Political Ecology - Study Circle

Political ecology is a theoretical and methodological approach to the study of socio-ecological systems. It focuses on conflicts, power relations and uneven distribution of environmental costs and benefits. The field seeks to "politicise" debates about environmental problems, and thereby stands in contrast to a-political ecologies that try to understand environmental issues in terms of universal driving forces related to, for example, population trends or biophysical factors. For this analysis concepts such as common property theory, postcolonial theory and feminist development studies are used.