To understand the factors that lead to the emergence of new social actors and processes, as well as the underlying forces of inertia and resistance,

the emphasis in social science is on broader understanding of the relations between ecology, technology and society.

Generally it is believed that environmental studies must be informed by pluralist and comparative assessment of different cultures and traditions of research .

Political ecology is a relatively new field of research that has been widely discussed and much used in recent analyses of interactions between humans and the environment.

Political ecology is an interdisciplinary approach  Central to political ecology is the in-depth

examination of social structures in their global and historical contexts to explain environmental change.

The analysis of the various  actors, their interests, actions, and the discourses that look at environmentally induced conflicts . 

Their focus remains on  political conflicts between stakeholders at different levels of administration and relations.

The other influential line of argument concerns the reflection on resource access and use and power – mainly viewed through the lens of gender. 

Among the questions that political ecology deals with are: (i) how both nature and societal structures determine each other and shape access to natural resources; (ii) how constructed concepts/knowledge about society and nature contribute to shaping human-environment relations; (iii) connections between access to and control over resources and environmental change.

“political ecology” is an area of research identified in the critical research perspective inspired by cultural and political economic studies [political economy]

Much of the political ecology thinking was confined to a rural, third world context until recently .

Now extended to urban areas. UPE is now an influential approach to ecological studies.

This approach allows an investigation into the complex issues of how particular urban environment is produced ; and who gains and who loses due to particular power relations ; and who are actors influencing changes within the urban environment .

> (Kaika, 2005; Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003; Swyngedouw and Kaika, 2000; Braun and Castree, 1998; Swyngedouw, 1996).

Urban Political Economy is seen in politico-material and geographic perspectives;

Seen as a collage of past and present, a combination of different elements that binds the concrete fabric of the city and its commodification (Harvey);

So , for urban political ecologists, uncovering the intricate power relations is extremely important for understanding contemporary socio-environmental processes.

Political ecology scholarship has been largely motivated by the ethics of socio-environmental justice which is also the central concern of environmental justice movement and literature.

An important insight of environmental justice perspective is that neither the costs of pollution nor the benefits of environmental protection are evenly distributed in our society .

These disparities stem from socio-economic and political inequalities .

Therefore , political ecology approach combines elements of civil rights, social justice, and respect for environment .

--- committed to reversing past practices that have had the effect of placing disproportionately large ecological and economic burdens on the poorer sections of the population (Faber, 1998)

For instance, grassroots movement-based perspective defines environment as “the place you work, the place where you live.

One of the characteristics of political ecology is that it is not a coherent ‘grand’ theory, but rather a specific lens through which one can examine the interactions between the environment and society.

Scholars do so from different viewpoints and relying on very different disciplinary backgrounds (geography, anthropology, sociology, political

science, economics, history and management).

Very often diametrically opposed paradigms and theories (for instance,liberal and neo-liberal vs. neo-Marxist; positivistic versus post positivistic , ecocentric and anthropocentric; north and south] are brought forward by researchers who deal with a similar field of scientific inquiry, i.e. human-nature interactions and their mutual effects.

Most works in the field of political ecology are distinct case studies of different, local real-life problems.

Prior to the 1970s the term “political ecology” had appeared in a number of studies on land use and political economy.

Since mid 1980s this approach looks at environmental questions basing on a neo-Malthusian framework.

The original theorem of Malthus stated that while food production levels grow at a linear rate, human population grows at geometric rate if unchecked.

Malthus predicted a decrease of available food per capita with ensuing famines and the eventual extinction of the human race.

This general idea of ecologic determinism was taken up and broadened to include other resources than food.

The assumption was made that population pressure on resources (PPR) leads to resource scarcity.

Within the mainstream environmental conflict and security studies published since the beginning of the 1990s, a great number of scholars analyse conflict or war as a result of resource scarcity.

One of the best-known neo-Malthusian scholars who links resource scarcity to conflict is Homer-Dixon (1994; 1996; 1998).

in classical models of common resource theories much emphasis is placed on individual actions and private interests as explained by Elinor Ostrom and G Hardin with respect to use and outcome of the resource use.

According to Garret Hardin, individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resources. This he explicated in an essay : The Tragedy of the Commons", published in the journal, Science. 

The tragedy of the commons can be considered in relation to environmental issues such as sustainability.

The common’s dilemma stands as a model for a great variety of resource problems in society today, such as water, forests, fish, and non-renewable energy sources such as oil and coal.

