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A Research Agenda for Environmental Geopolitics
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A Research Agenda
for Environmental
Geopolitics
Edited by
SHANNON O’LEAR
University of Kansas, USA
Elgar Research Agendas
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
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© Shannon O’Lear 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
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is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019954334
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Contents
List of contributors vii

List of figures xi
1 Environmental geopolitics: an introduction to questions and research

approaches 1
Shannon O’Lear
PART I INTERPRETING AND MEASURING THE ENVIRONMENT
2 Getting the measure of nature: the inconspicuous geopolitics of

environmental measurement 16
Brendon Blue and Marc Tadaki
3 Science, territory, and the geopolitics of high seas conservation 30
Noella J. Gray, Leslie Acton, and Lisa M. Campbell
4 The geopolitics of environmental global mapping services: an analysis
of Global Forest Watch 44
Birgit Schneider and Lynda Olman
PART II POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN–ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS
5 Conflicts, commodities and the environmental geopolitics of supply chains 59

Philippe Le Billon and Lauren Shykora
6 Underground geopolitics: science, race, and territory in Peru during the
late nineteenth century 74
Matthew Himley
7 Local knowledges and environmental governance: making space for
alternative futures in the Arctic circumpolar region and the
Mekong River Basin 88
Coleen A. Fox and Christopher Sneddon
PART III OVERCOMING SELECTIVE SPATIAL FOCUS
8 The geopolitics of transportation in the melting Arctic 105

Frédéric Lasserre and Pierre-Louis Têtu
v
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vi A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GEOPOLITICS
9 Environmental geopolitics of rumor: the sociality of uncertainty

during northern Thailand’s smoky season 121
Mary Mostafanezhad and Olivier Evrard
10 Digging deep: crossing scale in the Georgian mining industry 136
Jesse Swann-Quinn
11 Looking ahead: environmental geopolitics research 151
Shannon O’Lear, Simon Dalby, Corey Johnson, and Stacy D. VanDeveer
Index 167

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Contributors
Leslie Acton is Assistant Professor in the Division of Coastal Sciences in the School
of Ocean Science and Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi, USA.
Her research focuses on oceans governance and human–ocean relationships; key
themes of her work include power, territory, perceptions, institutional change, and
ocean materiality. She draws on human geography, political ecology, and common-
pool resource theory to examine how coastal and ocean policy is negotiated and
how it impacts stakeholders and communities across space, scale, and time.
Brendon Blue is Research Fellow in Geography, part of the School of Environment/
Te Kura Taiao at the University of Auckland, New Zealand/Te Whare Wānanga o
Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. An environmental geographer, Brendon studies the
landscapes, knowledges and practices of environmental intervention. He has pub-
lished on the politics of river restoration science, critical physical geography, fluvial
geomorphology in China, and coastal geomorphology in New Zealand.
Lisa M. Campbell is the Rachel Carson Professor of Marine Affairs and Policy in
the Nicholas School of Environment, Duke University, based at the marine labora-
tory in Beaufort, North Carolina, USA. A political ecologist, she studies oceans
governance at a variety of scales, focusing on how science and non-state actors
inform governance processes and outcomes. She has published on these themes in
relation to protected species, fisheries, marine spatial planning, marine protected
areas, and tourism.
Simon Dalby is Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Wilfrid
Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, where he teaches in the Balsillie
School of International Affairs. He is coeditor of Achieving the Sustainable
Development Goals (2019) and author of Anthropocene Geopolitics (2020). He has
active research interests in contemporary climate change discourse as well as the
burgeoning debate about the Anthropocene and its implications for politics and
policy formulation.
Olivier Evrard is a social anthropologist at the French Research Institute for
Sustainable Development in France. He has conducted extensive periods of field-
work since the mid-1990s mostly with Mon-Khmer- and Tai-speaking popula-
tions in Laos and Thailand. His work focuses on ethnicity, mobility, and history of
interethnic relationships particularly as they intersect with environmental issues.
Coleen A. Fox is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography and the
Environmental Studies Program at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA. Her
vii
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viii A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GEOPOLITICS
research and teaching focus on international development, environmental dimen-

