects, they challenge the nature/culture divide so central to the Western philosophical tradition and draw attention to the ways in which nature and culture are co-constituted in and through practice.

The collapse of cod stocks in the waters off Newfoundland in the early 1990s was widely understood as an ecological disaster and the death of a rural way of life that had endured for centuries. While many areas have remained closed to commercial cod fishing for two full decades, growing numbers of commercial fishers and some fisheries scientists now agree that stocks in several areas are finally showing signs of rebuilding. While the biological recovery of cod populations was once widely viewed as being essential to the future well-being of coastal communities, many commercial fishers now publicly express concerns about the possibility of this scenario actually coming to pass. This article explores the roots of these changing constructions of cod. I argue that making sense of the anxieties and uncertainties that presently surround the question of cod recovery requires paying close attention to the ways in which access to fishery resources has been transformed over time, as well as to the ways in which changing production chains for seafood products, shifting scientific paradigms and practices, and unexpected changes in the marine environment have converged in ways that are fundamentally challenging many previously held notions of the ecological good.

As organic food becomes more widely available, great faith is placed on the seal or logo that certifi es organic status. Th is article treats the mark of certifi cation as a starting rather than an end point, critically reviewing literature from diverse national and regional contexts. Exploring questions concerning the extent to which organic cer-tifi cation assists or undermines the goal of ecological sustainability, abets the advance of large-scale agricultural capital, and supports the livelihood of smallholder farmers, the article considers the theoretical foundations, methodologies and modes of inquiry that have guided studies of organic agriculture and certifi cation. It brings this research into conversation with literatures on audit cultures, quality, and with ongoing nature-culture debates. Th rough critical review of the literature and the author's extensive fi eldwork with organic smallholders in northern India, the article suggests possible directions in which the literature may be expanded and advanced.

The case for degrowth is a case for stopping the pursuit of growth and for reorienting lives and societies toward wellbeing. This chapter impels moves to build good lives for all, and shows how existing resources can be shared and invested differently to secure good living with less money, less exploitation, and less environmental degradation. Readers will be familiar with the environmental damages and with the forms of inequality and exploitation presented in this book. What is different here is that we link these troubling phenomena to the imperative of modern economies to grow, and argue that overcoming them means moving away from the relentless drive for more.  (Book preface addressing COVID is also available on this site. )

Hurricane Maria has had devastating impacts in Puerto Rico. Yet this catastrophe has not been felt equally by all. The vulnerability to impacts and ability to recover from hurricanes and other disasters are directly shaped by existing socioeconomic and racial inequalities. The situation post-Maria in Puerto Rico has been labeled a clear case of environmental injustice. This article documents the hurricane’s nexus with environmental justice (EJ). It discusses EJ impacts related to toxic pollution, water, energy, and food, and connects these impacts intersect with multiple layers of pre-existing injustices. It then discusses how these impacts have been magnified by the national and federal government’s inept and unjust responses, and by histories of unjust planning and colonial–neoliberal institutions. The article concludes with some positive outlooks of how the hurricane has also opened a window to ‘‘rethink’’ Puerto Rico and to self-organized initiatives for enacting a different, more just, and ecological country

In Roots of Our Renewal, Clint Carroll tells how Cherokee people have developed material, spiritual, and political ties with the lands they have inhabited since removal from their homelands in the southeastern United States. Although the forced relocation of the late 1830s had devastating consequences for Cherokee society, Carroll shows that the reconstituted Cherokee Nation west of the Mississippi eventually cultivated a special connection to the new land—a connection that is reflected in its management of natural resources.

Until now, scant attention has been paid to the interplay between tribal natural resource management programs and governance models. Carroll is particularly interested in indigenous environmental governance along the continuum of resource-based and relationship-based practices and relates how the Cherokee Nation, while protecting tribal lands, is also incorporating associations with the nonhuman world. Carroll describes how the work of an elders’ advisory group has been instrumental to this goal since its formation in 2008.

An enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Carroll draws from his ethnographic observations of Cherokee government–community partnerships during the past ten years. He argues that indigenous appropriations of modern state forms can articulate alternative ways of interacting with and “governing” the environment.

