Natural Resources and Social Conflict: Towards Critical Environmental Security (International Political Economy Series)

This volume brings together international scholars reflecting on the theory and practice of international security, human security, natural resources and environmental change. It contributes by 'centering the margins' and privileging alternative conceptions and understandings of environmental (in)security. "This is an exciting contribution that advances theories of environmental security. The chapters fuse critical perspectives on environmental security with evidence from developing and developed regions to offer a coherent perspective on the discursive practices of environmental security and their material consequences. Spanning global to local scales, and weaving together theories about justice, power, security and the state, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in critical environmental security studies."--Jon Barnett, Professor of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia 'The very ideas of environmental security and environmental conflict have been controversial from their inception. In mapping the complex connections between the biophysical world, natural resources and collective violence, the devil is always in the details. The great strength of this book is that it approaches the field with a critical eye and a refusal to accept conventional wisdom by always being attentive to what the editors call rethinking security from the bottom up. Whether tackling the challenges of the Canadian tar sands or coltan in Congo, this volume represents an important challenge to the old environmental world order of the first Earth Summit in Rio and offers us instead a compelling vision of how to grasp the radical environmental insecurities confronting the global underclasses.' - Michael Watts, Professor of Geography and Development Studies, University of California-Berkeley, USA The authors challenge prevailing claims about environmental security by reorienting our understanding of the relationship between natural resources and political violence towards one focused on environmental insecurity. This critical environmental security approach begins with analytical questions that are often left out of studies premised on maintaining conditions of security. Whose security is being secured? Who defines conditions of security? How do changing degrees of control and access over the environment contribute to insecurity? The issue of how security reflects broader patterns of political struggle and social control are underscored through empirically grounded, context-specific studies. The contributors encourage new ways of thinking about environmental security by privileging alternative conceptions and understandings that focus on rights, justice and access. They provide the first steps toward articulating a critical analysis of environmental security that dislodges the state as the preferred level of analysis and questions key assumptions that underlie much of the existing literature "This volume brings together international scholars reflecting on the theory and practice of international security, human security, natural resources and environmental change. It contributes by 'centring the margins' and privileging alternative conceptions and understandings of environmental (in)security."--Pub. desc