sions of global health, environmental politics in transboundary river basins, the
role of indigenous k nowledge in river restoration, and the political and cultural
dimensions of dam removal in New England.
Noella J. Gray is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment,
and Geomatics at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. A political ecologist,
her research examines the politics of marine conservation and governance across
scales. Her recent work focuses on knowledge conflicts in global environmental
governance, governance of marine protected areas, and ocean territorialization.
Matthew Himley is Associate Professor of Geography in the Department of
Geography, Geology, and the Environment at Illinois State University in Normal,
Illinois, USA. He is a nature-society geographer with research interests in the politi-
cal ecology and political economy of natural resource extraction, especially in the
Andean region of South America. His recent research focuses on the role of science
in the identification, development, and governance of mineral resources in Peru, in
historical and contemporary periods.
Corey Johnson is Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment,
and Sustainability at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. He
is a political geographer with broad topical interests including borders, natural
resources (especially fossil energy), and nationalism. His primary regional speciali-
zation is Central Europe.
Frédéric Lasserre is Professor in Geography at Laval University in Québec, Canada.
He also heads the Quebec Council for Geopolitical Studies. His work focuses on
geoeconomic issues like Arctic shipping and natural resources exploitation, or
strategies of Asian countries in the frame of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.
He has published on borders; resource conflict; water management; geopolitics of
transportation infrastructure; the South China Sea conflict.
Philippe Le Billon is Professor in the Department of Geography and School of
Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
Working on linkages between environment, development, and security, he inves-
tigates socio-environmental relations and commodity networks linking spaces
of exploitation, consumption, and regulation. He has also published on climate
change, environmental defenders, and the political economy of wars and disasters.
His latest books are Oil (2017 with G. Bridge), Corruption and Natural Resources
(2017, with A. Williams), and Wars of Plunder (2013).
Mary Mostafanezhad is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and
Environment at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Through her work, she brings
critical geopolitics and political ecology perspectives to bear on development, tour-
ism, and socio-ecological change in the Asia-Pacific region. She is the author of
Volunteer Tourism: Popular Humanitarianism in Neoliberal Times (2014) and
co-editor of eight edited volumes, such as At Home and in the Field: Ethnographic
Encounters in Asia and the Pacific Islands (2015).

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CONTRIBUTORS ix
Shannon O’Lear is Professor in the Geography and Atmospheric Science

Department and in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Kansas
in Lawrence, Kansas, USA. As a political geographer, her work focuses on spatial
dimensions of power and critiques of security and violence, particularly as they
intersect with environmental themes. She has published on climate science and
slow violence; environmental politics; science and technology studies; resource
conflict; borders; genocide; Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus.
Lynda Olman is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA.
She studies the rhetoric of science – particularly the public reception of visual
arguments and of the ethos or public role of the scientist. Her most recent book,
edited as Lynda Walsh with Casey Boyle, explores topology as a spatial method for
inventing new ways to deliberate over issues of science and technology (Topologies
as Techniques for a Post-Critical Rhetoric, 2017).
Birgit Schneider is a media and visual culture scholar. She is Professor of
Knowledge, Cultures and Media Environments at Potsdam University, Germany.
Her research focuses are scientific images, the history and present of data visualiza-
tions, and, in particular, climate visualizations in between science, aesthetics, and
politics. She publishes in the field of climate discourse, cultural geography, media
studies, and environmental humanities.
Lauren Shykora is Research Assistant in the Department of Geography at the
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her research interests include
Canadian environmental policy, international geopolitics – with a focus on the Asia
Pacific, and climate change impacts and security.
Christopher Sneddon’s research and teaching interests come together around
the question of how to reconcile human activities with the long-term resilience
and vulnerability of ecological systems. Much of his work has focused on human
uses of water and, in particular, on the transformation of river basins due to large-
scale development. One of his primary interests is analysis of social conflicts over
water. He draws inspiration from political ecology and ecological theory as well as
concepts of power and geographical scale.
Jesse Swann-Quinn is an instructor in the Department of Geography and the
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, New York,
USA. His research focuses on political geography and political ecology, with an
emphasis on human experiences, political practices, and cultural dimensions of the
extractive industries. His research interests also include deep-sea mining; territo-
rial conflict; environmental history; animal studies; and public/digital humanities,
including documentary film production.
Marc Tadaki is a social scientist in the Coastal and Freshwater Group at the
Cawthron Institute in Nelson, New Zealand/Whakatū, Aotearoa. Marc is an envi-
ronmental geographer interested in the social dynamics of river and marine science
and the politics of environmental decision making. His ongoing research examines
the politics of environmental valuation tools, the collective management of fresh

