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Empower Women, Save the Planet? Science, Strategy, and Population-Environment Advocacy

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Empower Women, Save the Planet? Science, Strategy, and Population-Environment Advocacy Empower Women, Save the Planet? Science, Strategy, and Population-Environment Advocacy By Jade Sasser A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Science, Policy & Management in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Nancy Lee Peluso, Chair Professor Louise Fortmann Professor Carolyn Finney Professor Lawrence Cohen Spring 2012 Empower Women, Save the Planet? Science, Strategy, and Population-Environment Advocacy © 2012 by Jade Sasser Abstract Empower Women, Save the Planet? Science, Strategy, and Population-Environment Advocacy by Jade Sasser Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management University of California, Berkeley Professor Nancy Peluso, Chair This dissertation is about the problems of global population and women’s fertility as constructed, circulated and contested among a network of American environmental actors. The first decade of the new millennium witnessed an upsurge in environmentalist attention to population trends, particularly in the context of widespread attention to climate change. Using ethnographic research conducted among a network of U.S. foreign aid donors, environmental, population and family planning NGO managers, and college youth activists, this dissertation asks the questions: What- and who- is driving the renewed focus on population growth as a driver of ecological crisis? What strategies are being used to drive a linked population-environment development agenda forward, and what effects do these strategies have on population science, policy, and political debates? I argue that, rather than reprise familiar neo-Malthusian arguments, these actors draw on scientific knowledge and social justice frameworks, to position population- environment advocacy in the realm of progressive politics. At the same time, population advocates increasingly enroll young activists as the newest cadre of international population advocates, through contradictory and contentious approaches to framings of race, gender and justice politics. This multi-sited project is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on conceptual approaches from the fields of political ecology, science and technology studies and medical anthropology to interrogate questions the uses of scientific knowledge production, political messaging, and racialized and gendered body politics in international population-environment advocacy. In chapter 2, I explore the historical processes of articulation which have come together and fractured apart at particular historical conjunctural moments. It focuses on how the population ‘problem’ and its potential solutions have been constructed scientifically and politically over time, crystallizing in the 20th century as hegemonic paradigms within international development. Chapter 3 centers on the micropractices through which college youth are trained in population- environment messaging and other advocacy strategies, focused on the strategic use of social justice discourses, technology-based advocacy, and selective use of ecological and climate science data. In this chapter, I argue that these practices are constitutive of the process of making development actors from afar. Chapter 4 analyzes the changing role of racial politics in 1 population-environment advocacy over time, charting the ways race has moved from a zone of heated controversy to providing an opening for new representational strategies. In chapter 5, I explore the behind the scenes role of private donors whose creative financing of population projects manifests over time as a powerful form of advocacy. Chapter 6 focuses on recent developments in scientific knowledge linking population growth with climate change, arguing that the projections these data represent are productive of both novel forms of thinking about the future, as well as anticipatory interventions that help shape it. The conclusion explores the possible futures of population-environment advocacy, raising questions about the transformative potential of transnational youth organizing predicated on a radical rupture from the past. 2 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to two powerful women- my grandmother, Loretta Orme, and my mother, Janet Sasser- in gratitude for their brilliant examples and enduring legacies. And to Soraiya, in anticipation of a bold, bright future. Table of Contents List of tables iii List of figures and illustrations iv List of acronyms v Acknowledgements vi Chapter 1: Introduction: The Return of the Environmental Population ‘Crisis’…………1 Background……………………………………………………………………………………...3 The Population Problem: Dying or Thriving?..............................................................................5 Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………..9 Situating the Project……………………………………………………………………………..12 Methods………………………………………………………………………………………….14 Note on Methods & Reflexivity…………………………………………………………………16 Chapter outline…………………………………………………………………………………..17 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….19 Chapter 2 - Population, Environment, and Development: A Historical Review…………...20 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………...20 Defining the Problem: The Emergence of Population…………………………………………..22 A Fork in the Road: Population as Science and Political Economy…………………………….25 Population and Environment: Making a Global Problem……………………………………….30 Where Science and Policy Intersect: Implementing Population Control………………………..35 Critical Backlash………………………………………………………………………………...38 From Theory to Action…………………………………………………………………………..39 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….....44 Chapter 3 – Empower Women, Save the Planet: Youth and Population “Justice”………..45 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………45 Setting the Stage, Communicating the Problem………………………………………………....47 Knowing and Representing Others………………………………………………………………54 Justice for All?...............................................................................................................................60 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….....66 Chapter 4 - Navigating Controversy: Race in American Population-Environment Advocacy……………………………………………………………………………………......67 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………...67 Race, Population-Environment and Advocacy……………………………………………….....68 Ignoring the Problem: Race and Silence………………………………………………………...70 Institutional Debates and the Centrality of Race………………………………………………...76 i Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….82 Chapter 5 - Steering the Ship: Donors and the Co-Production of Population Science and Policy………………………………………………………………………………………83 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..83 Steering the Ship: Creative Donor Advocacy…………………………………………………..84 Donor Practice In and Out of the Norm………………………………………………………...90 Making Policy: The Roles of Public Agencies and Private Foundations………………………95 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...97 Chapter 6 – Anticipating Futures: Demographic-Climate Scenarios and the Politics of Avertability………………………………………………………………………………….99 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..99 Anticipation and the Politics of Future Knowledges…………………………………………...99 Mobilizing Science for Policy………………………………………………………………….106 Averted Lives, Averted Emissions?............................................................................................108 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...112 Chapter 7 – Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….114 Avoiding Controversy………………………………………………………………………….116 Winning?.....................................................................................................................................117 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………...118 References……………………………………………………………………………………..119 ii List of Tables Table Page Table 1: Environmental Organizations Previously Operating Population Programs, 1994 93 Table 2: Table 2: Environmental Organizations Operating Population Programs, December 2009 93 iii List of Figures and Illustrations Figure Page Figure 1: USAID Budget Allocations for Family Planning, 1968-2008 7 Figure 2: Congressional Budget Allocations for Global Health, 2001-2011 8 Figure 3: Logistic Growth Curve (‘S Curve’) 30 Figure 4: Carbon Emissions and Population Growth, 2000-2100 104 Figure 5: Per Capita Emissions and Carbon Legacies for Select Countries 105 Illustration Illustration 1: Popular U.S. Media Images of Population, 1960-1980 58 Illustration 2: Image Accompanying National Geographic special issue on population, 2011 58 Illustration 3: PopOffsets Website homepage 110 iv List of Acronyms Conference of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol COP Conference on Youth COY Environmental Justice EJ Environmental Non Governmental Organization ENGO International Conference on Population and Development ICPD Impacts= Population x Affluence x Technology IPAT Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC Non Governmental Organization NGO Global Population Environment Program GPEP Population, Health, Environment PHE Reproductive Justice RJ Sexual and Reproductive Health SRH Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights SRHR United Nations UN United Nations Conference on Environment & Development UNCED United Nations Population Fund UNFPA United States Agency for International Development USAID World Conservation Society WCS v Acknowledgements Many people have helped me on this journey, helping to shape my intellectual trajectory, providing scholarly and emotional support, and guiding me through the completion
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