Clark University

Introduction: Development Theory and Environment in an Age of Market Triumphalism

Author(s): Richard Peet and Michael Watts
Source: Economic Geography, Vol. 69, No. 3, Environment and Development, Part 1 (Jul.,
1993), pp. 227-253
Published by: Clark University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/143449
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 Introduction: Development Theory and Environment in
an Age of Market Triumphalism*
Richard Peet
School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, MA 01610

Michael Watts
Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

The world knows much better now what single intellectual and political economic
[development] policies work and what environment. First, the collapse of many
policies do not. . . . [Now] we almost actually existing socialisms and the rise of
[never] hear calls for alternative strategies
a neoliberal hegemony in policy circles
based on harebrained schemes. (World
Bank Official, cited in Broad 1993, 154) signals for many the exhaustion of a leftist
model of development. Second, the resur-
Driven by the momentous political and gence of environmentalist concerns artic-
economic changes of the 1980s and by ulated increasingly in terms of their global
apocalyptic visions of impending global character (e.g., global warming) has been
ecological crisis, the environmental ques- attached to a revival of the Malthusian
tion has returned with a vengeance specter (World Bank 1992). And third, the
(Turner et al. 1990; World Bank 1992).
rise of political ecology, which offered a
With the return of the repressed, the
powerful Marxist-influenced analysis of
language of "sustainability" (however ill-
appearing
resource use and environmental conserva-
defined) becomes endemic,
with as much frequency in World Bank
tion during the 1970s and early 1980s, has
publications as in the rhetoric of grass- increasingly been shaped and challenged
roots movements. Further, issues of pov- by wide-ranging debates within social
erty have become inseparable from the theory. In the late 1980s and early 1990s
development-environment debate; eradi- post-Marxism and poststructuralism be-
cating poverty through enhancing and gan to more obviously affect this area of
protecting livelihood strategies is as much scholarship, and the emergence of a kind
an environmental sustainability issue as a of postmodern development discourse is
resource endowment question. The envi- one of its products (Slater 1992). Indeed,
ronmental crisis is, in short, a poverty poststructural concerns with power, dis-
problem (World Bank 1992). course, and cultural difference have
An emphasis on nature-society relations proven compelling in the rethinking of
in the context of concerns over the both development theory and political
growing polarity of world income (UNDP ecology, as this issue of Economic Geogra-
1992) has emerged in a distinctive fin de phy suggests.
We wish to situate the current discus-
sions around development and the envi-
ronment on this expansive canvas of
* The editors thank Susanna Hecht, Kent
intellectual and political-economic fer-
Mathewson, and Davin Ramphall for their ment, and more specifically to provide a
help in evaluating the articles contained in this broad context, stressing recent poststruc-
special issue on Environment and Develop-
ment (Vol. 69, Nos. 3 and 4). Some of the
tural tendencies, for the contributions to
papers derive from a project initiated by this special issue (Vol. 69, No. 3 is Part 1;
Lakshman Yapa and Ben Wisner; their efforts Vol. 69, No. 4 is Part 2). Four dimensions
in assembling contributions are much appreci- seem to frame the recent study of
ated. environment-development relations: (1)

227
228 ECONOMICGEOGRAPHY

the debate on rationality, truth, and view, then, truths are statements within
discourse, particularly that version which socially produced discourses, rather than
sees rationality Western
as a specifically "facts"about reality.
mode of thinkingcentralto an under-
standingofwhathascometo be knownas Discourse Theory
"development"; (2)a mappingof develop-
mentideasas a meansfor understanding A "discourse" is a particular area of
importantshifts and realignmentsin language use related to a certain set of
developmenttheoryand practiceduring institutions and expressing a particular
the 1980s and 1990s; (3) discussions of standpoint. Concerned with a given range
lines of researchand debate within a of objects, it emphasizes some concepts at
broadlydefinedpoliticalecology;and (4) the expense of others. Significations and
recentdiscussionsof socialand environ- meanings are integral parts of discourses
mental movementsthat redefinetheir just as, for example, the meaning of words
causesand contents.We surveyeach in depends on where a statement containing
turn before concludingwith a brief them is made (Macdonnell 1986, 1-4).
statementof position. Hence, for Barnes and Duncan (1992, 8),
discourses are "frameworksthat embrace
particular combinations of narratives, con-
Rationality, Discourse, and cepts, ideologies and signifying practices,
the West each relevant to a particular realm of
social action." Discourses vary among
Cogito ergo sum
Descartes
what are often competing, even conflict-
ing, cultural, racial, gender, class, re-
Poststructural theory's fascination with gional, and other differing interests, al-
discourseoriginatesin its rejectionof though they may uneasily coexist within
modernconceptionsof truth.In modern relatively stable ("hegemonic") discursive
philosophy truthresidesin the correspon- formations.
dencebetweenanexternalized realityand Discourse theory came to prominence
internalmental representations of that in the context of a critique of Western
reality.Enlightenmentphilosophy consid- rationality. Horkheimer and Adorno
ered all mindsto be structurally similar, (1991) found European rationality liberat-
truthsto be universal,knowledgepoten- ing, but at the cost of political alienation.
tiallythe same for everyone.Following Foucault saw reason as dogmatic and
Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Dewey, the despotic; Western rationality's claim to
postmodern philosopher Rorty (1979, 171) universal validity is "a mirage associated
argues converselythat the notion of with economic domination and political
knowledgeas representation shouldbe hegemony" (Foucault 1980, 54). But as
abandoned in favorof knowledgewithout Young (1990, 9) points out, a special
foundations: "knowledgeas a matterof interest of the French philosophical tradi-
conversation andof socialpractice,rather tion concerns the relation of the Enlight-
thanas an attemptto mirrornature."For enment, with its universal truth claims, to
Foucault (1972, 1973, 1980; Dreyfus and European colonialism; the new stress on
Rabinow 1982; Rabinow 1986), each soci- this relation has stimulated a "relentless
ety has its regime of truth, with control of anatomization of the collusive forms of
economyof truth"constitut-
the "political European knowledge." Hence Derrida
ingpartof the powerof the greatpolitical (1971,213):"Metaphysics-the white myth-
and economicapparatuses. Thesediffuse ology which reassembles and reflects the
"truth,"particularlyin the modern form culture of the West: the white man takes
of "scientific discourse," through the his own mythology, Indo-European myth-
social body, in a processinfusedwith ology, his own logos, that is, the mythos of
In the poststructural
socialconfrontation. his idiom, for the universal form
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 229
of that he must still wish to call Reason." to a critique of discursive relations be-
In this view, enlightenment reason is a tween hegemonic and dominated regions.
regional logic reflecting a history of The outstanding exemplar of the critique
growing global supremacy rather than a of European discourses on the non-
universal path to absolute truth. Reason, European other, Said's (1979) Oriental-
in a word, is ideological. ism, argues that "the Orient" helped
define Europe as its contrasting image,
The Collusive Dialectic idea, personality, and experience (i.e., as
"its other"). Orientalism is a "mode of
The connections between rationality, discourse with supporting institutions,
truth, discourse, and the global system of vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doc-
power relations led poststructural dis- trines, even colonial bureaucracies and
course theory in interesting directions, colonial styles" (Said 1979, 2) through
some of which we will briefly pursue. One which European culture was able to
of these is the idea that regional discur- "produce"the Orient (politically, imagina-
sive traditions are capable of capturing tively, and so forth) in the post-Enlighten-
even oppositional modes of thought, so ment period. Because of the limitations on
that the dialectic, perhaps the main logic thought and action imposed by this
of critical thinking, may be exposed as discourse, the Orient was not, and is not,
Eurocentric. Simply put, the argument is a free subject of thought or action.
that the Hegelian-Marxist dialectic (pre- Extending to geography Vico's observa-
sumed to lie squarely in the European tion that humans make their own history
Enlightenment tradition) expresses a self based on what they know, Said finds
searching for power over that which is localities, regions, and geographic sectors
"other."Young (1990, 2-3) argues that this like Orient and Occident to be humanly
theorizes a system of European domina- "made." Subsequent work extends this
tion over the colonial world, so that: notion of "discourse on the other" to
"Hegel articulates a philosophical struc- European conceptions of the Americas
ture of the appropriation of the other as a (Hulme 1986; Todorov 1987) and, in an
form of knowledge which uncannily simu- ambitious study, to a history of the
lates the project of nineteenth century different European conceptions ("science
imperialism." In this view, Marxism's fictions") of "alien cultures" (McGrane
universalizing narrative of the unfolding 1989).
