Political Ecology in Social Sciences Cover Image

Politická ekologie ve společenských vědách
Political Ecology in Social Sciences

Author(s): Petra Andělová, Richard Grünwald
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Social Sciences
Published by: Univerzita Mateja Bela
Keywords: political ecology; cultural ecology; political economy; neocatastrophism; critical theory; uncertainty; perception; conflict and cooperation; socio- environmental interaction; puzzle box framework

Summary/Abstract: Political Ecology is a field of research and a form of criticism that explores inseparable connection between society and nature where environmental problems such as global climate change, resources exploitation, over-production, extreme weather conditions, various types of pollution and many other phenomenon cannot be fully understand in apolitical terms. In the presented article, we have offered an asynchronous explorative study of political ecology which would consider wide range of socio-natural entanglements of theoretical approaches in social sciences. The main aim of this article was to show an overview of political ecology on interdisciplinary level, explore the evolution of political ecology interpretation among interdisciplinary fields and re-thinking potential opportunities and limits of political ecology. During our research we have found that there were interesting variety of theoretical approaches which considered themselves separately, but identified its goals and principles collectively in relation to particular theoretical backgrounds. In order to demonstrate interpretation difficulty we have set a puzzle box theoretical framework which would clarify the scope of political ecology in a more wide term. The paper concluded that, searching for an universal definition of political ecology would probably never been achieved, because ecosystems are not simply ecological configurations, but also intrinsically multi-level politicized zones where misperception of natural causality, resources abundance and over-production are posing uncertainty and potential threat for sustainable future of human mankind.

  • Issue Year: 19/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 71-104
  • Page Count: 34
  • Language: Czech