“When I was a kid in geography class, I was taught that water always flows downhill. What I’ve learned since is that water flows to money and power, wherever that may be.”

Peterson Zah, Chairman of the Navajo Nation

(Quoted in Espeland 2001, 409).

social constructions of nature

In “Environmental Ethics and the Social Construction of Nature,” Anna Peterson draws upon Peter Berger and Thomas Lumann as arguing that “the social construction of reality is the defining human activity” (Peterson 1999, 340). Furthermore, Peterson explains that human knowledge, even of such apparently ‘essential’ qualities as race or sex, can be viewed as a creation dependent on historical, linguistic, and social contexts and conventions” (Peterson 1999, 340). Similarly, the way that culture is understood by humans is dependent upon context and constructed in different ways largely dependent upon cultural influence, and even within cultures, people may interpret nature in radically divergent ways. Peterson calls for environmental ethics to move toward an understanding that “what we see as ‘inevitable’ or indeed ‘natural’ may in fact be humanly constructed, changeable, even arbitrary” (Peterson 1999, 341). Therefore, humans know nature through their own constructions of it despite essential and universal claims of “nature.”

Similarly, Jay Johnson and Brian Murton explain that systems of knowledge are grounded in “localness” (Johnson and Murton 2007, 122). Through colonial expansion, Western frameworks systematize nature in a scientific manner that produces an ahistorical narrative that detaches peoples from their landscapes (Johnson and Murton 2007, 122-3). In these localities, a “Western grid of knowledge” based upon empiricism scientific inquiry displaced indigenous, holistic ways of understanding nature (Johnson and Murton 2007, 123).

Characteristics of Western understandings of nature (Johnson and Murton 2007, 123):

• Objective
• Mathematical
• Analytical-reductionist
• Linear
• Value-free
• Gender-free
• Culture-free
• Apolitical
• A-geographical

Alternatively, Arturo Escobar explains that nonmodern or non-Western cultures consider “nature” as an integral part of human and supernatural domains and as part of a “dense universe of collective representations that at once grounds different ways of doing things with/around ‘nature'” (Escobar 2006 [2016], 365). Many indigenous peoples place a “value” on nature as something apart from capital or commodity. Rather, nature is an experience of interconnectedness with subsistence, identity, and spirituality. Ultimately, Western colonial frameworks of constructing nature conflict with many indigenous constructions and relationships with nature which, often, cannot be reconciled.

ecofeminism

In “Women, Water, Energy,” Greta Gaard begins by stating that “Ecofeminism illuminates the way in which gendered, cultural assumptions about water, power, and human relations have led to creating a water-power infrastructure that perpetuates environmental sexism, environmental racism, and environmental classism” (Gaard 2001, 157).

Describing the history of water and the Industrial Revolution, Gaard explains that the development of “sanitary sewage” was founded on the idea that “’running water purified itself,’” which was proven to be untrue due to the spread of disease through sewage systems (Gaard 2001, 157). As a result, Western culture frames water as a dichotomy: pure water/wastewater (Gaard 2001, 158). Understanding water as a dichotomy is reflective of dualistic norms in Western culture and impacts our ability to understand water, water flows, and how populations are affected downstream.

Claims to water in downstream areas of flow are extremely contentious because there is no guarantee that water will be accessible in the future or that the water will be safe and usable. In framing water management, we see that development, planning, and water distribution are implements through fragmented and short-sighted strategies. Water as a resource is contentious because there is no feasible “solution” to the issues of access to water. Instead, governing entities continuously propose temporary “fixes” that provide water in the short-term, and any negative impacts that might occur in the future are considered collateral damage to provide for present water needs. Issues regarding chemicals in the water and disruptions in land and water ecosystems are pervasive in water management. This stems from a framework of water management that views water as a resource apart from the rest of its natural environment. Instead, water is part of a system that is easily disrupted by human intervention.

“Transforming nature also possessed a redemptive quality that improved man as well, making him wiser, more social, and stronger. Nature was conceived as an unfinished product; as raw materials provided by God, nature required man’s intervention.”

Wendy Espeland (2001, 412).

Gaard draws upon Val Plumwood who explains that “Western culture’s oppression of nature can be traced back to the construction of the dominant human male as a self fundamentally defined by its property of reason and the construction of reason as definitionally opposed to nature and all that is associated with nature, including women, the body, emotions, and reproduction” (Gaard 2001, 159).

Dualisms common/normative in Western culture (Gaard 2001, 158-9):

• Self/Other
• Culture/Nature
• Wilderness/Civilization
• Reason/Nature
• Male/Female
• Mind/Body (Nature)
• Master/Slave
• Reason/Matter (Physicality)
• Rationality/Animality (Nature)
• Freedom/Necessity (Nature)
• Universal/Particular
• Human/Nature (nonhuman)
• Civilized/Primitive (Nature)
• Production/Reproduction (Nature)
• Public/Private
• Subject/Object
• White/Non-white
• Financially Empowered/Financially Impoverished
• Heterosexual/Queer
• Reason/The Erotic

political ecology

“In a classic subsistence economy, producers are in a direct conversation with nature and make limited demands on a variety of natural system elements. Populations may evolve sustainable practices because nature provides them feedback and payoffs in the form of increasing or decreasing biotic productivity. By contrast, in modern industrialized economies, extensive external inputs decouple economic actors from locales. Nature no longer provides direct payoffs and feedback. Natural resource users converse with markets instead of nature and work to maximize profit by sourcing elements of ecological systems from all over the globe, rather than maximizing the biotic productivity of a local ecological system over time. Demands for resources seem infinite.”

Mette Brogden and James Greenberg (2003, 290).

In “Difference and Conflict in the Struggle Over Natural Resources,” Arturo Escobar draws upon Joan Martinez-Alier’s definition of political ecology as “the study of ecological distribution conflicts” Escobar 2006 [2016], 364). Expanding upon political economy (the study of economic distribution conflicts), political ecologists seek to integrate ecological aspects of economy and culture and account for ecological costs in economic systems (Escobar 2006 [2016], 364).

Brogden and Greenberg reference the Garret Hardin’s (1968) “tragedy of the commons” where a lack of sociopolitical institutions regulating resources and ownership leads individuals to rapidly degrade resources. The authors argue, instead, a “tragedy of open access” in which an “open-access regime” leads to resource degradation because no rules of access and use exist. Furthermore, economic systems and global markets are the actors that produce contests over territorialization of resources because they transcend the boundaries of nation-states and are removed from local ecological systems (Brogden and Greenberg (2003), 290). As such, they also are impacted the least by resource degradation.