Common property regimes arise when appropriators acting independently threaten the total net benefit from common-pool resource.

In common property regimes, access to the resource is not free, and common-pool resources are not public goods. While there is relatively free but monitored access to the resource system for community members, there are mechanisms in place which allow the community to exclude outsiders from using its resource.

Analysing the design of long-enduring CPR institutions, Elinor Ostrom identified eight design principles which are prerequisites for a stable CPR arrangement:

Clearly defined boundaries ;Congruence between appropriation and provision of rules and local conditions;

Collective-choice arrangements allowing for the participation of most of the appropriators in the decision making process;

Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators; Graduated sanctions for appropriators who do not respect community

rules; Conflict-resolution mechanisms which are cheap and easy of access; Minimal recognition of rights to organize (e.g., by the government) ; In case

of larger CPRs:

Organisation in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small, local CPRs at their bases.

There has been some further development in the political ecology approach in landmark studies done by political ecologists.

For instance in a study done by Blaikie and Brookfield (1987), the authors described the intertwined and reciprocal relations between land use and the environment in the case of soil erosion. [Blaikie, Piers and Harold Brookfield. 1987. Land Degradation and Society]

In the past, it was thought to be result of human actions.

But now the authors show that the cause of soil erosion also because of certain networks and a distinct form of social structure .

For instance, Blaikie and Brookfield (1987), based on the analysis of marginality.

The ecological concept of marginal zones where population pressure on flora or fauna is high,

and the concept of marginality where the population of raw material producing zones do not get their due share of the revenues;

analyse land degradation on the basis of causal chains between the ‘land managers’ and their land, other land users, groups in the wider society who affect them, the state and, ultimately, the global economy.

Blaikie and Brookfield underpined their approach with an important body of research, mainly analysing different forms of land use in various countries in a historical perspective. They illustrated their theories with an in-depth case study of land degradation and soil erosion in Nepal.

Researchers became interested in nonlinear situations where a system exhibits extreme sensitivity to variations in initial conditions.

The treadmill of production was thus, primarily an economic change theory, but one that had direct implications for natural resource extraction as well as for the opportunity structure for workers. In essence, the “treadmill” component recognized that the nature of capital investment led to higher and higher levels of demand for natural resources for a given level of social welfare (including wages and social expenditures).

Each round of investment weakened the employment situation for production workers and worsened environmental conditions, but it increased profits.

Treadmill theory focused on the social, economic, and environmental conditions for stakeholders (workers and community residents).

 Simultaneously, expansion of the treadmill structure enhanced the economic and political power of shareholders(investors and managers).

Political gains for shareholders included a growing capacity to induce both government and labor unions to support still more investment of this sort, to employ displaced and new workers, and to augment state tax revenues.

Similarly, research in environmental education demonstrates that knowledge and behaviour are not well linked.

In a survey of the frameworks used to explain the gap between environmental knowledge and environmental behaviour, Kollmus and Agyeman (2002) concluded that cognition is only a small part of environmentally-responsive behaviour.

They argue that there are three major barriers to pro-environmental behaviour: Lack of internal incentive, lack of environmental consciousness, and lack of external options. [Kollmus, A., & Agyeman, J. (2002). Mind the gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behaviour? Environmental Education Research, 8 (3), 239-260

Central to Political ecology approach is environmental change and their political implications.

Following studies inspired by neo-Marxist conceptions political ecology approaches were considerably broadened by new methods and concepts.

Focus remains on discourses on the study of forest use and involving forest resoruces.

In a landmark study in Java (1992), Peluso, Nancy Lee describes the struggle between local inhabitants and the government over the use of the rainforest. she analysed this local conflict in a broader historical perspective.

Peluso, Nancy Lee (1992) in a landmark study, ̀ Rich Forests, Poor People. Resource Control and Resistance in Java’, describes the struggle between local inhabitants and the government over the use of the rainforest.

She shows, how millions of Javanese peasants live alongside state­controlled forest lands in one of the world's most densely populated agricultural regions.

And how their legal access and customary rights to the forest have been severely limited, these peasants have been pushed toward illegal use of forest resources.

Peluso also recounts how the government’s methods of criminalizing traditional forest-use practices through new property rights are subverted by ‘illegal behaviour’ of the local population.

Local communities redefined their legitimate right to use the forest by producing a counter-discourse.

Peluso’s work has paved the ground for much of the current political ecology work based on discourse analysis.

