Engaging with the Politics of Determinist Environmental Thinking Andrew Sluyter Louisiana State University, [email protected]

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Louisiana State University Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons Faculty Publications Department of Geography & Anthropology 2010 Engaging with the Politics of Determinist Environmental Thinking Andrew Sluyter Louisiana State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/geoanth_pubs Part of the Anthropology Commons, and the Geography Commons Recommended Citation Andrew Sluyter, Engaging with the Politics of Determinist Environmental Thinking, Progress in Human Geography 34 (2010) 111-16. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Geography & Anthropology at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Prog Hum Geogr OnlineFirst, published on August 11, 2009 as doi:10.1177/0309132509338749 Progress in Human Geography (2009) pp. 1–19 Forum Environmentalist thinking and/in geography Organizing editor: Sarah A. Radcliffe* Contributors: Elizabeth E. Watson, Ian Simmons, Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Andrew Sluyter Abstract: In recent years, a new type of determinist environmental thinking has emerged. It can be understood to be one strand in a much broader realm of ‘environment talk’. Many human geographers have expressed a combination of scepticism and surprise at the apparently inexorable rise of the neo-environmentalist arguments which differ from early twentieth-century environmental determinism yet continue to draw upon biologistic accounts of human culture. Although geography has in recent years been at the forefront of the academic discussions of environmental change in relation to science, institutional context, political costs and human impacts, the discipline nevertheless has to contend with a widespread misperception of the place of environment in human affairs and the world’s future. This Forum discusses the context for the rise of, and consequences of, determinist accounts. Key words: geographical explanations, global development, global inequality, human-animal relations, neo-environmental determinism, political ecology. Introduction: the status of the It can be understood to be one strand in a ‘environment’ in geographical broader discourse of what we can call aca- explanations demic ‘environment talk’ (which includes The immediate stimulus for this Forum is the political ecology, environmental history, perception among a number of geographers climatology, and many others). Yet this ‘neo- across the subfields of their discipline that environmental determinism’ (Sluyter, this ‘the environment’ has in certain spheres been Forum) is characterized by an emphasis on brought into arguments that attribute it with the core explanatory power of non-human/ powerful and singular causal power; and, non-animal components of the biophysical moreover, that these arguments have been sphere in shaping human outcomes (in rela- associated with the discipline in ways that tion to development, disease, conflict, re- have various effects on the nature of geo- sponses to climate change, etc). Whereas graphical explanations and their public other forms of environmental talk, such as prominence. political ecology (eg, Peet and Watts, 2004), In recent years a certain type of deter- highlight the contingent historically and geo- minist environmental thinking has emerged. graphically specific cultural meanings and *Email: [email protected] © The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and permissions: DOI: 10.1177/0309132509338749 http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav 2 Progress in Human Geography human engagements with environmental public audience, and the potential long-term processes, neo-environmental determinism consequences for the discipline of these high- claims to discern invariable dynamics be- profi le representations of ‘geography’. tween (certain kinds of) society and ‘the’ en- Hence the diverse contributors to this vironment. These determinist frameworks Forum were invited to engage in a broader differ from early twentieth-century versions way than they might in scholarly writing and of environmental determinism in a number of teaching with questions about the politics, ways.1 First, in intellectual terms, recent de- consequences and intellectual basis of these terminisms have emerged in the context of arguments, and their connection with their widespread knowledge of Darwinian evolu- own fi elds of inquiry. From varying perspec- tion, atmospheric and climate science, ‘new tives, the contributors address questions genetics’, and detailed ecological and social such as the following. Should geography knowledges, all of which create a more engage with environmentally determinist knowledge-rich starting point (while also pro- arguments in the public arena and other dis- viding the basis of robust critiques of these ciplines? If so, how and to what ends? How do same environmental determinisms; see existing forms of environmental determinism below). Second, in terms of sociopolitical con- affect the content and form of knowledges texts, current environmental determinisms produced by human and physical geographers refl ect subtle arguments about ‘cultural’ de- broadly defi ned? Environmental determinist terminism, rather than crass racial ideologies. thinking, of course, comprises a number of However, as Felipe Fernández-Armesto differing arguments, fields of inquiry, and makes clear (this Forum), the concept publicly accessible discourses – while some ‘culture’ can be used as if it were equivalent to contributors mention specifi c names, others a biologically determined entity, and he address themselves to what they perceive thereby reveals the biologisms that underlie to be wider, more diffuse infl uences of neo- certain strands of neo-environmental deter- environmental determinism on public debate. minist thinking. As noted above, Jared Diamond occupies Many human geographers have expressed a specifi c position in these debates, not only a combination of scepticism and surprise at because of the fame and high sales of his the apparently inexorable rise of such argu- books, but also because of his appointment ments. Johnston (2007) calls Jared Diamond to and profi le in, professional academic geo- – whose books have often provided a lightn- graphy. Jared Diamond has been appointed ing rod for critique and debate – ‘a late inter- to the UCLA Geography Department, loper … [but] not [a geographer] really’. and gave one of the plenaries at the 2007 Yet there has been a surprising lack of dis- American Association of Geographers’ an- cussion about the implications of the rise of nual meeting, in which he rehearsed the argu- neo-environmental determinist arguments. ments developed in his best-selling books Geographical journals have tended to engage Guns, germs and steel and Collapse. Although with these arguments through book reviews, Diamond always attributes environmental as well as indirectly in articles presenting de- factors with a partial role in societal change, tailed analyses of environment-society rela- his discussion tends to highlight these factors tions (as indeed do numerous books). Yet at the cost of others. Yet it is invidious to relatively little has been written systemat- single out one individual, as similar arguments ically about these arguments in terms of (albeit not based on Diamond’s zoological their validity (or lack of it) within the discip- research) have also been gaining a wider cur- line, about their implications for human geo- rency within public understandings of what graphers’ and environmentalists’ attempts ‘geography’ is (eg, Posner, 2004; cf. Geertz, to bring non-determinist research to a 2005). Arguments about conflict in Sudan Sarah A. Radcliffe et al.: Environmentalist thinking and/in geography 3 and elsewhere in Africa are increasingly em- profi le – as a fi eld of research endeavour, as a phasizing the role of climate change, down- claimant on public funds, and as a ‘relevant’ playing the political interpretations that have subject in instrumentally orientated times – long held sway in the scholarly understand- rests in part on its credentials as a contributor ings of famine, conflict and land shortages to the global climate change debate. The chal- (UNEP, 2007; de Waal, 2007). lenge for geography lies in creating a dis- One area in which environmentally de- cipline that refl ects the complexity of – rather terminist arguments have gained public – than simplifi es – accounts of the world, with- although not always professional – salience out losing sight of a synthetic account. is in relation to global issues and inequality. As noted above, neo-environmental deter- Ian Simmons (Simmons, this Forum) points minisms often draw on a biologistic model of out that geographers need global narratives human culture. They see the concept as a because of the scale and predicted trans- tool by which to differentiate one social group formative power of global climate change. from another in explanations of relative Separately, however, Andrew Sluyter and flexibility in face of stress, or adaptability Elizabeth Watson each point out how not to new opportunities. While such accounts all global narratives are the same. As neo- have certainly replaced nineteenth- and environmental determinist accounts of early twentieth-century racial explanations global climate change offer universalizing

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