Editing Political ecology (section)

==Scope and influences==

Political ecology's movement as a field since its inception in the 1970s has complicated its scope and goals. Through the discipline's history, certain influences have grown more and less influential in determining the focus of study. Peter A. Walker traces the importance of the ecological sciences in political ecology.<ref name="Walker-2005-74">Walker, 2005, p.74.</ref>  He points to the transition, for many critics, from a ‘structuralist’ approach through the 1970s and 1980s, in which ecology maintains a key position in the discipline, to a 'poststructuralist' approach with an emphasis on the 'politics' in political ecology.<ref>Walker, 2005, p.74-75.</ref> This turn has raised questions as to the differentiation with environmental politics as well as the field's use of the term of 'ecology'. Political ecological research has shifted from investigating political influence on the [[earth's surface]] to the focus on spatial-ecological influences on politics and power—a scope reminiscent of [[environmental politics]].

Much has been drawn from cultural ecology, a form of analysis that showed how culture depends upon, and is influenced by, the material conditions of society (political ecology has largely eclipsed cultural ecology as a form of analysis according to Walker.)<ref>Walker, 2005.</ref> As Walker states, "whereas cultural ecology and systems theory emphasize[s] adaptation and homeostasis, political ecology emphasize[s] the role of political economy as a force of maladaptation and instability".<ref name="Walker-2005-74"/>

Political ecologists often use [[political economy]] frameworks to analyze environmental issues. Early and prominent examples of this were ''Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria'' by [[Michael Watts (geographer)|Michael Watts]] in 1983, which traced the famine in northern Nigeria during the 1970s to the effects of colonialism, rather than an inevitable consequence of the drought in the Sahel, and ''The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries'' by [[Piers Blaikie]] in 1985, which traced [[land degradation]] in Africa to colonial policies of [[Original appropriation|land appropriation]], rather than [[over-exploitation]] by African farmers.