PANEL SERIES:
Environmental
Crises and Crises of Development: Toward Commensurability in
Studying Global Human-Environmental Change
Concerns over the impacts of global change upon social and environmental systems have prompted significant debate in recent years. Sustainable development, which was positioned in the 1980s with much fanfare as a potential strategy for mediating social and environmental needs, has generated critique for failing to shift environmental policy at multiple scales. Significant environmental hazards such as Hurricane Katrina have provoked additional debate about the multiple effects of climate change and inability of policy institutions to mediate ecological crises. Critics also question the linkage of the concept of “security” with the ideal of sustainability, which has lead sustainable development to become viewed by many in the Global South as a dominant, disempowering discourse furthering the interest of capital. Scholarly attention to these issues has been concentrated within a few geographic subfields. Three fields in particular, political ecology, development geography and human dimensions of global change (HDGC) have often proceeded on parallel tracks, engaging with issues such as vulnerability, adaptation, and sustainability, but have not fully engaged with each other. These fields highlight the different conceptualizations and approaches of each community, and the barriers these differences might present to productive, cross-scalar thinking about development in an age of economic and environmental transformation. Sponsored by the Developing Areas Specialty Group (DASG), these discussion panel sessions will engage with theoretical and policy synergies between these fields. Ideally, they will present the opportunity to work through shared interests and critical differences between these research communities to identify the research and conceptual needs that might facilitate greater engagement in the future.
Development Geography and the Human Dimensions of Environmental Change I: Conceptual Connections
IS SCHEDULED ON FRIDAY, APRIL 18 FROM 2:30-4:10PM
Organizers:
Edward R. Carr, University of South Carolina
Brent McCusker, West Virginia University
Chair:
Brian King, University of Texas, Austin
Panelists:
Billie Turner (Clark - HDGC/Political Ecology)
Tony Bebbington (Manchester - Development Geography)
Bill Clark (Harvard - HDGC)
Edward R. Carr (University of South Carolina)
Brian King (University of Texas, Austin - Development Geography)
Development Geography and the Human Dimensions of Environmental Change II: Practice
IS SCHEDULED ON FRIDAY, APRIL 18 FROM 4:40-6:20PM
Organizers:
Brian King, University of Texas-Austin
Brent McCusker, West Virginia University
Chair: Edward R. Carr, University of South Carolina
Panelists:
Brent McCusker (West Virginia University - Development Geography)
Dianne Rocheleau (Clark University - Political Ecology)
Ben Wisner, (Oberlin - Pol Ecol/HDGC/Dev)
Ken Young (U Texas - HDGC)
Molly Brown (NASA Goddard - HDGC)