of a rational system of world history is More can be learned about this project
seen as a negative form of the history of from discussions appearing subsequent to
European imperialism and hence a con- Said's main work and playing on it. Said
ceptual system that remains collusively has been criticized for assuming a singular
Eurocentric. It is from such a position that political-ideological European intention
poststructural-postmodern thinkers dis- (imperial possession), an instrumentalist
trust "totalizing" systems of knowledge, relation between power and knowledge,
stress the singular and contingent, and and a monolithic conception of the dis-
seek a knowledge that respects the other course of Orientalism (Bhaba 1983a). For
without absorbing it. We comment criti- Bhaba (1983b, 19), conversely, representa-
cally on this version of dialectical totality tions of the Orient in Western discourse
in our conclusion. evidence a profound ambivalence toward
"that otherness which is at once an object
Discursive Relations of dislike and derision." Colonial dis-
course is founded on anxiety, and colonial
A second (related) theme of particularly power itself has a conflictual economy-
geographic interest involves the expan- hence colonial stereotyping of subject
sion of the social production of regional peoples is a complex, ambivalent, contra-
discourse through reflection on the other dictory mode of representation, as anxious
230 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

as it is assertive. For Baudet (1965, vii), humanist notions that can be subjected to
therefore: "the European images of non- an antihumanist critique even as the
European man are not primarily, if at all, subaltern group draws many of its
descriptions of real people, but rather strengths from that critique. As long as
projections of his own nostalgia and Western, modernist notions of subjectiv-
feelings of inadequacy." Likewise, in an ity and consciousness are left unexam-
analysis of mimicry, Bhaba (1984) argues ined, the subaltern will be narrativized in
that when colonized people become "Eu- theoretically alternative, but politically
ropean" the resemblance is both familiar similar, ways (MacCabe 1987, xv). Spiv-
and menacing to the colonists, subverting ak's alternative to the project of retrieving
the identity of that which is being consciousness involves the Foucauldian
represented. Furthermore, the hybrid (and structuralist) notion of subject-
that articulates colonial and native knowl- positions, in which the "subject" of a
edges may reverse the process of domina- statement is not its immediate author but
tion as repressed knowledges enter sub- "a particular, vacant place that may in fact
liminally, enabling subversion, interven- be filled by different individuals" (Fou-
tion, and resistance (Bhaba 1985). cault 1972, 95; but see also Foucault 1980,
196-97). Spivak seeks to reinscribe the
Subaltern Discourse multiple, and often contradictory, subject-
positions assigned by colonial relations of
A third complex, controversial, and control and insurgency, so that a subaltern
unresolved issue is whether, and in what woman, for example, is subjected to three
ways, discourse theory can recover the main domination systems: class, ethnicity,
voices of oppressed peoples. Something and gender. From this she reaches the
like this is the aim of the subaltern studies extreme, and for us indefensible, position
group (Guha and Spivak 1988). Ranajit that subaltern women have no subject
Guha's original position combined Gram- position from which to speak: "the subal-
scian Marxismwith Foucauldian discourse tern cannot speak" (Spivak 1988, 308).
theory in a study of peasant insurgency in
colonial India. Guha's (1983, 2-3) argu- Regional Discursive Formations
ment is that colonial historiography de-
nied the peasant recognition as a subject These three themes hardly exhaust the
of history. Acknowledging peasants as potentials of the various poststructural
makers of rebellion means attributing to versions of discourse theory. While re-
them a consciousness (cf. Gramsci 1971, maining ambivalent overall, we find these
53). Guha tries to identify what, following specific positions attractive, in that
Gramsci, he calls the (recurring) elemen- through them poststructural theory is
tary aspects in rebel consciousness, his linked more directly than usual to the
main theme being negation-the peas- causes of oppressed peoples, the geo-
ant's subaltern identity includes an im- graphic dimensions of power relations,
posed negative consciousness, from and the relentless critique of everything
which, however, revolt was often derived that exists. We find particularly sugges-
through inversion (as with the fight for tive the connection between centralized
prestige). power articulated through hegemonic
For Spivak (1987, 197), the most discourses and the discourses of domi-
significant outcome of this revision is that nated peoples. We would theorize this in
"the agency of change is located in the terms of what might be called regional
insurgent or the 'subaltern."' Spivak discursive formations (cf. Lowe 1991).
(1987, 206-7), however, sees the subaltern Certain modes of thought, logics, themes,
studies group's attempt to retrieve a styles of expression, and typical meta-
subaltern or peasant consciousness as a phors run through the discursive history
strategic adherence to essentialist and of a region, appearing in a variety of
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 231
forms, disappearing occasionally, only to generation after independence assumed
reappear with even greater intensity in that developmentmeant achievingNorth-
new guises. A regional discursive forma- ern standards of living. . . . The strategy
tion is, however, as important for the failed . . . because it was based on poorly
adapted foreign models. The vision was
topics and themes it disallows-its ab-
couched in the idiom of modernization....
sences, silences, repressed ideas, margin- In recentyears,however,manyelementsof
alized statements. In a regional discursive this vision have been challenged.Alterna-
formation even competing notions often tive paths have been proposed.They give
use the same metaphors, interpret in primacyto agriculturaldevelopment, and
similar ways, perhaps even think with emphasize not only prices, markets and
similar logics. Hence oppositional posi- private sector activities but also capacity
tions may be partly captured by hege- building, grassroots participation, decen-
monic discourses, but the hegemonic tralization and sound environmental
itself also shifts to incorporate particularly practices. . . . The time has come to put
insightful, vivid oppositional images. We them fully into practice.(emphasisadded;
WorldBank1989,36).
would argue that regional discursive
formations originate in, and display the Failed modernization, alternative vi-
effects of, certain physical, political- sions, grassroots participation, environ-
economic, and institutional settings, but mental sustainability: this is not a lexicon
that discursive formations grounded in typically associated with the most influen-
material, political, or ideological power tial advocate of global capitalist develop-
supremacies demonstrate a continual ten- ment. Could the World Bank really have
dency to extend over spaces with greatly embraced the popular energies of "ordi-
different characteristics and discursive nary people" in the name of sustainable
traditions. We find particularlyrelevant to development alternatives? At the heart of
the geographic imagination theoretical its long-term strategy, says the bank, is
notions dealing with the power-saturated the desire to release energies that permit
interactions and interchanges between "ordinary people . . . to take charge of
regional discursive formations, articula- their lives" (emphasis added; World Bank
tions which leave no discourse intact. We 1989, 4). The subtext is a recognition,
would also stress the theme of the indeed celebration, of democratization
discourse on nature as a powerful, almost movements which have attended the
primordial, element in discursive forma- frontal assault (led in large measure by
tion. global regulatory institutions like the
The Western, modernist discursive for- International Bank for Reconstruction and
mation, formulated during momentous Development and the International Mon-
changes in global power relations, in etary Fund) on various forms of state-
control over nature, and in science and administered development.
