Land in Motion

Abstract

Globalization entwines human lives with distant fields and forests. In response, our approach to land is relational yet also computational. We calculate and map intricate connections among land uses and distant populations mediated by both commodity chains and capital, thereby unpacking, deepening, extending, and pluralizing recent methods estimating land footprints of commodity consumption. After constructing networks of approximately 130 million direct connections among land uses, economic activities, and peoples of the world in 2007, we trace infinities of indirect interconnections. Dominant absolute-space approaches to human–environment relations facilitate local comparisons of population and resources, but our relational quantitative approach provides maps and metrics that illustrate how uneven development under neoliberal globalization results in strong global net redistributions of various per capita benefits from land use, especially from Global South to Global North. From the perspective of capital investment, the median square meter of global land use contributes to futures of human populations outside, not inside, of the country of that land. Many connections to land reach us in the form of manufactured goods and services, not just through food and fibers. Our conclusions require simultaneous examination of the indirect interconnections of all commodities, activities, and places; our characterizations of land and globalization thus differ from the forms of evidence used in studies examining single commodity chains or offered by direct trade statistics, although the results are often complementary. We show that geographical political economy and relational quantitative approaches to space have much to offer understandings of land in the Anthropocene.

全球化让人类与距离遥远的土地和森林紧密结合。为了回应此一议题, 我们探讨土地的方式是关係性的, 但同时也是计算的。我们计算并绘製透过商品链与资本中介的土地使用与远距人口之间错综复杂的连结, 以此揭露、深化、延展并多元化晚近评估商品消费的土地足迹之方法。我们建构 2007 年的土地使用、经济活动与世上人类之间约一亿三千万的直接连结网络之后, 追溯间接互动的无限性。探讨人类—环境关係的主流绝对空间方法, 促进了人口与资源的在地比较, 但我们的关係性量化方法, 则提供了地图与计量指标, 描绘新自由主义全球化下的不均发展, 如何导致来自土地使用的各种人均获益的广大全球淨值再分配, 特别是从全球南方到全球北方。从资本投资的视角看来, 全球土地使用的平方米中位数, 对于位于该国土地之外、而非之内的人类人口的未来有所贡献。诸多土地连结, 以製造的商品和服务的形式触及我们, 而非仅是透过食品或纤维。我们的结论, 须对所有的商品、活动与地方的间接连结同时进行检视 : 我们对于土地和全球化的特徵描绘, 因而与检视单一商品链的研究或直接贸易统计所使用的证据形式有所不同, 儘管两造的结果经常是互补的。我们显示探讨空间的地理政治经济学和关係性量化方法, 能够对于理解人类世中的土地使用做出大量贡献。

La globalización entrelaza vidas humanas con campos y bosques distantes. En respuesta a eso, nuestro acercamiento a la tierra es relacional, aunque también computacional. Calculamos y cartografiamos conexiones intrincadas entre usos de la tierra y poblaciones distantes mediadas por cadenas de mercaderías y capital, de ese modo desentrañando, profundizando, extendiendo y pluralizando métodos recientes para estimar las huellas dejadas en la tierra por el consumo de mercaderías. Después de construir redes de aproximadamente 130 millones de conexiones directas entre los usos del suelo, las actividades económicas y los pueblos del mundo en 2007, trazamos infinidad de interconexiones indirectas. Los enfoques de espacio absoluto dominante aplicados a las relaciones humano-ambientales facilitan las comparaciones locales de población y recursos, pero nuestro enfoque relacional cuantitativo suministra mapas y medidas que ilustran cómo el desarrollo desigual bajo la globalización neoliberal resulta en fuertes redes de redistribuciones globales de varios beneficios del uso de la tierra per capita, especialmente del Sur Global hacia el Norte Global. Desde la perspectiva de la inversión de capital, la media de metro cuadrado de uso global de la tierra contribuye a los futuros de las poblaciones humanas por fuera, no dentro, del país de esa tierra. Muchas conexiones con la tierra nos llegan en forma de productos manufacturados y servicios, no solo como comida y fibras. Nuestras conclusiones requieren el examen simultáneo de las interconexiones indirectas de todas las mercaderías, actividades y lugares; nuestras caracterizaciones de la tierra y la globalización difieren entonces de las formas de evidencia usadas en estudios que examinan las cadenas de una mercadería individual, o que son ofrecidas por las estadísticas de comercio directo, aunque los resultados a menudo son complementarios. Mostramos que la economía política geográfica y los enfoques cuantitativos relacionales del espacio tienen mucho que ofrecer para los entendimientos de la tierra en el Antropoceno.

Key Words:

• capital
• consumption
• globalization
• land use
• relational space

关键词：:

• 资本, 消费, 全球化, 土地使用, 关係性空间。

Palabras clave:

• capital, consumo, globalización, uso de la tierra, espacio relacional

Acknowledgments

At the University of Washington, we would like to thank the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology; Mary Gates Endowment; “Biological Futures in a Globalized World” initiative; and Simpson Center for the Humanities, including its Society of Scholars, for their support of this project. Partial support for this research came from a Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research infrastructure grant, R24 HD042828, to the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology at the University of Washington.

Notes

1. We derived this figure from 2007 FAO (2015) data using the ratio of the sum of the export values of wheat, rice, barley, maize, rye, oats, millet, sorghum, buckwheat, triticale, canary seed, and mixed grain over the sum of the gross production values of the same commodities. Note that the category of rice differs slightly between export and production figures. Excluding rice from the measure of export intensity changes the figure we offer from 14 to 17 percent.

2. Using 2009 FAO data (2011, A–3), we calculated ratios of production summed across the described categories over sums of production figures for the same. Timber figures are measured by volume, whereas pulp and paper figures are by weight.

3. We obtained this result by subtracting import value from export value of total agriculture products using 2007 FAO (2015) data. Africa had a deficit in overall agricultural trade of $22 billion.

4. Several research teams have recently devoted considerable efforts to comparing the extent to which the results of footprint analyses depend on the choice of underlying database (Inomata and Owen 2014). The results have suggested why certain discrepancies exist, finding overall that there is strong numerical agreement among footprint analyses conducted. This article uses the most commonly employed database.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luke Bergmann

LUKE BERGMANN is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include geographical political economy, world ecology, and critical computational engagements with relational geographic thought.

Mollie Holmberg

MOLLIE HOLMBERG is currently a data analyst at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Seattle, WA 98121. E-mail: [email protected]. She was an undergraduate at the University of Washington at the time this research was conducted. Her research interests include humanity's evolving impacts on major Earth systems and interactions of sociobiological ecosystems with public health.