Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor

Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 371
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674247994
ISBN-13 : 067424799X
Rating : 4/5 (94 Downloads)

Synopsis Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor by : Rob Nixon

“Groundbreaking in its call to reconsider our approach to the slow rhythm of time in the very concrete realms of environmental health and social justice.” —Wold Literature Today The violence wrought by climate change, toxic drift, deforestation, oil spills, and the environmental aftermath of war takes place gradually and often invisibly. Using the innovative concept of "slow violence" to describe these threats, Rob Nixon focuses on the inattention we have paid to the attritional lethality of many environmental crises, in contrast with the sensational, spectacle-driven messaging that impels public activism today. Slow violence, because it is so readily ignored by a hard-charging capitalism, exacerbates the vulnerability of ecosystems and of people who are poor, disempowered, and often involuntarily displaced, while fueling social conflicts that arise from desperation as life-sustaining conditions erode. In a book of extraordinary scope, Nixon examines a cluster of writer-activists affiliated with the environmentalism of the poor in the global South. By approaching environmental justice literature from this transnational perspective, he exposes the limitations of the national and local frames that dominate environmental writing. And by skillfully illuminating the strategies these writer-activists deploy to give dramatic visibility to environmental emergencies, Nixon invites his readers to engage with some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

Environmental Violence

Environmental Violence
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Total Pages : 263
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781009170796
ISBN-13 : 1009170791
Rating : 4/5 (96 Downloads)

Synopsis Environmental Violence by : Richard A. Marcantonio

The book develops the concept of environmental violence as a potent tool to identify, track, reduce environmental threats to humanity.

Environment, Scarcity, and Violence

Environment, Scarcity, and Violence
Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Total Pages : 272
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781400822997
ISBN-13 : 1400822998
Rating : 4/5 (97 Downloads)

Synopsis Environment, Scarcity, and Violence by : Thomas F. Homer-Dixon

The Earth's human population is expected to pass eight billion by the year 2025, while rapid growth in the global economy will spur ever increasing demands for natural resources. The world will consequently face growing scarcities of such vital renewable resources as cropland, fresh water, and forests. Thomas Homer-Dixon argues in this sobering book that these environmental scarcities will have profound social consequences--contributing to insurrections, ethnic clashes, urban unrest, and other forms of civil violence, especially in the developing world. Homer-Dixon synthesizes work from a wide range of international research projects to develop a detailed model of the sources of environmental scarcity. He refers to water shortages in China, population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, and land distribution in Mexico, for example, to show that scarcities stem from the degradation and depletion of renewable resources, the increased demand for these resources, and/or their unequal distribution. He shows that these scarcities can lead to deepened poverty, large-scale migrations, sharpened social cleavages, and weakened institutions. And he describes the kinds of violence that can result from these social effects, arguing that conflicts in Chiapas, Mexico and ongoing turmoil in many African and Asian countries, for instance, are already partly a consequence of scarcity. Homer-Dixon is careful to point out that the effects of environmental scarcity are indirect and act in combination with other social, political, and economic stresses. He also acknowledges that human ingenuity can reduce the likelihood of conflict, particularly in countries with efficient markets, capable states, and an educated populace. But he argues that the violent consequences of scarcity should not be underestimated--especially when about half the world's population depends directly on local renewables for their day-to-day well-being. In the next decades, he writes, growing scarcities will affect billions of people with unprecedented severity and at an unparalleled scale and pace. Clearly written and forcefully argued, this book will become the standard work on the complex relationship between environmental scarcities and human violence.

Climate Change and Genocide

Climate Change and Genocide
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 145
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781317502319
ISBN-13 : 1317502310
Rating : 4/5 (19 Downloads)

Synopsis Climate Change and Genocide by : Jürgen Zimmerer

Climate change caused by human activity is the most fundamental challenge facing mankind in the 21st century, since it will drastically alter the living conditions of millions of people, mainly in the Global South. Environmental violence, including resource crises such as peak fossil fuel, will lie at the heart of future conflicts. However, Genocide Studies have so far neglected this subject, due to the emphasis that traditional genocide scholarship places on ideology and legal prosecution, leading to a narrow understanding of the driving forces of genocide. This books aims at changing this, initiating a dialogue between scholars working in the areas of climate change and genocide. Research into genocide as well as climate change is a highly interdisciplinary endeavour, transcending the boundaries of established disciplines. Contributions to this book address this by approaching the subject from a wide array of methodological, theoretical, disciplinary and regional perspectives. As all the contributions show, climate change is a major threat multiplier for violence or non-violent destruction and any understanding of prevention needs to take this into account. They offer a basis for much needed Critical Prevention Studies, which aims at sustainable prevention. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights.

A Research Agenda for Geographies of Slow Violence

A Research Agenda for Geographies of Slow Violence
Author :
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages : 256
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781788978033
ISBN-13 : 178897803X
Rating : 4/5 (33 Downloads)

Synopsis A Research Agenda for Geographies of Slow Violence by : Shannon O’Lear

This timely Research Agenda highlights how slow violence, unlike other forms of conflict and direct, physical violence, is difficult to see and measure. It explores ways in which geographers study, analyze and draw attention to forms of harm and violence that have often not been at the forefront of public awareness, including slow violence affecting children, women, Indigenous peoples, and the environment.