technology, has as its dynamic theme the The "new" World Bank approach may
core concept of "development." In the be contested at many levels: its ability to
following section we map out recent rewrite history to suit the bank's own
tendencies in the content and meaning of ideological purpose, its unwillingness to
this concept as a case study of the general assume accountability for past activities,
notion of regional discursive formations. its flimsy commitment to the environ-
ment, its partial and limited interpreta-
tion of sustainability, and so on. As with
Mapping Development many actors in the business of develop-
Discourse: A Cartography ment, the World Bank's proposals are
of Power striking not for their newness but for their
Any new long-termstrategy,to be credible, historical continuity, hence their links to
shouldbe basedon a hard-headedexamina- what might be called a cartography of
tion of the lessons of the past. The first development discourses. Unlike the bank,
232 ECONoMicGEOGRAPHY

which believes that the 1950s represents a In Keywords, Williams (1976, 104-6)
historic watershed with the arrival of notes that the complex genealogy of
development thinking in Africa and else- development in Western thinking can
where,' postwar theorizing recycles key "limit and confuse virtually any generaliz-
development ideas which appear, disap- ing description of the current world
pear, and reappear under changed politi- order"; rather, it is in the analysis of the
cal-economic and ideological circum- "real practices subsumed by development
stances (i.e., regional discursive forma- that more specific recognitions are neces-
tions). These ideas may have real power sary and possible." In this sense, develop-
and endurance, but, as Hall (1989, 390) ment, understood as a preoccupation of
rightly notes, "they do not acquire politi- public and international policy with im-
cal force independent of the constellation proving welfare and the production of
of institutions and interests already governable subjects in "the Third World,"
present there." is of relatively recent provenance (Sachs
1992). The origins of development theory
are part of the process by which the
A Genealogy of "Development" "colonial world" was reconfigured into a
While "development" came into the "developing world" in the aftermath of
English language in the eighteenth cen- World War II. Africa, for example, only
tury, with its root sense of unfolding, it became an object of planned development
was granted a new lease on life by the after the Great Depression of the 1930s.
evolutionary ideas of the nineteenth cen- The British Colonial Development and
tury (Rist 1991; Williams 1976). As a Welfare Act (1940) and the French
consequence, development has rarely Investment Fund for Economic and Social
broken from organicist notions of growth Development (1946) both represented
or from a close affinity with teleological responses to the crises and challenges
views of history, science, and progress in which imperial powers confronted in
the West (Parajuli 1991). By the end of Africa, providing a means by which they
the nineteenth century, for example, it could negotiate the perils of indepen-
was possible to talk of societies in a state dence movements on the one hand and a
of "frozen development." Even radical perpetuation of the colonial mission on
alternative intellectual traditions, Marx- the other. The field of development
isms among them, became associated with economics which arose in the 1940s and
linearity, scientism, and modernization, 1950s-for example, the growth theories
universalisms which carried the appeal of of Lewis, Hirschmann, and Rodenstein-
secular utopias constructed with rational- grew in the soil of imperial planning
ity and enlightenment. Development was initiatives, albeit propeled after 1945 by
modernity on a planetary scale, in which the establishment of a panoply of global
the West was the "transcendental pivot of development institutions (Bretton Woods,
analytical reflection" (Slater 1992, 312).2 the United Nations) and President Tru-
man's "programof development based on
the concepts of democratic fair dealing"
(20 January 1949, cited in Esteva 1992, 6).
1 "Modern economic growth has a relatively
short history in sub-SaharanAfrica ... general
and sustained development came only in [the A Cartography of Development
1950s]. . . . Thus, when the post-colonial
period began, most Africans were outside the If development theory is, in this limited
modern economy" (World Bank 1981, 11-12). sense, a post-1945 construction rooted in
2 There is a growing body of scholarship
which contests this view of development and
poses "alternatives to development," typically taken to be local knowledge systems (see Sachs
rooted in new social movements and what are 1992; Watts 1993).
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 233
growing U.S. hegemony on the one hand about the state normatively-a largely
and the geopolitics of postcolonialism on complex map, or, perhaps more properly,
the other, it nevertheless can be depos- a venn-diagram-which has a momentum
ited on a much larger historical ground of driven in part by the anomalies and real
ideas about comparative economic growth world problems which the theory must
and sociopolitical transformation. One address. No simple or direct relation
simple way to situate development dis- exists between particular theoretical tradi-
course historically and provide a typology tions-Marxism or modernization theory,
of its normative theoretical content is to for example-and each axis. Marxism does
see development as a constant oscillation not dismiss entirely the role of the
between, and reconfiguration of, state, market, for example, although the market
market, and civil society (Fig. 1). This nexus is defined in a particularway (Elson
intellectual cartography is in no sense 1988); similarly, neoliberalism rarely jetti-
exhaustive-it refers largely to Eurocen- sons the state entirely, though it too is
tric development theory associated with defined in a particular fashion. In this
conventional development institutions sense, theories tend to combine the
and practices-and only refers to the normative content of development as
normative (as opposed to the positive) particular configurations of state, market,
aspects of development theory. As a and civil society, each constituted in ways
heuristic device, however, it may high- peculiar to the core propositions of each
light a number of important points. theory. Different theoretical traditions
The first is to historicize development tend naturally to weight these normative
itself, locating in the complex geopolitical elements quite differently. In this sense,
environment of the inter- and postwar development theories may be distin-
period, the construction, or, more prop- guished in terms of the extent to which
erly, the invention, of development as states, markets, and civil society fail. For
planned social and economic improve- example, whatever the purported virtues
ment (Escobar 1992a; Watts 1993). A of markets, they may be monopolistic,
second is the recognition that develop- imperfect, inflexible, or encourage exter-
ment discourse is calibrated around the nalities. Often seen as compensatory
relative weight attributed in its normative mechanisms for market failure, states may
vision to the role of the state, the market, be rigid and inflexible mechanisms for
and civil institutions. At any historical allocating resources, they may be poorly
moment, a particular center of intellectual coordinated, may create rents for particu-
gravity in development discourse might lar classes, or may simply colonize civil
be identified around one of these norma- society (Stern 1989). Civil society, often
tive poles. The 1980s counterrevolution, seen as a critical mediating space between
as Toye (1987) calls it, which shifted the state and market, a repository of rights,
market to center stage, stands in sharp participation, and associational life, may
contrast to the 1950s, at which time there equally be the crucible within which
was widespread acceptance of some sort of religious, ethnic, or other identifications
state planning-a strange hybrid of a impose strictures.
Gerschenkronian and Keyenesian state Finally, there is a lateral (i.e., diachro-
-as a prerequisite for "catching up" and nic) dimension to Figure 1 in the sense
as a response to the maladies of relative that the intellectual and discursive tradi-
backwardness. A third implication of tions surrounding the market, state, and
Figure 1 is that each vertical axis-state, civil society engage each other, an en-
market, civil society-is engaged in some gagement driven in some measure by the
sort of internal puzzle-solving; it contains pressing development realities they seek
its own internal debate concerning its to explain (for example, see Colclough and
role, character, function, and definition. Manors' States or Markets? (1991)) and
There is, then, a tradition of thinking the debate in the 1980s over whether the
 46
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236 ECONOMICGEOGRAPHY

East Asian New Industrial Countries relation to the 1980s reform packages for
(NICs) are free-market or "Leninist" stabilization. Ironically, state- and market-
success stories (Amsden 1989; Wade centered theories converged at the level
1990). These lateral and vertical dimen- of analytics through transaction cost and
sions vastly simplify the complexities of collective action theory and the so-called
practical and theoretical differences in the new institutional economics (Bardhan
field of development discourse. Individu- 1989). By the 1990s, in a rather different
als may shift locations on the map during geopolitical and economic environment-
the course of their careers-as, for exam- the end of the cold war, a declining debt
ple, Hirschmann did-and all theoretical burden, new social actors-development
traditions, almost by definition, contain seemed to gravitate around the "balance"
particular definitions of states, markets, between state, market, and civil organiza-
and civil society, which in some way tions, each with different incentive
reinforces the earlier point about the lack schemes and compliance-cooperation
of correspondence between the vertical mechanisms (de Janvry, Sadoulet, and
axis and theories of development per se. Thornbecke 1991).
Lastly, it needs to be emphasized that For both theoretical and empirical
development ideas are always regional- reasons, then, the 1980s saw a growing
ized into what we earlier called regional concern with institutions, whether ex-
discursive formations: Latin American pressed in terms of agrarian social rela-
dependency theory is part of a particular tions (Bardhan 1989), state-society rela-
regional discursive formation containing a tions (Migdal 1989), or new social
state-centric development discourse. movements (Melucci 1988). Moreover,
criticisms leveled at the failings of both
Recent Tendencies in Western neoliberal and authoritarian and bureau-
Development Theory cratic development provided considerable
momentum for a focus on institutions
In the context of this simple map, the within civil society, especially agreements
1980s represents a period of retrench- based on bargaining, cooperation, and
ment and restructuring in which recession persuasion. As de Janvry, Sadoulet, and
and the debt crisis focused attention on Thornbecke (1991, 4) note: "When the
short-term management ("disequilibria"). state fails to deliver public goods, insur-
The literature was dominated by ques- ance, management of externalities, mini-
tions of stabilization and adjustment, mum basic needs and democratic rights,
driven increasingly by a neoliberal ortho- civil organizations may fill the vacuum.
doxy that sought to reaffirm the necessity The same holds for the market where
of reintegration into a global market and market failures lead to the emergence of
emphasize a "back-to-the-future"strategy [civil] institutions, many of which take the
(i.e., a return to the colonial model of form of organizations."Of particular inter-
comparative advantage and export-ori- est are development strategies that build
ented commodity production). The East relations of complementarity between
Asian NICs were studied as success civil organizations and the market and the
stories in the context of widespread failure state.