Discourse analysis [post structuralism] is one of the most important methods in political ecology.

Discourse /language plays an important role in conceiving of the relations and struggles for one’s rights to land and other resources.

In discourse analysis, local conflict is seen in a broader historical perspective, which includes the description of traditional patterns of access to, and use of, forest resources;

At the root of post-structuralism is the rejection of the idea that there is any truly essential form to a cultural product, as all cultural products are by their very nature formed, and therefore artificial/constructed.

Structuralists look at the foundational structures implicit in all productions of a culture, and undertake an analysis of the many parts that create something, to get a better understanding of the creation.

Here, analyses of representations as social facts are inseparable from what is commonly thought of as “material reality”’ (Escobar 1996).

The idea that language is not a reflection of reality, but constitutive of it.

In a discourse analytic frame nature is signified or resignified through the use of languages‘;

an attempt at resignifying nature, resources, and by conception of earth and in its place in the human world.

Escober , for instance, argued that that today’s sustainable development discourse - that had its origins in the Club of Rome report and gained broader recognition after the Brundtland Report - through the permanent stressing of the management of resources, and conception of the Earth as a ‘giant market /utility company’ (Escobar 1996).

For Escober, this ‘semiotic conquest of nature’ by the sustainable development movement is ‘an attempt at resignifying nature, resources, the Earth, and human life itself on a scale not known before the rise of empirical sciences and their reconstruction of nature’ (A Escobar 1996).

Another element stressed by post-structuralist political ecologists is the construction of environmental realities by scientific discourse.

Whether an area will be classified as endangered or should be protected is often defined or at least influence by scientific discourses.

Whether the public will perceive environmental risks as imminent and their own actions as having consequences on nature, mostly depends on political agendas and media coverage [ depends on the way nature is presented].

Scholars , using post structuralist approach, questions popular discourses on globalisation and sustainable development as global discourses based on shared myths or blueprints of the world, and the political prescriptions flowing from them are often inappropriate for local realities’ .

Another way of looking at the environment and society is to examine power relations within and between different social actors.

Especially gender has been a theme of great importance to political ecology researchers.

Besides examining and describing historical patterns and traditions of land use and ownership,  political ecology scholars have often resorted to analytical categories such as class , ethnicity , or gender in order to describe unequal patterns of power and resource access.

The gendered approach to the environment draws on two different streams of thoughts integrating and promoting women as key actors within environmental development programmes;

The WED-approach was characterised by the ecofeminist belief in women’s ‘natural and spiritual closeness’ to nature, but it focused on women’s productivity and service provision rather than their actual needs .

With some variation in gender approach, the GAD concept conceptualises the role of women and men within their environment as being ‘established and maintained through power and authority, and therefore intrinsically contested and dynamic.

Feminist political ecology tries to overcome the rigidness and essentialism of the aforementioned concepts of gender and ‘builds on analyses of identity and difference.

Third important perspective of political ecology .

It refutes traditional (neo-Malthusian, ‘tragedy of the commons’) assumptions of increasing aggregate population pressure on limited resources of common property.

The entitlements approach sets out to examine ‘the role of different institutions in mediating the relationships between different social actors, and different components of local ecologies’ (Leach et al. 1999).

According to this logic the ‘disaggregating’ of the environment in its different components is necessary to fully understand the complexities of environmental dynamics.

Indeed, there are instances where, even when there is plenty of an aggregate resource (food, land, etc), people in a particular social situation might not have access to, or control over it, thus facing deprivation and loss of control over those resources resulting extreme deprivation , as in the case of famine.

The entitlements approach draws on Amartya Sen’s (1981) study that highlighted that access to food rather than the lack of food production causes famine.

To make his point Sen draws a comparison with civil rights in the United States where every citizen has the constitutional right to vote.

However, it is the capability to make use of one’ right to vote that determines whether or not citizens actually vote.

Similarly, when it comes to land and other resource access, it is not the availability of it, but the command over it that leads to sudden changes in inter-group distribution patterns (Sen 1981)

Analysing three major famines (Bengal 1943, Ethiopia 1978, Bangladesh 1979), Sen asks whether there (i) was a measurable decrease of available food; (ii) what occupational and social status do famine victims possess; and (iii) whether or not famine victims suffer a sharp decrease of their entitlements to food – and if so, why .

Sen demonstrates that in all three famines shortage of food was not the primary factor for the famine. Rather a marginalised segment of the population had suffered a collapse of their means of command over food, thus turning them into famine victims.