Speaking Power to “Post-Truth”: Critical Political Ecology and the New Authoritarianism

Abstract

Given a history in political ecology of challenging hegemonic “scientific” narratives concerning environmental problems, the current political moment presents a potent conundrum: how to (continue to) critically engage with narratives of environmental change while confronting the “populist” promotion of “alternative facts.” We ask how political ecologists might situate themselves vis-à-vis the presently growing power of contemporary authoritarian forms, highlighting how the latter operates through sociopolitical domains and beyond-human natures. We argue for a clear and conscious strategy of speaking power to post-truth, to enable two things. The first is to come to terms with an internal paradox of addressing those seeking to obfuscate or deny environmental degradation and social injustice, while retaining political ecology’s own historical critique of the privileged role of Western science and expert knowledge in determining dominant forms of environmental governance. This involves understanding post-truth, and its twin pillars of alternative facts and fake news, as operating politically by those regimes looking to shore up power, rather than as embodying a coherent mode of ontological reasoning regarding the nature of reality. Second, we differentiate post-truth from analyses affirming diversity in both knowledge and reality (i.e., epistemology and ontology, respectively) regarding the drivers of environmental change. This enables a critical confrontation of contemporary authoritarianism and still allows for a relevant and accessible political ecology that engages with marginalized populations likely to suffer most from the proliferation of post-truth politics. Key Words: authoritarianism, environmental policy, political ecology, post-truth, science.

有鉴于政治生态学挑战环境问题的霸权“科学”叙事之历史，当前的政治时刻面临了强大的难题：如何（持续）批判性地涉入环境变迁叙事，同时面对“民粹主义”所提倡的“另类事实”。我们质问政治生态学者如何能够置身于今日威权主义形式增长中的力量，并强调该力量如何通过社会政治领域和超越人类的自然进行运作。我们主张对后事实的话语权需要有清晰且有意识的策略，以促成以下两件事：首先是接受应对企图模煳或否认环境恶化与社会不公者时的内部矛盾，同时保留政治生态学者在面对自身对于西方科学与专家知识决定环境治理的主流形式上所拥有的优势角色时的历史性批判。此一涉及对后事实及其孪生的另类事实与假新闻之理解，它们是由企图巩固权力的政体所进行的政治运作，而非体出对现事实本质的一致本体论理模式。再者，我们区辨后事实与断言环境变迁的导因体现知识与现实的多样性之分析（例如分别就认识论与本体论而言）。这麽做，使得对当代威权主义的批判性对抗成为可能，同时考量有意义且具可及性的政治生态学，该学问涉入可能因后事实政治的盛行而受害最深的边缘人口。关键词: 关键词：威权主义, 环境政策, 政治生态学, 后事实, 科学。

Dada una historia en ecología política que reta las narrativas hegemónicas “científicas” en lo que concierne a los problemas ambientales, el momento político actual pone de presente un enigma portentoso: cómo (seguir) involucrándose críticamente con narrativas del cambio ambiental al tiempo que se confronta la promoción “populista” de “los hechos alternativos”. Nos preguntamos cómo podrían situarse los ecólogos políticos en relación con el creciente poder que registran las formas autoritarias contemporáneas, destacando el modo como opera el segundo a través de los dominios sociopolíticos y las naturalezas que están más allá de lo humano. Inquirimos por una estrategia clara y consciente del poder de la palabra ante la pos-verdad, para habilitar dos cosas. La primera es llegar a un acuerdo con una paradoja interna de hablarle a quienes buscan ofuscar o negar la degradación ambiental y la injusticia social, en tanto se retiene la propia historia crítica de la ecología política sobre el papel privilegiado de la ciencia occidental y el conocimiento experto para determinar las formas dominantes de la gobernanza ambiental. Esto implica entender la pos-verdad y sus pilares gemelos de hechos alternativos y noticias falsas, como si estuviesen siendo operados políticamente por aquellos regímenes que buscan respaldar el poder más que personificar un modo coherente de razonamiento ontológico en relación con la naturaleza de la realidad. Segundo, diferenciamos la pos-verdad de los análisis que afirman la diversidad tanto en conocimiento como en la realidad (i.e., epistemología y ontología, respectivamente) en relación con los controladores del cambio ambiental. Esto permite una confrontación crítica del autoritarismo contemporáneo y deja campo todavía para una ecología política relevante y accesible que se comprometa con las poblaciones marginales, más propensas a sufrir los efectos de la proliferación de políticas pos-verdad.