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x A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GEOPOLITICS
water, the role of experts in shaping New Zealand water policy implementation,
and critical physical geography.
Pierre-Louis Têtu is an experienced part-time teacher with a demonstrated history
of working in the higher-education industry. Skilled in ArcGIS Products; Arctic,
Ocean Transportation, Training Facilitation; and International Relations, he has a
PhD from Laval University in Quebec, Canada focusing on Arctic Shipping. He was
granted a postdoctoral fellowship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council (SSHRC) of Canada to work on risks associated with marine tourism in the
Arctic, at the Environment, Society and Policy Group (ESPG) of the Department of
Geography of the University of Ottawa.
Stacy D. VanDeveer is Professor of Global Governance and Human Security at
University of Massachusetts John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and
Global Studies, USA. His research interests include European Union environmen-
tal and energy politics, global environmental policymaking and institutions, com-
parative environmental politics, connections between environmental and security
issues, the roles of expertise in policymaking, and the global politics of extractive
resources and material consumption. In addition to authoring and co-authoring
over 100 articles, book chapters, working papers, and reports, he has co-edited or
co-authored ten books.

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Figures
4.1 Default layer selection on Global Forest Watch 47

4.2 Screen-capture of Global Forest Watch with “story” title expanded
over its map locator in the Congo 52
4.3 Screen-capture of Global Forest Watch in a region of the
Republic of Congo with “GLAD Alerts” and “Preservation Areas” layers
turned on 53
7.1 Arctic map 91
7.2 Mekong map 93
8.1 Arctic shipping routes, actual and potential 108
8.2 Arctic shipping traffic density 112
10.1 Location of Sakdrisi and Madneuli mines 138
11.1 Will we learn from a dead glacier to change our course? 158
xi
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M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 12 17/01/2020 11:58

1 Environmental geopolitics: an
introduction to questions and research
approaches
Shannon O’Lear
Introduction
Most people have a sense of what the field of geopolitics is: it has something to do
with how place intertwines with power being exercised or challenged. Geopolitics
is related to how decisions are made with a particular, place-related outcome or
vision in mind: overcoming a boundary, expanding territory, or making sure that
someone or something else does not threaten a boundary or a territory. Geopolitics
might most easily be associated with states or countries and how they relate to
each other over spatial issues such as the control of boundaries and territory. Yet
there are other actors or interest groups beyond states, and there are spaces and
places that are beyond, within, and between the spaces claimed by states. The field
of geopolitics, then, considers far more than how states make place-related and
spatial decisions and actions. It encompasses many kinds of struggle to control
places and place-related activities – What kinds of things can happen here? Who
is allowed to be here? Who gets to make those decisions? – and considers different
actors, interest groups, voices, and perspectives on spatial activities and processes.
When geographers study geopolitics, a key focus is on geographical knowledge and

how it is put to use for particular purposes. Geographical knowledge is not a single,
universal set of rules or observations but instead reflects a specific understanding
and perspective at a given time. For instance, how a farmer knows and understands
a rural area to produce a particular crop reflects a different kind of familiarity with
a place than how an urban planner might understand and value the same rural
area as a place for urban expansion. A national-level transportation planner might
understand and value that same rural area in an entirely different way as part of
a larger network of roadways. Each of these perspectives has a different kind of
geographic knowledge about this same rural area in terms of what makes this place
important and how it is related to other places. Each of these perspectives repre-
sents a different set of priorities, but they may not all be able to pursue their agen-
das in this rural area at the same time. Geographers focus on geographic knowledge
because it is a way to understand not only that there can be different ways to value
and understand the same place, but also because it indicates the kinds of agendas
that might come into conflict as spatial actions and decisions are being pursued.
1
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2 A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GEOPOLITICS
Environmental geopolitics draws attention to geopolitical knowledge and agendas