Deleuze and Environmental Damage

Deleuze and Environmental Damage
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 294
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781351945523
ISBN-13 : 1351945521
Rating : 4/5 (23 Downloads)

Synopsis Deleuze and Environmental Damage by : Mark Halsey

This book offers a post-structuralist critique of the problems associated with modernist accounts of environmental harm and regulation. Through a notably detailed micro-political analysis of forest conflict, the author explores the limits of academic commentary on environmental issues and suggests that the traditional variables of political economy, race and gender need to be recast in light of four key modalities through which 'the environment' and 'environmental damage' are (re)produced. Focusing on vision, speed, lexicon and affect, the book engages a new ethic for categorizing and regulating 'nature' and challenges criminologists, sociologists, cultural theorists and others to reconsider what it is possible to say and do about environmental problems.

Violent Environments

Violent Environments
Author :
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Total Pages : 468
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0801487110
ISBN-13 : 9780801487118
Rating : 4/5 (10 Downloads)

Synopsis Violent Environments by : Nancy Lee Peluso

Do environmental problems and processes produce violence? Current U.S. policy about environmental conflict and scholarly work on environmental security assume direct causal links between population growth, resource scarcity, and violence. This belief, a staple of governmental decision-making during both Clinton administrations and widely held in the environmental security field, depends on particular assumptions about the nature of the state, the role of population growth, and the causes of environmental degradation.The conventional understanding of environmental security, and its assumptions about the relation between violence and the environment, are challenged and refuted in Violent Environments. Chapters by geographers, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists include accounts of ethnic war in Indonesia, petro-violence in Nigeria and Ecuador, wildlife conservation in Tanzania, and "friendly fire" at Russia's nuclear weapons sites. Violent Environments portrays violence as a site-specific phenomenon rooted in local histories and societies, yet connected to larger processes of material transformation and power relations. The authors argue that specific resource environments, including tropical forests and oil reserves, and environmental processes (such as deforestation, conservation, or resource abundance) are constituted by and in part constitute the political economy of access to and control over resources. Violent Environments demands new approaches to an international set of complex problems, powerfully arguing for deeper, more ethnographically informed analyses of the circumstances and processes that cause violence.

Seeing Green

Seeing Green
Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Total Pages : 346
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780226169903
ISBN-13 : 0226169901
Rating : 4/5 (03 Downloads)

Synopsis Seeing Green by : Finis Dunaway

"Over 15 chapters, Dunaway transforms what we know about icons and events. Seeing Green is the first history of ads, films, political posters, and magazine photography in the postwar American environmental movement. From fear of radioactive fallout during the Cold War to anxieties about global warming today, images have helped to produce what Dunaway calls "ecological citizenship, " telling us that "we are all to blame." Dunaway heightens our awareness of how depictions of environmental catastrophes are constructed, manipulated, and fought over" -- Publisher information.

Environmental Defenders

Environmental Defenders
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 273
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781000402216
ISBN-13 : 1000402215
Rating : 4/5 (16 Downloads)

Synopsis Environmental Defenders by : Mary Menton

This book is about environmental defenders and the violence they face while seeking to protect their land and the environment. Between 2002 and 2019, at least two thousand people were killed in 57 countries for defending their lands and the environment. Recent policy initiatives and media coverage have provided much needed attention to the protection and support of defenders, but there has so far been little scholarly work. This edited volume explains who these defenders are, what threats they face, and what can be done to help support and protect them. Delving deep into the complex relations between and within communities, corporations, and government authorities, the book highlights the diversity of defenders, the collective character of their struggles, the many drivers and forms of violence they are facing, as well as the importance of emotions and gendered dimensions in protests and repression. Drawing on global case studies, it examines the violence taking place around different types of development projects, including fossil fuels, agro-industrial, renewable energy, and infrastructure. The volume also examines the violence surrounding conservation projects, including through militarized wildlife protection and surveillance technologies. The book concludes with a reflection on the perspectives of defenders about the best ways to support and protect them. It contrasts these with the lagging efforts of an international community often promoting economic growth over the lives of defenders. This volume is essential reading for all interested in understanding the challenges faced by environmental defenders and how to help and support them. It will also appeal to students, scholars and practitioners involved in environmental protection, environmental activism, human rights, social movements and development studies.

The Routledge International Handbook of Violence Studies

The Routledge International Handbook of Violence Studies
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 656
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781351981545
ISBN-13 : 1351981544
Rating : 4/5 (45 Downloads)

Synopsis The Routledge International Handbook of Violence Studies by : Walter S. DeKeseredy

Violence is a serious public health problem. The number of violent deaths tells only part of the story, and many more survive violence and are left with permanent physical and emotional scars. Violence also erodes communities by reducing productivity, decreasing property values, and disrupting social services. In recent years, scholars have broadened their definitions of violence beyond the realm of interpersonal harms such as murder, armed robbery, and male-to-female physical and sexual assaults in intimate relationships, to include behaviors often ignored by the criminal justice system, such as human rights violations, racism, psychological abuse, state terrorism, environmental violations, and war. Guided by this broader definition of violence, this handbook offers state of the art research in the field and brings together international experts to discuss empirical, theoretical, and policy issues.