(stagnation, corruption, deindustrializa- This resurgence of civil society in
tion) of debt- or state-led development development discourse has been driven
models. State-centered analysis focused by a complex set of political forces and
both on the peculiarities of the develop- intellectual confluences. We have already
mental state in Taiwan and South Korea referred to the impact of "people's power"
(relative autonomy, partial embedded- in the overthrow of various Stalinisms in
ness) and the problems of state account- Eastern Europe, but one should take note
ability, credibility, and rent seeking in also of the proliferation of new social
Latin America and Africa, not least in actors and civics movements, in part as a
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 237
response to the austerity of the 1980s, in tions" (Wiles 1969, 166). The recycling of
Latin America, South Africa, the Philip- populisms in development discourse,
pines, India, and, more recently, in parts therefore, contains both a historical conti-
of sub-Saharan Africa (we discuss this in nuity-the recurrent motif of "the peo-
more detail later). But there has also been ple" and "the ordinary"in development-
a rethinking of the relations between and a historical difference, insofar as
culture and development by returning to populist claims are always rooted in
the modernization theory of Shills, specific configurations of political and
Geertz, and Weber (Hoben and Hefner ideological discourses and practices.
1991); in the role of grass roots organiza- Populism in no sense exhausts discus-
tions in the context of diminishing states sions of civil society (see Gramsci 1971;
and expanding markets (Uphoff 1991); in Keane 1988), but it represents an impor-
the social embeddedness of states and tant line of thinking and theorizing from
markets (Evans 1991; Friedland and Rob- the early nineteenth century to the
ertson 1991); in the endogeneity of present. Indeed, a distinctive feature of
development institutions and social norms populism-which perhaps explains its
(de Janvry Sadoulet, and Thornebecke current appeal-is its flexible ability to
1991); and in the promotion of local draw on liberalism, nationalism and so-
knowledge systems and resource manage- cialism in fashioning its pragmatic, rather
ment (Richards 1985; Warren 1991). In a than political, agenda: "[Populism] . . . is
sense, these tendencies reaffirm the con- profoundly a-political .... It goes beyond
fluence of analytics noted by Bardhan democracy to consensus. . . . It calls on
(1989) in his observation that the analysis the state to inaugurate restoration, but it
of institutions has emerged as a central distrusts the state and its bureaucracy and
problematic, whether expressed in terms would minimize them before the rights
of analytical Marxism, the contract theory and virtues of local communities and the
of the neoinstitutionalists, or the anthro- populist individual" (Macrae 1969, 162).
pological study of common-property regu- But when people are invoked in develop-
lation. mental discourses about civil society-
whether it is the World Bank singing the
"Populism" Reconsidered praises of the ordinary African or the
geographer lauding peasant science-who
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the people are, and how they are interpo-
the enhanced emphasis within develop- lated, are precisely political questions:
ment on consolidating and promoting civil "The question as to who 'the people' are,
society has often drawn from populism where they/we will be made to stand, line
and the power of what the World Bank up and be counted, the political direction
calls "ordinary people." Populism here in which they/we will be made to point:
implies not only a broadly specified these are the questions which cannot be
development strategy-that is to say, the resolved abstractly; they can only be
promotion of small-scale, owner-operated, answered politically" (Bennett 1986, 20).
anti-urban programs which stand against Populist strategies, and the language of
the ravages of industrial capitalism (Kitch- populism more generally, rest on what
ing 1980)-but also as a particular sort of Laclau (1977, 193) calls the "double
politics, authority structure, and ideology articulation of discourse": the dialectical
in which an effort is made to manufacture tension between "the people" and classes
a collective popular will and an "ordinary" within the power bloc, and the various
subject (Laclau 1977). In general, popu- ways in which "the people" are articulated
lism: "is . . . based on the following major with specific classes. How, in other words,
premise: virtue resides in the simple does particular populist language articu-
people, who are in the overwhelming late with a particular power bloc, and how
majority, and in their collective tradi- is a particular populist subject interpo-
238 ECONOMICGEOGRAPHY

lated-for example, the ordinary peasant doubled between 1960 and 1989. In the
possessed of local knowledge and resource fin de siecle world economy, 82.7 percent
management capability, or the informal- of global income is accounted for by the
sector worker equipped with the entre- wealthiest 20 percent, while the poorest
preneurial skills for appropriate technol- 20 percent account for 1.4 percent. In
ogy or flexible specialization? The 1960, the top fifth of the world's popula-
confluence of social movements in the tion had 30 times the wealth of the bottom
former socialist bloc (the 1989 "revolu- fifth; by 1989 the disparity had grown to
tions") with a neoliberal conservatism that 60 times. The growing bimodal character
advertises individual agency in the mar- of relations between North and South
ketplace (for example, the authoritarian America (indeed, within Third World
populism of Mrs. Thatcher) has helped states, as Brazil, the Philippines, and
sustain a developmental populism for the India testify) is unquestionably rooted in
1990s, reflected in the uncritical promo- the period of adjustment and stabilization
tion of nongovernmental organizations since the oil crisis of the 1970s. For good
(NGOs), civil institutions, and the power reason, then, have many intellectuals and
of ordinary people. Current populist activists from South America come to see
development claims, therefore, can and development discourse as a cruel hoax, a
should be located on a larger historical "blunder of planetary proportions" (Sachs
canvas, but their particular character and 1992, 3). "You must be either very dumb
specificity must be rooted in the real or very rich if you fail to notice," notes
politique of the end of the cold war, a Mexican activist Esteva (1992, 7) "that
widespread disenchantment with state- 'development' stinks." It is precisely the
administered politics, and in the self- ground swell of antidevelopment thinking,
interested, freedom-loving individual of oppositional discourses that have as their
the neoliberal counterrevolution (Bier- starting point the rejection of develop-
stecker 1990; Fukuyama 1990). ment, of rationality and the Western
Concern for ordinary people, from a modernist project, at the moment of a
variety of political vantage points, hap- purported Washington consensus and
pens at a moment when the Washington free-market triumphalism, that represents
development consensus-the "new real- one of the striking paradoxes of the 1990s.
ism" of free markets, export-oriented
production, and lean and mean states-is
met by at least three pressing, some A Political Ecology for the 1990s
might say debilitating, crises. First, the
resurgence of ferocious nationalisms, rac- The term "political ecology" can be
isms, and ethnic genocide-in some traced with some certainty to the 1970s,
senses the implosion of civil society when it emerged as a response to the
(Somalia, the former Yugoslavia)-at a theoretical need to integrate land-use
moment of free-market hegemony. Sec- practice with local-global political econ-
ond, the problem of environmental "ex- omy (Wolf 1972) and as a reaction to the
ternalities," driven in parts of the Third growing politicization of the environment
World by the very success of the NICs (Cockburn and Ridgeway 1979). Subse-
and peripheral industrialization, which quently taken up by geographers, anthro-
some see as the contemporary equivalent pologists, and historians (Bryant 1991), it
of the Great Plague (Lipietz 1988). And is perhaps most closely associated with
third, the appalling spectacle detailed Blaikie (1985) and Blaikie and Brookfield
blandly every year in the World Bank (1987). In their view, political ecology
Development Report of deepening global combines the concerns of ecology with "a
polarization. According to the United broadly defined political economy" (1987,
Nations Development Program (UNDP 17) as part of a larger body of work which
1992), the polarization of global wealth had its origins in the critique of ecological
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 239

anthropology and cultural ecology in the A Critique of Political Ecology

late 1970s (Watts 1983).