that involve environmental features in making claims about why certain places,
practices, or actions are important. Here again, “environment” can mean many
different things. It might refer to the planetary climatic system, to rainforests,
to oil reserves, to microbes, to agricultural harvests, or any number of features
or processes. The tendency is to think of “the environment” as somehow natural
and as separate from humans. However, this clear distinction is easily challenged
with the consideration of how human systems and environmental systems have
both been influenced and altered significantly through exchanges and interactions
(Asdal et al. 2016, Swyngedouw 2010, Zizek 1991). “The environment” then, is a
malleable category that can mean many different things depending on how it is
understood and portrayed. Similar to geographic knowledge, there are many kinds
of knowledge about environmental features. These different forms of knowledge
reflect specializations and scales of focus ranging from atomic structure to cells to
organisms to ecosystems to biogeophysical processes, and so forth.
Both geographical knowledge and environmental knowledge come into play when
environmental features are entangled in geopolitical issues: climate change and
human migration; armed conflict related to environmental resources; management
of endangered species, water scarcity, and forest fires; environmental degradation
and food supply distribution; environmental impacts of energy generation and
consumption; and the list goes on. These entanglements of geopolitical and envi-
ronmental processes have multiple dimensions, and they are frequently portrayed
to highlight some aspects over others. Often, it is possible to find a political agenda
underlying any particular story or narrative about the environment. That in itself is
not a bad thing, and it can be valuable to see what kinds of agendas are drawing on
environmental features and processes. This kind of consideration is useful because
it can demonstrate how a portrayal of the environment is limited either intention-
ally or inadvertently to achieve a desired outcome.
Drawing from political geography, environmental geopolitics examines how spatial

agendas from different political vantage points draw upon environmental concerns
and objectives to justify actions or inactions. The purpose of this edited volume is to
propose a critical approach to examining these perspectives and claims, to identify
key research themes that could be usefully developed, and to showcase current
work that demonstrates this approach. The objective of this volume is to energize
and advance a subfield within geography and to illuminate neighboring, interdis-
ciplinary fields of study such as critical security studies, science and technology
studies, political ecology, environmental policy and law, development and health,
environmental sustainability and justice, and regional and global studies.
The following section of this chapter provides a brief overview of geopolitics and
makes the case for examining different forms of geopolitical discourse: narrative
or text, practice, materiality, identity, or embodiment. Next, this chapter intro-
duces three themes of environmental geopolitics and discusses each theme as a
useful point of entry to analyze environmental geopolitical discourses. Finally, this

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AN INTRODUCTION TO QUESTIONS AND RESEARCH APPROACHES 3
c hapter includes an overview of the chapters in this book and how each one dem-
onstrates environmental geopolitical analysis. The conclusion provides a summary
of key themes of the chapters and looks ahead to possible pathways forward in
environmental geopolitics research.
Geopolitics
There is no single, one-size-fits-all geopolitics. Instead, geopolitical perspectives

are like maps of the world from particular viewpoints. Where we stand and what
we want shapes how we view the world. Specifically, geopolitical perspectives
portray some places or spatial processes either as valuable or as some kind of
threat. Geopolitics is evident, for instance, in arguments about expanding territo-
rial control, responding to aggressive, spatial activity of other states or groups of
people, or building or breaking down borders, physical or otherwise, that allow the
containment or movement of some things but not others. Studying geopolitics,
then, is a matter of examining arguments about or portrayals of the world in order
to understand which places and processes are prioritized, why, and to what end.
If geopolitical perspectives are maps of the world highlighting areas of value or

risk, then environmental geopolitical claims are like maps that include some aspect
of environmental features to explain why we value particular places and spatial
processes differently. Environmental geopolitical claims integrate environmental
features into explanations about why action in, around, or against certain places is
important for a certain outcome. For instance these claims may involve arguments in
favor of protecting particular places such as rainforests or exploiting certain places
such as mineral-rich sites. These may also be claims about enhancing environmen-
tal processes through spatial action (for example, land acquisitions for agricultural
production) or about controlling environmental processes through management
efforts (such as flood mitigation efforts or fishing regulations). Environmental
geopolitical claims are evident in arguments about expediting the movement of
environmental features such as resource commodities or about containing the
movement of other environmental features such as vector-borne diseases. Other
arguments point to environmental features or processes as causing a particular
response (as in drought leads to mass human migration or scarce resources lead
to conflict). Environmental geopolitical perspectives draw upon environmental
features to explain human activity in general terms or to make claims about why
action or inaction to affect particular places is important. Examining these perspec-
tives and questioning assumptions underlying these arguments can lead to useful
insights and alternative ways of defining and solving problems.
Geopolitical agendas have traditionally been studied through an examination of

texts and narratives such as speeches and policy documents. Geopolitical discourse
is also evident in other forms such as materialities, practices, and identities (O’Lear
2018). Materialities are tangible things constructed to reflect or promote a political
agenda. Border walls, pipelines, or the establishment of a protected nature reserve

