The rapid development of the global economy over the past fifty years has generated “collateral” environmental problems that constitute a changing dialectic between development and degradation: for millions of people globalization is intimately tied to the degradation of the land and natural resources. Deforestation, desertification, and soil and water pollution have been produced at the margins of the nation-state race to generate “fifty years [of economic progress] in five.” At the same time, a new global environmental awareness has generated increased interest in international efforts to control industrial pollution, generate eco-friendly development policies, and protect important wilderness or natural areas. At the root of this changing dialectic are fundamental disagreements over the proper relationship between nature and society. Is clean air a human right or is it a luxury? Is soil erosion a natural or social phenomenon? Are immediate livelihood concerns more important than international treaties? Is national development possible only at the expense of the environment?

In this section of the seminar, we call for more detailed attention to the hidden ecologies of globalization and development. We will attempt to make sense of the debates surrounding the environment by investigating both the ecology of politics and the politics of ecology. We will examine the ways in which ecological conditions have influenced the historical development of social structures and institutions, by imposing challenges and opportunities for meeting basic needs. Highly variable histories and geographies of environmental degradation clearly pose unique difficulties for different regions and states and complicate the macro-scale definition and regulation of environmental problems. At the same time, we will examine the ways in which politics -- particularly hierarchy, privilege, status, and power -- shape the nature of environmental problems and proposed solutions. In doing so, it will become clear that attempts to privilege public versus private governance, collective versus individual ownership, or top-down versus participatory implementations all turn on very different understandings of the modern political and ecological subject.

Case Studies and Comparative Projects: We will investigate the similarities and differences across the following cases: migration and deforestation in the sensitive eco-systems of the South American tropical rainforest; conflict-ridden environments in mining regions of South Africa; environment-development “trade-offs” in developing economies of China, India, and Eastern Europe; environmental justice campaigns in the United States, including the case of Hurricane Katrina; and anti-nuclear energy struggles in France. We will also analyze the rise of collective action around environmental problems, such as the anti-nuclear movement in France and the Environmental Justice Movement in the United States. We will explore the role of NGOs, public action litigation and the rule of law in adjudicating these collective struggles. Although these are very different cases of environmental marginalization and mobilization, the comparisons will shed light on the historical and social context in which relationships between people and their environments are constituted. They will provide a window onto contemporary ecologies of globalization and development.

Theme leader:
Robert Healy, Professor of Environmental Policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University