The following article contrasts contemporary rosy periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) extraction in southern Madagascar with original bioprospecting research conducted 50 years ago. My study shows how plant extraction firms have shifted their approaches by creating new labor forms, which devolve risk and increase exploitation in attempts to capture the valuable biogenetic material needed for drug discovery. The periwinkle symbolizes a complex picture of many dynamic barriers to capitalist penetration at work, including the natural, social and political. Over time, these barriers change and act in conjunction to provide a complex commodity chain expressing many exploitative labor relations of green capitalism.

FROM THE BOOK JACKET
In this innovative book, Ashley Carse traces the water that flows into and out from the Panama Canal to explain how global shipping is entangled with Panama’s cultural and physical landscapes. By following container ships as they travel downstream along maritime routes and tracing rivers upstream across the populated watershed that feeds the canal, he explores the politics of environmental management around a waterway that links faraway ports and markets to nearby farms, forests, cities, and rural communities.

Carse draws on a wide range of ethnographic and archival material to show the social and ecological implications of transportation across Panama. The Canal moves ships over an aquatic staircase of locks that demand an enormous amount of fresh water from the surrounding region. Each passing ship drains 52 million gallons out to sea—a volume comparable to the daily water use of half a million Panamanians.

Infrastructures like the Panama Canal, Carse argues, do not simply conquer nature; they rework ecologies in ways that serve specific political and economic priorities. Interweaving histories that range from the depopulation of the U.S. Canal Zone a century ago to road construction conflicts and water hyacinth invasions in canal waters, the book illuminates the human and nonhuman actors that have come together at the margins of the famous trade route. 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal. Beyond the Big Ditch calls us to consider how infrastructures are materially embedded in place, producing environments with winners and losers.

This is a final draft of the article published in Environmental Ethics 11 (Fall 1989): 243-258. This assessment of  the Promethean dimension of Marx's thought is accurate, but though it mentions Marx's more dialectical side and its potential implications, this aspect is seriously neglected in the article . A more balanced assessment is presented in "Marx's Natures," a draft version of which can be found on this site. This article should be read in connection with the latter one.

The Patagonian Sublime provides a vivid, accessible, and cutting-edge investigation of the green economy and New Left politics in Argentina. Based on extensive field research in Glaciers National Park and the mountain village of El Chaltén, Marcos Mendoza deftly examines the diverse social worlds of alpine mountaineers, adventure trekkers, tourism entrepreneurs, seasonal laborers, park rangers, land managers, scientists, and others involved in the green economy. Mendoza explores the fraught intersection of the green economy with the New Left politics of the Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner governments. Mendoza documents the strategies of capitalist development, national representation, and political rule embedded in the “green productivist” agenda pursued by Kirchner and Fernández. Mendoza shows how Andean Patagonian communities have responded to the challenges of community-based conservation, the fashioning of wilderness zones, and the drive to create place-based monopolies that allow ecotourism destinations to compete in the global consumer economy.

¿Afronta actualmente el capitalismo el “fin de la naturaleza barata”? Si así es, ¿qué podría significar esto y cuáles con las implicaciones para el futuro? Estamos, de hecho, siendo testigos del fin de la naturaleza barata en un sentido específico histórico. En vez de contemplar el fin de la naturaleza barata como la reafirmación de “límites de crecimiento” externos, sostengo que, a día de hoy, el capitalismo ha agotado la relación histórica que la produce. El fin de la naturaleza barata se comprende mejor como el agotamiento de las relaciones de valor que han restaurado periódicamente los “Four Cheaps”: trabajo, alimentos, energía y materias primas. Fundamentalmente, estas relaciones de valor son coproducidas por, y a través de, humanos con el resto de la naturaleza. La cuestión decisiva, por lo tanto, enciende las relaciones que envuelven y despliegan las sucesivas configuraciones de la naturaleza humana y extra-humana, simbólicamente capacitadas y materialmente realizadas, a través de la larga duración del sistema-mundo moderno. Significativamente, la apropiación de trabajo no remunerado —incluyendo los “regalos gratuitos” de la naturaleza— y la explotación del trabajo asalariado, forman una unidad dialéctica. Los límites del crecimiento enfrentados actualmente por el capital son suficientemente reales, y son “límites” coproducidos a través del capitalismo como ecología-mundo, uniendo la acumulación de capital, la búsqueda de poder y la coproducción de naturaleza como un todo orgánico. El límite de la ecología-mundo del capital es el capital en sí mismo.