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 3 17/01/2020 11:58

are examples of materialities that say something about who is in power and how
power is being exercised. Practices are things that we do or that we avoid doing.
Examples of practices include how we make consumption decisions, how society
adapts or does not adapt to new information and ideas, or how we adjust our
behaviors with the introduction of new technologies. A fourth form of discourse is
identity or embodiment. How we label ourselves or label and group other people
is informed by our perspective and understanding of the world. All four forms
of discourse reflect ways that power shapes our relationship with environmental
features and provide rich avenues for analysis. Broadening the scope of analysis to
include these different but sometimes overlapping forms of discourse encourages a
creative, multi-textured investigation of geopolitical claims involving environmen-
tal features.
Of particular interest in examining discourse in any form is to investigate the kinds

of knowledge and information that are called upon to stabilize and legitimize a
discourse. Often times, discourses that explain or shape human–environment inter-
actions draw from dominant forms of science – natural or physical science and
technoscience, for instance – to support and promote claims. Recognizing the dom-
inant role of science in supporting a discourse can help to highlight other ways of
knowing that could offer different interpretations and alternative pathways forward.
Three entry points for environmental geopolitics
There are three persistent themes in environmental geopolitical arguments. Paying

attention to these themes opens the possibility to comment on these geopolitical
claims and understand who benefits from promoting a particular view or map of
the world. These three themes offer points of entry to environmental geopoliti-
cal analysis. First, geopolitical arguments involving environmental features are not
always clear about what the environment is. They tend to portray and represent
environmental features selectively or through a limited scope. Second, these claims
tend to overlook or obscure human agency. By presenting either sweeping claims
about human–environment interactions or limited options for human response,
these claims render dimensions of power invisible. Environmental features are cer-
tainly distributed unevenly over the earth’s surface, but environmental geopolitical
claims can be selective in recognizing how human actions have contributed to
current conditions that exacerbate inequity, injustice, and insecurity. Third, geopo-
litical arguments involving environmental features tend to have a selective, spatial
focus that may overlook deeper geographies of human–environment interactions
and ways in which these relationships unfold differently according to nuances of
place and context. Although physical sciences are built on a foundation of universal
principles, human–environment interactions are better understood as having both
broad categories of spatial patterns and contextually unique dimensions.
This section borrows from Environmental Geopolitics (O’Lear 2018) to introduce

these three points of entry to environmental geopolitical analysis. Each entry

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 4 17/01/2020 11:58

point provides a way to look at dominant narratives or discourses about how

environmental features or processes are in some way political. These entry points
or observations are neither exhaustive nor exclusive. There are any number of
approaches to examining environmental geopolitical discourses; these three share
some overlap and complement each other. These points of entry are useful in
structuring questions about dominant understandings of environmental geopoli-
tics. They are:
1. Question assumptions about the role and meaning of the environment.

2. Inquire into how human agency, and particularly uneven power relationships,
is portrayed or obscured in geopolitical claims about environmental issues.
3. Recognize ways in which selective, spatial focus, such as universal generaliza-
tions about environmental processes or place-specific, environmental situa-
tions, serve to legitimize particular perspectives or political interests.
These three entry points help to disentangle elements of geopolitical claims related
to environmental features, and they can contribute to a more balanced under-
standing of environmental processes, political agendas, and the value of seeing
contributing factors to these relationships at multiple, simultaneous spatial scales.
Consider each observation in turn.
1. Question assumptions about the role and meaning of the environment

Representations of environmental features can only ever be partial and selective.
A key idea of environmental geopolitics is that it can be useful to question how
environmental features and processes are portrayed. What kinds of information are
included in any given conversation about the environment? What kinds of features
or processes are emphasized and explained, and which elements are not addressed?
At what spatial scale is attention focused, and what kinds of relationships does that
reveal or hide?
Take for instance global data on temperature. A global data set would seem to be
as comprehensive and complete as it can get. Yet, there is not such a thing as a
global thermometer to measure global temperature. Instead, global temperature
– or any kind of global – data are generated by stitching together many local data
sets usually through the use of complex computer algorithms (Edwards 2010). It
is only through the use of high-speed computers that this sort of global view of
temperature or ocean movement or weather systems is visible. Even then, there
are limits to what the data reveal about conditions locally, globally, or any scale
in between. How often were temperature readings taken and under what kinds
of conditions? What can consistency or changes in temperature indicate on their
own, or how are they used to generate models or more complex pictures of the
environment when combined with other sorts of locally gathered but globally
integrated data on, for instance, rainfall, ecosystem change, or other environmen-
tal processes? Clearly, even a global data set about the environment is partial and
incomplete.

