| Chapter 1: | ADM, A Tomato Named Local Lucy, and Small Farms: The Ecology and Reemergence of Farmers’ Markets |
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Some authors have remarked on the strong ties between political ecology and applied anthropology. As Paulson and associates (Paulson, Gezon, & Watts, 2003) noted, “from the beginning…political ecology was analytical, normative, and applied…” (p. 206). They go on to describe elements shared by the approach and applied anthropology:
The development of ecological approaches in anthropology, including political ecology, has been dealt with in depth in several excellent reviews. For outstanding summaries of ecological approaches in general, including political ecology, see Kottack (1999), Moran (1990, 2000), and Scoones (1999). For reviews specific to political ecology, Paulson et al. (2003) offer a short but excellent overview. In a recent edited collection, Paulson and Gezon (2005) offer multiple perspectives and applications of political ecology. Robbins (2004) presented an excellent, in-depth review of political ecology from a geographical perspective. Here is a brief summary.
Ecological approaches as practiced by social scientists today have their roots directly placed in cultural ecology. Although early cultural ecology had considerable success with small, rural populations, the application of simple ecological models to human societies became problematic (Greenberg & Park, 1994). Newer ecological approaches are an outgrowth of research related to environmental degradation, especially in developing countries. These studies conflicted with earlier ecological approaches and their emphasis on stability and equilibrium. An expansion of scale was necessary in order to investigate what was occurring. According to Kottack (1999), “in the new ecological anthropology, everything is on a larger scale.