This earlier theory gained currency If political ecology reflects a confluence
during the first wave of the postwar between ecologically rooted social science
environmental movement in the late and the principles of political economy, its
1960s, but was ultimately hamstrung by theoretical coherence nonetheless re-
its attachment to adaptation theory drawn mains in question. A broad and wide-
from systems ecology, cybernetics, and ranging approach, encompassing the work
the work of Bateson. Even the best of this of such diverse scholars as Hecht, Brook-
research (e.g., Peter Vayda, Roy Rappa- field, Bramwell, Stonich, Redclift, and
Ram Guha, political ecology seems
port) suffered from a naive organismic
grounded less in a coherent theory than in
view of society and a functionalism that
similar areas of inquiry (cf. Bryant 1992,
saw culture as having adaptive value with who specifically identifies contextual
respect to the general goals of living sources of ecological change, questions of
systems. Typically working in rural and access, and political ramifications of envi-
agrarian Third World societies, cultural ronmental alteration). Some of the ten-
ecologists nonetheless uncovered substan- sions and heterogeneities are reflected in
tial data on local ethnoscientific knowl- Blaikie and Brookfield's (1987) key text.
edges and the relations between cultural The authors raise a number of important
practices and resource management, but issues, including the social origins of
they typically placed these in an overarch- degradation, the plurality of perceptions
ing regulatory structure derived from the and definitions of ecological problems, the
cybernetic and self-correcting properties need to focus on the land manager, and
of closed living systems. Many societies the pressure of production on resources.
studied were actually part of large, But Blaikie and Brookfield try to tie
complex, open political economies, and it political ecology to an integration of what
was precisely this openness which in they refer to as Marxism and behavioral-
many cases seemed to undermine, or be ism. This attempts to: (1) link nature and
in contradiction with, the ideas of equilib- society dialectically; (2) explain degrada-
rium and homeostasis on which geogra- tion through chains of explanatory factors;
phers and anthropologists had drawn and (3) link resource managers to "exter-
(Nietschmann 1973). nal structures." At this point their concep-
By the late 1970s, propelled by the tion of political economy appears woolly
appeal of Marxism and political economy ("almost every element in the world
in the study of Third World development, economy," p. 68) and dispersed. Their
ecologically concerned social scientists emphasis on plurality comes perilously
attempted to weld together the compel- close to voluntarism; similarly, their
ling questions of the relations of produc- chains of explanation seem incapable of
tion in a global economy ("economic explaining how factors become causes.
change") with resource management and Particularly striking is the fact that politi-
environmental regulation (Grossman cal ecology has very little politics-there
1984; Watts 1983). By the 1980s, this is no serious attempt at treating the
attempt at synthesis met a second phase means by which control and access of
of environmental activism (the rise of the resources or property rights are defined,
Green movements worldwide) and a negotiated, and contested within the
recognition of the deepening global hu- political arenas of the household, the
man-induced modifications of the envi- workplace, and the state-and they adopt
ronment in part driven by the rapid a rather old-fashioned view of ecology
industrialization of parts of South America rooted in stability, resilience, and systems
and a renewed concern with demographic theory (Zimmerer 1991).
growth (Turner and Meyer 1992). The lacunae in Blaikie and Brookfield's
240 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

book, coupled with its broad interdiscipli- these ideas in various parts of the Third
nary focus, have pushed the field of World. Attempts at harnessing specific
political ecology in a number of important concepts drawn from political economy
and interesting directions. No attempt is also exist as a way of linking the two
made here to review the burgeoning field structures of nature and society. For
of political ecology-instead, many of example, how does the simple reproduc-
these concerns are raised directly by tion squeeze compel self-exploitation
papers in this issue-but rather we point among peasants who mine the soil; or how
to several fruitful avenues for debate and can functional dualism facilitate labor
empirical exploration. It is striking, none- migration which undermines local conser-
theless, how political ecology has, from its vation or constrains sustainable herding
inception, wrestled with the way manage- practices (Little and Horowitz 1987; Toul-
ment questions-whether regulatory ap- min 1992; Faber 1992; Stonich 1989;
paratuses, local knowledge systems, or Garcia Barrios and Garcia Barrios 1990;
new community groups-occupy an im- Turner, this special issue, Pt. 2).
portant space in civil society. As we A second broad thrust questions the
suggested in our map of development absence of a serious treatment of politics
theory, political ecology discourse in the in political ecology. Efforts at integrating
1990s also seems to be directly concerned political action-whether everyday resis-
with institutions and organizations in the tance, civic movements, or organized
context of shifting configurations of state party politics-into questions of resource
and market roles. access and control have proven especially
fruitful (Broad 1993; Kirby 1990). At the
New Directions in Political Ecology household management level, several
studies focus on gender struggles cen-
A number of loosely configured areas of tered around the environment (Agarwal
scholarship extend the frontiers of politi- 1992; Ramachandra Guha 1990; Macken-
cal ecology. The first attempts to refine zie 1991; see also Carney, this special
political economy in political ecology. issue, Pt. 2; and Schroeder, this issue, Pt.
Some of the most exciting new work 2), and there is substantial documentation
centers on efforts at explicitly retheorizing of the growing Third World environmen-
political economy and environment at tal-livelihood movements (Broad 1993;
several different levels. At the philosoph- Gadgil and Guha 1992; Hecht and Cock-
ical level there are debates about Marxism burn 1989). Peluso's brilliant study (1993)
and ecology (Benton 1989; Grundemann links the historiography of criminality
1991; see also Leff 1986) and about with everyday resistance to show how
whether the labor process is compatible state forest management is contested by
with eco-regulation and the notion of Indonesian peasants. "Liberation ecology"
biological limits. The work of O'Connor as a means of uniting nature with social
(1988) and the journal Capitalism, Nature, justice is a key theme in the emerging
Socialism start from the "second contra- body of work on the ecology of the poor
diction of capitalism." In this view, Marx (Martinez-Alier 1990) and in the large
identifies production conditions (nature, body of work on Indian environmental
labor power, and communal conditions of movements (see IICQ 1992).
production) which capital cannot produce A third focus is the complex analytical
for itself as commodities. The state and practical association of political ecol-
mediates, and hence politicizes, conflicts ogy and civil society. The growth of
around these conditions (environmental environmental movements largely unreg-
movements, feminism, and social move- ulated by, and distinct from, the state
ments) in an effort at maintaining capital- poses sharply the question of the relations
ist accumulation. Many contributions to between civil society and the environ-
Capitalism, Nature, Socialism explore ment. There are two obvious facets of
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 241
these relations, both of which have history in geography has recently been
received some attention. The first is the productively taken up in the context of
origins, development, and trajectories of conservation (Grove 1993; Neumann
the environmental associations and orga- 1992), the history of ecology (Bramwell
nizations (see Escobar 1992a; Ghai 1992; 1989), the production of nature in the
Socialist Review 1992). What are the laboratory (Harraway 1992) and in envi-
spaces within which these movements ronmental ideologies (Lewis 1992).
develop, and how, if at all, do they The question of doing environmental
articulate with other organizations and history represents a fifth aspect of an
resist the predations of the state (see invigorated political economy. In provid-
Bebbington, this special issue, pt. 1; ing much-needed historical depth to
Moore, this special issue, pt. 2)? The political ecology, environmental historians
second draws on the substantial literature raise important theoretical and methodo-
on local knowledges and ecological popu- logical questions for the study of long-
lisms (Warren 1991; Richards 1985). The term environmental change. The obvious
concern is not simply a salvage opera- theoretical contrasts between Worster
tion-recovering disappearing knowl- (1977), Merchant (1993), and Cronon
edges and management practices-but (1992) point to an extraordinaryheteroge-
rather a better understanding of both the neity in the field. Contained within each
regulatory systems in which they inhere is the idea of writing alternative histo-
(see the literature on common property, ries-of Chicago, imperialism, modes of
Ostrom 1990) and the conditions under production, early U.S. agriculture-from
which knowledges and practices become the perspective of long-term ecosystemic
part of alternative development strategies. change. In so doing, environmental histo-
In this latter sense we return to the rians meet on the same ground as a quite
politics of political ecology, but more different intellectual tradition, the so-
directly to the institutional and regulatory called agrarian question (cf. Kautsky
systems in which the knowledges and 1906), which attempts to chart the ways in
practices are encoded, negotiated, and which the biological character of agricul-
contested (see Jarosz, this special issue, ture shapes the trajectories of capitalist
pt. 2). development (Kloppenberg 1989). Oppor-
A fourth theme tackles head-on the tunities for exploring the capitalization of
problem of constructing and deconstruct- nature through "appropriation"and "sub-
ing sustainable development. Linked to stitution" (Goodman, Sorj, and Wilkinson
Blaikie and Brookfield's emphasis on the 1990), and their environmental ramifica-
plurality of perceptions and definitions, tions, can and should be readily seized by
discourse analysis (and more generally a political ecologists (see Arce and Mars-
concern with the social construction of den, this special issue, pt. 1; and Yapa,
knowledge) is deployed with effect in this special issue, pt. 1).