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Other representations of environmental features and processes may exude reli-

ability in their specificity. An example is the now familiar graphic of peak oil.
This graphic depicts oil production over time. The line of the graph is a steep
bell curve indicating rapidly expanding productivity initially, hitting a peak of oil
production, and then steeply cascading in later years as oil productivity quickly
diminishes. This graphic was originally developed by M. King Hubbard – who
worked for a major oil company – to depict oil production within a region or by
a specific oil field. The graph’s apparent scientific accuracy of geological depos-
its and oil production capacity make the graph compelling, and the message is
straightforward: oil will continue to be plentiful until, suddenly, it is not. A little-
known aspect of the graph is that M. King Hubbard was deeply concerned about
human population growth and was hoping to deter a sense of ease about resource
availability to support a growing population (Hemmingsen 2010). Part of his
motivation in developing this graphic was to alert people to imminent changes in
energy supply.
Despite the apparent certainty of this graphic, there are actually quite a few
unknowns related to oil productivity that render this graphic an unreliable repre-
sentation of geological reality (Bridge 2010). Not only has the timing of the peak
of oil production been debated (Hubbard predicted it would happen in the 1970s),
there are different factors determining how much of the oil underground can realis-
tically be extracted. Technology is one of those determining factors, and economics
is another. At what price per barrel is oil worth recovering given current technol-
ogy, demand, refining and transportation requirements, and so on? Politics are also
involved; think about interstate relations, sanctions on oil sales from particular
states, and different kinds of power that oil wealth can generate. More recently,
climate justice advocates around the world have called for leaving oil in the ground
as a way to limit the greenhouse gas-trapping capacity of an atmosphere with
growing levels of fossil fuel remnants. Yet despite these factors that influence oil
production and complicate questions of how much, when, and even whether or not
oil is extracted from the earth’s subsurface, the graphic of Peak Oil, as it is widely
known, is still used to represent the reality of oil production. Although this graphic,
with references to proven reserves and future discoveries, may seem to explain a
lot about oil as an environmental feature, upon closer examination it actually raises
more questions than it addresses.
Whatever environmental feature or process is under discussion, particularly as

part of a geopolitical agenda, there is usually a great deal to be learned by looking
beneath the surface of how “the” environment is being represented. By question-
ing assumptions about “the” environment – that global data reflect a full reality
or that a particular image, graphic, or other representation offers a complete
explanation – it is possible to get a better understanding of how that particular
environmental feature or process is utilized or depicted for particular, geopoliti-
cal ends.

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2. Inquire into how human agency, and particularly uneven power relationships,
is portrayed or obscured in geopolitical claims about environmental issues
Oftentimes, narratives about environmental and political entanglements begin with
a particular, natural resource that seems to set the stage: diamond mines in Sierra
Leone are leading to armed conflict; transboundary water supplies can lead to ten-
sions between states; food shortages can lead to price spikes and social unrest; climate
change-induced ice melt in Arctic waters will lead to increased shipping and fishing
in the Arctic Ocean; and so on. The resource in question may be either abundant (dia-
monds, newly available ocean routes) or the resource may be scarce (food and water
shortages); either way, these kinds of narratives can be compelling because they seem
clear in cause and effect. These kinds of narratives all fall into a category of resource
determinism. Resource determinism focuses on a natural resource or environmen-
tal feature to explain some social, political, or economic outcome. Yet this kind of
argument is flawed because it glosses over the human systems and human agency
that are involved in these situations. Environmental resources, themselves, do not
cause conflict or stability, but they can exacerbate tensions in social, economic, and
political systems. So, diamonds do not cause conflict, but the demand for diamonds
and the way they have been marketed as a rare commodity make them valuable. It is
this value that makes diamonds attractive as a means for financing armed conflict in
some places that do not have political stability. Similarly, food shortages can certainly
contribute to social tension, but underlying any food shortage are questions about
who is in control of food prices, decisions about what kinds of crops are grown, and
how food is distributed among a population.
Another way in which resource determinism is problematic is that it overlooks