Palabras clave:

• autoritarismo
• ciencia
• ecología política
• política ambiental
• pos-verdad

Acknowledgments

This article represents work conducted as part of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN). We thank Rob Fletcher and Bram Büscher for help with earlier drafts of this article. Special thanks to James McCarthy, Jennifer Cassidento, and three anonymous reviewers from the Annals of the American Association of Geographers for suggestions.

Notes

1 Since being used by the U.S. president’s special counsel to defend demonstrably false statements by the White House Press Office, the term alternative facts has been invoked widely in the media to question the relationship between science and truth. Similarly, President Donald Trump makes personal and repeated dismissals of major international media and research outlets as “fake news.”

2 Although used somewhat interchangeably, we recognize that hegemony and dominant forms of science, and knowledge, are not necessarily always the same (see Guha 1997).

3 Critical political ecology is an open-ended and empirically based approach that combines deconstruction with a realist belief in science as a means to achieve a more accurate description and understanding of environmental realities. This is not the only attempt to do this. In fact, there is a long history of previous work in “critical realism” to integrate sociopolitical values with positivism (see Bhaskar [1975] 1997) and also to some degree in sustainability science (see Clark et al. 2016).

4 We do not provide a review of political ecology but rather a snapshot of some examples of its breadth; for fuller reviews, see Robbins (2011), Bryant (2015), and Perreault et al. (2015).

5 Albeit a key theme in earlier political ecology, our hope is that given the particular political climate of post-truth, more studies today can reemphasize the importance of the emergence of facts simultaneously with values and structure.

6 From this perspective, truth making is more about establishing an effective hegemony (understood as the articulation of different interests around a common cause) than trying to champion a particular constellation of facts.

7 Although STS does include debates around positivist science and many, particularly those geographers and others adopting the language of assemblage, claim that their frameworks do explain the entanglement of facts simultaneously with values and structures, it is critical political ecology that has been more willing to adopt positivist science as a tool to counter dominant scientific claims.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Neimark

BENJAMIN NEIMARK is Senior Lecturer of Human Geography in the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University. Library Avenue, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the political ecology and political economy of bio- and green economy interventions, uneven development, and labor and global commodity chains in Madagascar and Africa.

John Childs

JOHN CHILDS is in the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Library Avenue, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the political ecology of resource extraction in the Global South, particularly focused on mining and its various forms, geographies, and effects.

Andrea J. Nightingale

ANDREA J. NIGHTINGALE is Chair of Rural Development in the Global South at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and in 2019 will move to the Department of Geography at the University of Oslo. E-mail: [email protected]. Her current research interests include the nature–society nexus; feminist theorizations of emotion and subjectivity in relation to development, transformation, collective action, and the commons; political violence and climate change; and public authority, collective action, and state formation.

Connor Joseph Cavanagh

CONNOR JOSEPH CAVANAGH is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 1433 As, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]. His research and publications explore the political ecology of conservation and development interventions, with a focus on land and resource tenure conflicts and the institutional evolution of laws, regulations, and policies for governing both ecosystems and rural populations.

Sian Sullivan

SIAN SULLIVAN is Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University, Newton Park, Bath BA2 9BN, UK, and Associate of Gobabeb Research and Training Centre, Namibia. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include cultural landscapes, political ecology, and the financialization of nature.

Tor A. Benjaminsen

TOR A. BENJAMINSEN is a Professor in the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Faculty of Landscape and Society, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 1432 As, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]. He works on issues of environmental change and conservation, pastoralism, land rights, resistance, and justice in Mali and Tanzania, as well as in Arctic Norway.

Simon Batterbury

SIMON BATTERBURY is a Professor of Political Ecology at the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Library Avenue, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. He is also Principal Fellow in the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include the political ecology of natural resources in West Africa and Oceania.

Stasja Koot

STASJA KOOT is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Development at Wageningen University, Wageningen, 6700 EW Wageningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests are predominantly in Southern Africa, including nature conservation, tourism, wildlife crime, capitalism, indigenous people, land, and philanthropy.

Wendy Harcourt

WENDY HARCOURT is Professor of Gender, Diversity & Sustainable Development, Westerdijk Professor at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, ISS, 2518 AX The Hague, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include feminist political ecology, feminist theory, and postdevelopment.