Ecotopia is a quasi-ethnographic novel influenced by anthropology. Some of its fictional practices have been adopted in the actual world since publication in 1975. Set two decades after Green secessionists achieve national independence for the U.S. Northwest, an American journalist-fieldworker describes Ecotopians’ strange new ecological customs. Author Callenbach constructively criticized and influenced his un- sustainable culture by comparing it to an invented alternative. The case illustrates that a dialectic between cultural fact and fiction drives innovation.

1) What is the "ecological class" that you mention in your book?

Our argument is that in our New Climatic Regime, in a time of global ecological mutations, the class landscape is undergoing a re-composition, one that intensifies the importance of the earthly means of subsistence when delineating the shape, hierarchies and collective interests of social classes. Of course, the issues of land, soil, territory etc....

Du fait de leur multifonctionnalité, les forêts tropicales constituent
un objet d’étude privilégié pour analyser les politiques environnementales à l’échelle locale et globale. Qu’elles soient
considérées comme richesses nationales, bien public mondial ou
ressources communautaires, elles sont au cœur des débats environnementaux portés sur la scène internationale depuis les
années 1990. En suscitant des intérêts divers chez des acteurs agissant
à des échelles variées, elles permettent de comprendre la construction et l’articulation des politiques de biodiversité entre local et global, marquées par des tensions entre exploitation et conservation.

BOOK REVIEW

Green Transformations or Rebranding Dystopia?

The Politics of Green Transformations, edited by Ian Scoones, Melissa Leach, and Peter Newell, Oxford, Routledge, 2015, 220 pp. + Bibliography and Index, £25.49 GBP (Paperback), ISBN 978-1-138-79290-6

This report assesses the outcomes, benefits, and challenges resulting from the programmatic construction of six micro-hydropower projects in Lamjung district of Central Nepal, which was supported by Lutheran World Relief working in partnership the local NGO-Partner COPPADES. This report is based on an ethnographic study conducted during August 2014 that was designed to identify and consider a) the varying social, economic, environmental, and political effects of these projects at the household and community level, b) the contributions that these micro-hydropower projects are making to future economic development in the study area, c) the ways in which Lutheran World Relief can support and increase local benefits from these projects in the future, and d) the relevance of project outcomes and report findings within the context of larger patterns of hydropower development in Nepal.

This study, therefore, presents findings that are both unique to the process and outcomes of these four specific micro-hydropower projects and reflective of the changing role and value of micro-hydropower development within the changing landscape of hydropower development in Nepal (Dixit and Gyawali 2010), intensive shifts in rural livelihoods that change the needs and desires of individual communities, such as rapidly accelerating patterns of outmigration and foreign employment (Adhikari & Hobley 2011; Sijapati & Limbu 2012), and increasing climactic and hydrologic uncertainty in the face of climate change in the Himalayas (Erikkson et al 2009; Pomeranz 2013). Thus, in this report I will argue that the issues and concerns that shape the process of micro-hydropower projects are fractal manifestations of issues that shape much broader fields of political economy in Nepal.

