Knowra Political ecology Political ecology Political ecology studies how power, economic relations, and political decisions shape environmental change and how environmental change affects people and society.
Political economy : The study of how political institutions and power shape the production and distribution of wealth. Political ecology uses political-economic analysis to explain who controls resources and who bears environmental costs.
Land grabbing : The large-scale acquisition or control of land, often displacing existing users. It shows how investment and state authority can reorganize access to land.
Chipko movement : A forest-protection movement in India, known for villagers embracing trees to resist logging. Its campaigns linked forest access and conservation to local livelihoods and gendered labor.
Human ecology : The study of relationships between human populations and their environments. Political ecology foregrounds power and political economy more explicitly than many human-ecological accounts.
Environmental justice : A movement and field addressing the unequal distribution of environmental harms and benefits. It highlights the inequalities political ecology traces through environmental change.
Enclosure : The conversion of shared or customary land into controlled property, restricting access by previous users. Enclosure reveals how property changes can dispossess communities and transform landscapes.
Narmada Bachao Andolan : A movement opposing large dams on India’s Narmada River and the displacement they caused. The dam controversy brought development priorities, displacement, and environmental costs into conflict.
Cultural ecology : The study of how cultural practices adapt to and shape environmental conditions. Political ecology shifts attention from adaptation alone to unequal control and historical change.
Common-pool resource : A resource that is difficult to exclude people from using, while one person’s use reduces what remains for others. Shared forests, fisheries, and water systems make conflicts over access visible.
Commodification : The process of treating goods, relationships, or natural entities as objects of exchange. Turning nature into commodities changes how it is valued and governed.
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