understanding the variety of environmen- Finally, there is the question of ecology
tal discourses around sustainability. Ad- in political ecology and the extent to
ams (1991) and others identify contrasting which political ecology is harnessed to
ideologies and the communities which somewhat outdated notions of environ-
contest its definition and domain. Taylor mental science. Botkin (1990) and Wor-
and Buttel (1992) trace the moral and ster (1977), among others, describe the
technocratic ways in which the new global relatively new ecological concepts which
discourse on the environment is privi- pose problems for the theory and practice
leged, and how in the formulation of of political ecology. The shift from 1960s
environmental science some courses of systems models to the ecology of chaos-
action are facilitated over others. The that is to say, chaotic fluctuations, disequi-
social construction of the environment libria, and instability-suggests that many
and nature as categories with a long previous studies of range management or
242 ECONOMICGEOGRAPHY

soil degradation resting on simple notions nous people of the Amazon have always
of stability, harmony, and resilience may lived there; the Amazonis our home. We
have to be rethought (Zimmerer 1991). know its secrets, both what it can offer us,
The new ecology is especially sensitive to and what its limits are. (statementby the
rethinking space-time relations to under- Co-ordinatingBody for the Indigenous
Organizations of the Amazonbasin, 1989)
stand the complex dynamics of local
environmental relations in the same way As we have intimated, political econ-
that the so-called dialectical biologists omy and political ecology have long
(Levins and Lewontin 1988) rethink the sustained strong interest in social move-
evolutionary dynamics of biological sys- ments. Much of this work begins with
tems. Notwithstanding Worster's (1977) Marxism and a dialectical version of
warning that disequilibria can easily func- historical change. In the dialectical view,
tion as a cover for legitimating environ- societal dynamics emerge from contradic-
mental destruction, some of the work on tory oppositions, crises, and social con-
agro-ecology (Gleissman 1990; Altieri and flicts. Thus, moments of contradiction
Hecht 1990; see also Zimmerer, this between the forces and relations of
special issue, pt. 1) suggests that the production are, for classical Marxists, the
rethinking of ecological science can be contexts in which a class existing "in-
effectively deployed in understanding the itself' engages in intensified political
complexities of local management (for struggle and becomes a class "for-itself'-
example, in intercropping and pest man- that is, a collective agency forcing histori-
agement). cal transformations.In Marx'sworks, class
All of these new directions are not is the main form of social engagement and
necessarily of a theoretical piece, and it control of the means of production its
remains to be seen where the conceptual primary terrain of struggle.
confluences and tensions will arise within
the political ecology of the 1990s. There Critique of Classical Models
is, however, an extraordinary vitality
within the field, reflecting the engage- "Post-Marxist"critiques, such as Cohen
ments within and between political econ- (1982), often accept Marxian principles of
omy, poststructuralism, discourse theory, class stratification and social antagonism,
and ecological science itself. A major site but challenge certain aspects of the
of such engagement is in the analysis of classical Marxist account. First, as Haber-
social and environmental movements, a mas (1971) argues, the conceptions of
field that draws together the explosive history as an evolutionary unfolding of the
growth of organizations and civic move- objective contradictions between the
ments around sustainability with an im- forces and relations of production (Marx
plicit critique of (and an alternative vision 1970) and of "the history of class strug-
of "development." It is to this "liberation gles" (Marx and Engels 1974, 84) do not
ecology" and the new social movements, easily cohere into a single theory. Second,
many of which emerged in the 1980s, to Marxist theory takes for granted the
which we now turn. penetration of all spheres of social life by a
single, productivist logic that privileges
economy and identifies class relations as
Social and Environmental key to the structure of domination and the
Movements: An Alternative forms of resistance in contemporary soci-
Development? ety. For Cohen (1982, xiii), this latter
Development can only occur when the assumption occludes the very aspects of
people it affectsparticipatein the design of society that must be interrogated and
the proposedpolicies,and the modelwhich precludes an understanding of the novelty
is implementedtherebycorrespondsto the of recent social movements.
local people's aspirations.... The indige- To a degree, neo-Marxist theorists have
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 243
rectified, but in some cases exaggerated, change is transformed into collective
deficiencies in the classical formulation. action (Klandermans and Tarrow 1988).
Four basic types of neo-Marxist theory Here it is clear that geography is both part
may be discerned. Theoreticians like of the structure (as with control of space,
Marcuse (1964) search for a substitute use of resources, and so forth) and part of
revolutionary subject to play the role the process by which structures become
previously assigned to the proletariat. collective actions (the influence of terrains
"New working class" theorists (Mallet of struggle on the forms and intensities of
1969; Gorz 1967; Aronowitz 1973) focus struggles-Ackelsberg and Breitbart
on changes in the structure of production 1987-88). Even the clarification of terms
~~~~3. .

like "terrains, fields of action,"3-~ arenas"

P19

in welfare state capitalism to provide a

.`dss
a s `

new strategy for labor. Structural Marxist (Rucht 1988) is just beginning. But we
class analysis (Poulantzas 1973; Wright find this an area of inquiry rich in
1979) rejects many of the features stressed potential.
by humanist Marxism to concentrate on
classes defined as effects of structures.
Theorists of the "new intellectual class" The Self-Production of Society
(Gouldner 1979; Szeleny and Konrad Given the (partly valid) critiques of
1979) transfer attention from workers to Marxian and resource-mobilization theo-
critical intellectuals. But for critics like ries, much of the recent work on social
Cohen (1982, 3), the presupposition be- movements has drawn, instead, on a
hind neo-Marxism remains that produc- tradition in French social theory initiated
tion relations are key to the logics of civil by Castoriadis (1975) and continued, in
society and radical social movements. modified form, by Touraine (1977). As
Cohen (1985) also criticizes the "re- with Marx, Castoriadis begins with the
source-mobilization paradigm" based in physical environment, the biological prop-
conflict models of collective action (Tilly, erties of human beings, and the necessity
Tilly, and Tilly 1975; Gamson 1975; of material and sexual reproduction, for
Oberschall 1973). Here the assumption is which fragments of logic and applied
that conflicts of interest are built into knowledge must be created. But he claims
institutionalized power relations, with this would be as true for apes as it is for
collective action involving the rational humans. Instead, for Castoriadis (1991,
pursuit of interests by conflicting groups. 41):
Insisting on the strategic-instrumental
rationality of collective action and the The constructionof its own world by each
orientation to interests by collective ac- and every society is, in essence, the
tors, this position occupies ground creationof a world of meanings,its social
imaginarysignifications,which organizethe
mapped out by Olson (1965). As with his (pre-social, "biologically given") natural
work, it remains unclear why individuals world, institute a social world proper to
acting rationally in pursuit of their inter- each society (with its articulations,rules,
ests get involved in groups (the "free rider purposes,etc.), establishthe ways in which
problem" (Miller 1992)) and what makes socializedand humanizedindividualsare to
groups solidary in the first place. Also, be fabricated,and insaturatethe motives,
many post-Marxist theorists maintain that values, and hierarchiesof social (human)
neo-utilitarian, rational-actor models are life. Society leans upon the first natural
inapplicable, for collective interaction stratum, but only to erect a fantastically
involves something other than strategic or complex(andamazinglycoherent)edificeof
significationswhich vest any and every
instrumental rationality (Habermas thing with meaning.
1984).