Durante los últimos 10 años, el Estado boliviano ha profundizado la apuesta por el extractivismo, entendido como una de las formas más representativas del sistema capitalista. Esta afirmación es evidente debido a que existe una mayor apertura de nuevos proyectos mineros e hidrocarburíferos, incentivos a la inversión transnacional, acceso sin restricciones a las áreas protegidas para la explotación de los recursos naturales y una expansión de la frontera agrícola para la exportación de productos agroindustriales, entre otros. Estas políticas generan un mayor deterioro del entorno ambiental, económico, social y político de las comunidades indígenas originarias campesinas.
Una de las principales demandas del pueblo boliviano organizado en las jornadas del 2003 y 2005 fue la expulsión de las empresas transnacionales. Pero en la última década la minería se ha ido consolidando a través de, por ejemplo, la puesta en vigencia de la nueva Ley de Minería y Metalurgia mediante la cual se han dado mayores incentivos y facilidades a los operadores mineros y se han dejado de lado los derechos de los pueblos indígenas, la Madre Tierra y los territorios comunales.
Si bien es cierto que la Constitución Política del Estado, gestada
desde las organizaciones indígenas originarias y campesinas, establece los derechos de la Madre Tierra, en el caso de la minería no se está cumpliendo. El gobierno del MAS entra en una gran contradicción entre su discurso de protección y defensa de la Madre Tierra y sus políticas de apoyo a las actividades extractivas, que contaminan el medio ambiente y nos despojan de los recursos naturales.
El trabajo que Helga y Diego presentan trata de explicar el porqué de esta contradicción y dónde falla la gestión socioambiental de la minería en Bolivia. El documento muestra algunas respuestas a esta cuestión: el modelo de gestión de los operadores mineros basado en el 'autocontrol' de las empresas, las instancias del Estado que no tienen suficiente capacidad institucional para hacer la gestión ambiental adecuada y la importancia política y económica del extractivismo en Bolivia . Se evidencia que existen
incompatibilidades entre las actividades mineras y el Vivir Bien de las comunidades afectadas por éstas. Este trabajo estudia el caso de la cuenca del lago Poopó en el departamento de Oruro, una de las zonas más afectadas por la contaminación del medio ambiente y con una población sumida en la pobreza.
En este contexto, es importante que trabajos como el que Diego y Helga presentan, aporten el análisis y reflexión sobre cuáles deberían ser las salidas de la dependencia del extractivismo y el camino hacia la puesta en marcha del Vivir Bien, que desde la visión indígena se plantea y recrea como una relación armoniosa con la naturaleza, protegiendo la diversidad y la vida, y que tiene su base en la solidaridad y los principios de redistribución.

Although 'resources' and 'nationalism' are core analytical categories in geography, the concept of 'resource nationalism' has received little attention in the discipline. We address this lacuna by reviewing relevant literature across the social sciences, and tracing key concepts and scalar frames to advance a critical approach to resource nationalism. In contrast to realist approaches, we understand it as a political discourse mobilized by a wide range of actors. Highlighting its multiple, co-existing, and often contradictory narratives about places, subjects, identities, and materialities, we illustrate the relevance of this critical framework with brief examples from Kazakhstan, Bolivia, and the USA.

Over the past four decades, a number of tourism studies’, theories and models have emerged concerning host and guest antagonism (Doxey, 1975), tourism area life cycle (Butler, 1980) and carrying capacity (O’Reilly, 1986). These have historically informed academic research as well as practitioners’ thinking, policy and planning interventions (Barcelona City Council, 2016) – however, these have often appeared to be shifting, rather than addressing the problem. Over the last decade, while many scholars have maintained their interest in the classical debate concerning the impacts of tourism, some have attempted new conceptualisations, while others have converged with the narrative of a number of social movements, and the subsequent coining of the terms ‘overtourism’ and ‘tourismphobia’ have emerged (Goodwin, 2017; Dredge, 2017; Milano, 2017a). Saarinen (2006, p. 1121) was prescient in his assertions that in the face of rapidly growing tourism economies, there is a “need for alternative and more environment and host-friendly practices in development, planning, and policies”.  Moreover, Saarinen’s (2013, p. 10) call that “in order to have tools for setting the limits to growth in tourism in a local-global nexus with less tourism-centric evaluation criteria, stronger governmental and inter-governmental policies and regulations are most probably needed” is evidently more pressing today.