The result of such criticisms is a The task of "knowing" a society therefore
position which tries to analyze the condi- consists in reconstituting the world of its
tions and processes by which structural social imaginary significations. For Casto-
244 ECONOMicGEOGRAPHY

riadis (1991, 34): "History does not occurs over control of the main cultural
happen to society: history is the self- patterns through which relationships with
deployment of society." His notion is that the environment are normatively orga-
the elements of social-historical life are nized. Most significantly, for Touraine,
created each time (in terms of relevancy, class struggles and social movements
meaning, connections, and so forth) in and express conscious contestation over the
through the particular institution of soci- "self production of society," by which he
ety to which they "belong." Each social- means the work society performs on itself
historical instance thus has an essential by reinventing its norms, institutions, and
singularity: phenomenologically specific practices. Struggles over historicity lie at
in the social forms and individuals it the center of the functioning of society
creates, ontologically specific in that it can and of the process by which society is
put itself into question, able to explicitly created.
alter itself through self-reflective activity.
Similarly, Touraine (1988) replaces the From Neo- to Post-Marxism in Urban
construct of society as a system driven by Social Movements
an inner logic with society as a "field of
action." His stress lies on the social praxis Drawing on the Marxist tradition, but
involved in the genesis of norms and the again differing significantly from it, a
conflicts over their interpretations. series of works appearing in the late 1970s
Whereas in Marxism classes are defined and 1980s explored the connections be-
structurally by positions in the production tween contradictions, crises, and urban
process, for Touraine they are defined social conflicts. This work was precipi-
purely in terms of social action. Touraine tated by the rise of protest movements in
also distinguishes himself from what he the late 1960s and 1970s (civil rights,
regards as the main message of structural- student, feminist, environmental) which
poststructural social theory. From Mar- came to be referred to as the new social
cuse to Althusser to Foucault and Bour- movements. In Castells's (1977) early
dieu the claim is that social life is nothing Althusserian work, urban social move-
more than "the system of signs of an ments respond to structural contradic-
unrelenting domination" (Touraine 1988, tions, although, as opposed to classical
71); in such systems radical social move- Marxism, these are of a plural-class and
ments would be quickly shunted to the secondary nature, involving not control
margins. But for Touraine, the necessary over the means of production but lack of
decomposition of society, the passage collective goods and services, the relega-
from one cultural and societal field to tion of groups to the decaying inner cities,
another, makes possible the entry of social and similar deprivations. Protest move-
movements. ments organize around common interests
At the core of his analysis lies the on a variety of terrains of struggle, often in
"cultural orientations common to actors opposition to the state and other political
who are in conflict over the management and sociocultural institutions, rather than
of these orientations, for the benefit of the economically ruling class directly. By
either an innovative ruling class or, on the the early 1980s Castells (1983, 299) was
contrary, those who are subordinated to arguing even more strongly that "the
its domination" (Touraine 1988, 155). For concept of social movement as an agent of
Touraine (1985, 750-54) social conflicts social transformation is strictly unthink-
involve the competitive pursuit of collec- able in the Marxist theory." Influenced by
tive interests and the reconstitution of Touraine, he argues that social change
social, cultural, or political identity; they happens when a new urban meaning is
combine a political force aimed at chang- produced through a process of conflict,
ing the rules of the game with a defense of domination, and resistance to domination.
status or privilege; but above all, conflict For Castells (1983, 311), then, "the new
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 245
emerging social movements call for the says, crises involved a total model of
pre-eminence of human experience over society and social struggles developed a
state power and capitalist profit." unified political imaginary. In the twenti-
Another sequence of works in the eth century, by comparison, the multipli-
post-Marxist vein stems from collabora- cation of points of rupture in society leads
tion between Laclau and Mouffe. Mouffe to a proliferation of antagonisms, each
(1984) argues that the commodification of tending to create its own space and to
social life, bureaucratization, and "cultural directly politicize a specific area of social
massification" have created new forms of relations. What Laclau (1985, 39) calls the
subordination in terms of which new "moment of totalization" in the political
social movements should be interpreted. imaginary is now restricted to specific
Laclau and Mouffe (1985) find the com- demands in particular circumstances.
mon demoninator of all the new social Rather than finding this a political retreat,
movements (urban, ecological, feminist, Laclau finds the democratic potential of
antiracist, regional, sexual minorities) to the new social movements to lie precisely
be their differentiation from workers' in their implicit demands for a radically
struggles considered as class struggles. open and indeterminate view of society.
Indeed, Laclau (1985, 29) argues that:
"Categories such as 'working class,' 'pe- New Social Movements in the
tite bourgeois,' etc. [have become] less Third World
and less meaningful as ways of under-
standing the overall identity of social Recent thinking on social movements
agents. The concept of 'class struggle' for has therefore involved a movement away
example, is neither correct nor incor- from what are frequently found to be the
rect-it is, simply, totally insufficient as a restrictions of classical theories. During
way of accounting for contemporary social the 1980s, the geographic focus of research
conflicts." For Laclau (1985, 27), the new shifted from urban social movements in
social movements have precipitated a Western Europe and the United States to
crisis in the way social agents and social new social movements in the Third
conflict are theorized. It has become World, particularly Latin America. A
increasingly difficult to identify social multiplicity of groups independent of
groups with a coherent system of subject traditional trade unions and political
positions. Transformations in the twenti- parties, squatter movements and neigh-
eth century weakened the ties between borhood councils, baselevel communities
the subject's various identities, so that, for within the Catholic church, indiginist
example, the worker's position in the associations, women's associations, human
relations of production and his or her rights' committees, youth meetings, edu-
position as consumer, resident, political cational and artistic activities, coalitions
participant, and so forth have become for the defense of regional traditions and
increasingly autonomous. This autonomy interests, and self-help groupings among
lies at the root of the specificity of the new unemployed and poor people created a
social movements. Thus for Laclau sub- new social reality which, in Evers's (1985,
ject-positions always display openness and 44) terms, "lies beyond the realm of
ambiguity and there is no fully acquired traditional modes of perception and in-
social identity. Furthermore, the social struments of interpretation." Radical the-
contradictions to which social agents orists involved with these movements
respond cannot be reduced to moments in found in them potential for a new political
the operation of an underlying societal hegemony constructed through the direct
logic-"the social is in the last instance action of the masses. This radical opti-
groundless" (Laclau 1985, 34). This leads mism was tempered in the second half of
toward a differing conception of radical the 1980s as some movements declined
politics. In the nineteenth century, Laclau and their limited potential was realized.
246 ECONoMIc GEOGRAPHY

At the same time, poststructural and By the time of Domination and the Arts
postmodern approaches were increasingly of Resistance, Scott's (1990, 14) attention
explored in Third World social move- was drawn more toward poststructural
ments research. issues of "how power relations affected
Although not strictly in the social discourse." Scott works under the (tenta-
movements tradition, some of the more tive) premise that there are structurally
interesting ideas derive from the work of similar forms of domination and that these
Scott (1985, 1990). Scott criticizes struc- elicit broadly comparable reactions and
turalist variants of Marxism for assuming patterns of resistance. Focusing on ex-
that the nature of class relations in a Third treme powerlessness, he argues that
World society can be inferred from a few slaves, serfs, and members of lower castes
diagnostic features like the dominant ordinarily dare not openly contest the
mode of production. He agrees that terms of subordination. "Behind the
economic factors place limits on the scenes, though, they are likely to create
situations faced by human actors, but and defend a social space in which offstage
within these limits people fashion their dissent to the official transcript of power
own responses, their own experiences of relations may be voiced" (Scott 1990, x).
class, their own histories. Also, class does The fugitive political conduct of subordi-
not exhaust the total explanatory space of nate groups may be read and interpreted
social actions, especially in peasant vil- in a different kind of study of power that
lages, where kinship, neighborhood, fac- uncovers contradictions, tensions, and
tion and ritual links are competing foci of immanent possibilities:
human identity and solidarity: "the messy
Every subordinategroupcreates,out of its
reality of multiple identities [is] the ordeal, a "hidden transcript"that repre-
experience out of which social relations sents a critiqueof powerspokenbehindthe
are conducted" (Scott 1985, 43). back of the dominant.The powerful, for
Drawing on phenomenology and eth- their part, also develop a hidden transcript
nomethodology, Scott (1985, 80) argues representing the practices and claims of
that subordinate classes "have rarely been their rule that cannotbe openly avowed.A
afforded the luxury of open, organized, comparisonof the hidden transcriptof the
political activity," which is the preserve of weak with that of the powerfuland of both
the middle classes and intelligentsia. hiddentranscriptsto the publictranscriptof
Instead, he focuses on: power relationsoffers a substantiallynew
way of understandingresistanceto domina-
everydayforms of peasant resistance-the tion. (Scott1990,xii)
prosaicbut constantstrugglebetween the
peasantryand those who seek to extract Drawing more directly on poststruc-
labor, food, taxes, rents and interest from tural themes, Escobar (1992b) sees social
them. Mostof the formsthis struggletakes movements equally as cultural struggles
stop well short of outrightcollective defi- over meaning and over material condi-
ance. Here I have in mind the ordinary tions and needs. Yet cultural politics are
weaponsof relativelypowerlessgroups:foot rarely visible in conventional forms of
dragging,dissimulation,false compliance, analysis. Escobar draws together a num-
pilfering,feigned ignorance,slander,arson, ber of themes which might make the
sabotage,and so forth.(Scott1985,29) cultural dimension more visible. His first
In struggles over land, everyday resis- theme is a more accurate theorization of
tance might entail piecemeal peasant the practice of everyday life through
squatting on plantation or state forest which culture is created and reproduced,
land; open defiance, by contrast, would be locating daily life at the intersection of the
a public invasion that challenges property articulation of meaning through practice
rights. Everyday forms of resistance are on the one hand and macro processes of
often the most significant and effective domination on the other. His second
over the long run. theme is the need to rethink the relations
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 247
between everyday life, culture, and poli- World "environmental movements" (Ghai
tics, in terms, for example, of Touraine's and Vivian 1992). While some conven-
(1981, 1988) notion of historicity, or of tional work posits simple and unmediated
Melucci's (1980, 1988) proposition that relationships between environmental
networks of relationships submerged in change and social instability-civil strife
everyday life lie behind the creation of (see Homer-Dixon, Boutwell, and
cultural models and symbolic challenges Rathjens 1993), the environmental move-
by movements, or of Laclau and Mouffe's ments literature tends to the local in its
(1985) argument that politics is a discur- purview and often focuses on efforts to
sive articulatory process. Third, a mi- take resources out of the marketplace, to
crosociology and ethnography of popular construct a sort of moral economy of the
resistance is developing, as with de environment. Broad (1993), for example,
Certeau's (1984) notion that the "marginal documents what she calls a new citizens'
majority" effect multiple, infinitesimal movement in the Philippines (5-6 million
changes in the dominant forms under strong), consisting of "mass-based organi-
which they live, Fiske's (1989, 10) claim zations" which arise from the intersection
for "semiotic resistance," which originates of political-economic plunder and local
in the "desire of the subordinate to exert demands for participation and justice. In
control over the meaning of their lives," much of this literature the label "environ-
and Williams's (1980) insistence that mental" is hardly appropriate, since the
residual and emerging practices continue proliferation of grass roots and NGO
to exist that have a collective character movements often focus on livelihoods and
and which can provide a basis for resis- justice. It is striking how indigenous
tance and collective action. Generally, the rights movements, conservation politics,
idea for Escobar (1992b) is to relate food security, the emphasis on local
structural theories of global transforma- knowledges,3 and calls for access to, and
tion to the "subjective mapping of experi- control over, local resources (broadly,
ence. democratization) crosscut the environ-
The notion of everyday resistance, ment-poverty axis. This multidimension-
social movements writ large, may be ality is, according to some (Escobar
combined with an interest in the dis- 1992a), indicative of a new mode of doing
courses of protest. A wide array of popular politics, autopoietic (that is to say, self-
statements which often appear only at the producing and self-organizing) move-
local level may be read as evidences of ments which exercise power outside the
environmental resistance. Academic work state arena and which seek to create
can usefully compare this "documentary" "decentered autonomous spaces."
evidence with a critique of the hegemonic These are ambitious (and in some cases
discourse on development and environ- myopic) claims, but whatever their poten-
ment. Here the mission is to pose the tial and scope, it is striking how little is
alternatives in stronger terms. Rather said in the environment-as-social-move-
than "speaking for" subaltern peoples, the ment literature about the conditions
idea is to help uncover the discourses of under which local movements transcend
resistance, put them into wider circula- their locality (and hence contribute to the
tion, create networks of ideas. Rather than building of a robust civil society) and
saying what peasant consciousness should about the problem of productivity and
be if it is to be "correct," the idea is to
allow discourses to speak for themselves.
3There are now several international indig-
Environmental Movements enous knowledge networks, including the
Indigenous Knowledge and Development Mon-
Many of these ideas have been de- itor (CIRAN, P.O. Box 29777, 2502 LT, The
ployed in the analysis of burgeoning Third Hague, The Netherlands).
248 GEOGRAPHY
ECONOMIC

growth in the face of mass poverty. environment is greatly enhanced. Fur-

Whatever their shortcomings analytically, thermore, one of the great merits of the
however, the existence of such grass roots turn to discourse, broadly understood,
livelihood movements-rubber tappers in within political ecology is the demands it
eastern Amazonia, tree huggers in North makes for nuanced, richly textured empir-
India, or indian communities fighting ical work (a sort of political-ecological
transnational oil companies in Ecuador- thick description). Some of the contribu-
represents for the new social movements tions to this special issue precisely capture
community the building blocks for an this fine-grained and culturally sensitive
"alternative to development" (Sachs analysis.
1992). Discourse theory, however, often re-
mains only at the level of discourse,
disembodied and suspended from the
Conclusion complex and contradictory material condi-
Ourconceptrefersto a peoplewho not only tions in which discourses about the
play a full part in historicaldevelopment environment are deeply imbricated
but actively usurp it, force its pace, (Whatmore and Boucher 1993). Discourse
determineits direction.We have a people that remains only discourse produces, as
in mind who make history, change the Hegel once pointed out, boring man. In
world and ourselves. We have in mind a this sense, the recent literature on social
fightingpeople and thereforean aggressive movements, which has usefully clarified
conceptof what is popular.(BertoltBrecht, what in vulgar Marxism were seen as
cited in McGuigan1992, 14)
direct and unproblematic relations be-
The poststructural and postmodern cri- tween crises and social movements, itself
tique of Western science as rationality in has serious shortcomings. Multiple mean-
its pure and universal form opens the way ings and collective identity formation do
for a fuller understanding of the multiplic- not cohere automatically to yield a social
ity of ways of comprehending the devel- movement as an automatic response to a
opment-environment nexus. Poststruc- situation of crisis. By contrast, exploring
tural analysis begins with the devastating contradictions as material and discursive
environmental consequences of moder- gives to poststructural theory what is
nity, but deepens this practical critique by often missing, a sense of concrete reality.
arguing for context-dependent, substan- For example, the search for "meaning" is
tially different local discourses about not conducted in a purely personal,
environment and development, each introspective way, nor in a social vacuum,
marked by its own contradictions, each but under definite material and social
with lessons to teach and problems to conditions. These conditions are reflected
avoid. The poststructural critique of "the on, and appear in, the formation of
rational," by tracing the links between meaning.
ecology and imperialism (science backing In our view, accounts of environment
colonial hegemony), allows for a retrieval and development should begin with the
of peasant and indigenous discourses on overall contradictory character of relations
nature, land use, and ecological regulation between societies and natural environ-
and management. In so doing, there is no ments and recognize that dialectics re-
a priori need to romanticize precapitalist mains a compelling theory of contradic-
or non-Western relations between society tion, crisis, and change. But we would
and nature, as Shiva (1991) unconvinc- argue that poststructural theory, which
ingly attempts to do. Rather, if "rational- owes much of its appeal to the decon-
ity" is reconceptualized in pragmatic struction of the Western myths of science,
terms as contextualized forms of "careful truth, and rationality, itself has fabricated
thinking," the opportunity for an ex- a mythology about the dialectic or, rather,
change of information about relations with has taken the "dialectic" of Stalin's iron
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND ENVIRONMENT 249
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