In particular, this Special Issue will offer critical reflections on the contemporary evolution of tourism development and the implication of such processes on people, place and space. It is aimed at developing more nuanced insights into current tourism dynamics and to ultimately foster participatory and collaborative responses to what is evidently a rapidly evolving phenomenon with significant policy and practice implications (Dredge, 2017).

For more details, please see full CFP.

Propulsée par la crise énergétique, la production de jatropha, plante oléagineuse cultivée comme biocarburant, a bénéficié d’investissements massifs à l’échelle globale à partir de 2007. Cette expansion est due à la fois aux politiques énergétiques incitatives, au soutien économique des différents gouvernements et à la puissance du lobby industriel. L’objectif des pays non-producteurs de pétrole de réduire une partie de leur facture énergétique par la production des biocarburants se conjugue à l’intérêt des investisseurs nationaux et étrangers face aux nouvelles opportunités de profit que représente la compensation des émissions de carbone à travers les plantations de jatropha. Adoptant une perspective multiscalaire et une approche issue de l’écologie politique et de l’anthropologie du développement, l’étude de cas proposée dans cette thèse examine les rôles et les implications économiques et politiques des différents acteurs nationaux et transnationaux (État malien, institutions transnationales, secteur privé, organismes non gouvernementaux) associés à la promotion et à la production du jatropha comme culture énergétique au sud du Mali, tout en offrant une analyse critique des discours qu’ils produisent et de la configuration développementiste sur laquelle ils s’appuient. Le dispositif de gouvernance internationale de l’environnement, faisant appel à la fois aux stratégies discursives et aux pratiques normatives de la lutte aux changements climatiques, est examiné afin de comprendre comment il participe à la construction des politiques publiques en faveur des biocarburants en général et du jatropha en particulier. Les mécanismes politiques et économiques impliqués dans la mise en place de la filière jatropha sont également étudiés, à la lumière de leurs impacts sur les dynamiques socioéconomiques locales. En dernier lieu, cette thèse démontre comment, face à la tentative d’intégration « participative » et subventionnée des producteurs paysans contractuels à l’économie de marché, ces derniers, déçus par les faibles rendements et les revenus insignifiants associés à la culture du jatropha, opposent une résistance passive en abandonnant progressivement les plantations de jatropha ou en détournant les petites quantités récoltées au profit de la transformation domestique en savon par les femmes.

Mots clés : anthropologie, biocarburants, jatropha, agriculture, gouvernance environnementale, développement durable, écologie politique, finance carbone, Mali, Sahel, Afrique de l’Ouest. 

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Propelled by the energy crisis, the production of jatropha, an oilseed plant cultivated as a biofuel, has benefited from massive investments on a global scale since 2007. This expansion is due to both incentive energy policies, the economic support of various governments and the power of the industrial lobby. The objective of non-oil-producing countries to reduce part of their energy bill through biofuel production is combined with the interest of national and foreign investors in the new profit opportunities offered by offsetting carbon emissions through jatropha plantations.

Adopting a multiscalar perspective and an approach derived from political ecology and development anthropology, the case study proposed in this thesis examines the roles and economic and political implications of the various national and transnational actors (state of Mali, transnational institutions, private sector, non-governmental organizations) associated with the promotion and production of jatropha as an energy crop in southern Mali, while providing a critical analysis of the discourses they produce and the developmental configuration on which they rely. The international environmental governance mechanism, which draws on both discursive strategies and normative practices in the fight against climate change, is examined in order to understand how it participates in the construction of public policies in favour of biofuels in general and jatropha in particular. The political and economic mechanisms involved in the establishment of the jatropha sector are also studied in the light of their impacts on local socio-economic dynamics. Finally, this thesis demonstrates how, faced with the attempt to integrate contract farmers into the market economy in a "participatory" and subsidized manner, the latter, disappointed by the low yields and insignificant incomes associated with jatropha cultivation, are putting up passive resistance by gradually abandoning jatropha plantations or diverting the small quantities harvested in favour of domestic processing into soap by women.

Keywords : anthropology, biofuels, jatropha, agriculture, environmental governance, sustainable development, political ecology, carbon emission trading, Mali, Sahel, West Africa.