spatial dimensions of processes in question. Returning to the idea that diamonds
cause conflict, attention quickly focuses on where that conflict is happening: Sierra
Leone and other parts of Africa, for instance, where diamond mines happen to
be in operation. It is important to zoom out, so to speak, to see how demand for
diamonds in North America and Japan, for instance, generate interest in control-
ling diamond mines and the flow of diamonds to market. Even though armed
conflict is not breaking out in posh jewelry shops in richer countries, the valuation
of diamonds in places and societies far from diamond mines is a contributing factor
to armed conflict. In the same way, food, water use, increased frequency of forest
fires, energy provision, and other processes may most obviously happen or unfold
in particular places, but that spatial understanding is only part of the story. With
some investigation, these kinds of processes are usually shown to involve spatially
vast networks in which environmental features or natural resources are interrelated
with social, economic, and political systems. Resource determinism is helpful as an
idea because it can serve as an alert that there is more to the story, both in terms of
human agency and in terms of spatial connections.
This second entry point to examine environmental geopolitics takes that idea of
questioning simplified arguments about the role of natural resources or environ-
mental features in geopolitical narratives. It is a reminder that human agency in

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the form of social, economic, and political systems shapes how resources are used,
extracted, transported, refined, distributed, priced, studied, managed, promoted,
discouraged, and otherwise valued or devalued by societies. Bringing these kinds
of elements of human–environment relations to the fore supports a better under-
standing of how or why a given geopolitical narrative portrays a situation from a
selective perspective to promote a particular outcome.
3. Recognize ways in which selective, spatial focus, such as universal

generalizations about environmental processes or place-specific, environmental
situations, serve to legitimize particular perspectives or political interests
This third point of entry into environmental geopolitics picks up where the previ-
ous point of entry left off. In addition to recognizing that something happening or
unfolding in one place is often connected to other places, it is also important to
recognize the power of focusing an audience’s attention on a limited spatial view.
Geopolitics is about promoting a particular view of the world supported by a lim-
ited set of geographical knowledge. To be persuasive, a geopolitical narrative will
focus on spatial elements that support the overarching view. A carefully cultivated,
selective spatial focus may serve to obscure other aspects of the situation that chal-
lenge that view.
One example may be seen in arguments by corporate agribusiness in favor of sup-

porting local food systems and the ability of people to feed themselves. Companies
have promoted the use of genetically modified crops and other industrial inputs
as the means for people, usually in less economically advanced places, to pro-
vide enough food for themselves. This narrative is repeated on company websites,
reports, mission statements, and advertisements to describe the use of these
inputs as positive and helpful for local communities. They make the case that these
advanced, agricultural inputs will help to address food insecurity and support sta-
bility in these places and communities. These efforts may be described as “grain-
washing” or a combination of brainwashing and greenwashing to make an activity
seem both environmentally sustainable and socially responsible (Scanlan 2013).
What these kinds of arguments obscure from view, however, is the global food
production and distribution system in which these corporations play a significant
and decisive role. By focusing attention on local communities and their (supposed)
need for advanced agricultural inputs, this kind of narrative overlooks how the
global food production system can actually contribute to localized food insecu-
rity by destabilizing traditional food systems and preferences and shifting local
communities toward a food system that prioritizes profit. The power dynamics of
this kind of situation are particularly skewed since agribusinesses have developed
collaborative support from governments, research universities, and think tanks.
Messaging about local food systems emanating from these institutions is not neces-
sarily in the best interest of local communities, but often those local communities
do not have a voice or a platform from which to promote their own perspective.
This example of corporate agribusiness promoting the local demonstrates selective,
spatial focus to support a particular agenda or outcome.

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A somewhat inverse example of a selective spatial focus serving a particular agenda

may be seen in claims about global climate change shifting the planet into a new
geologic era, the Anthropocene. Many social scientists embrace the notion of the
Anthropocene as a human-induced shift in the atmosphere, water bodies, and biol-
ogy of the planet such that our very life-support system has become unstable and
unreliable. The idea of the Anthropocene and a shift to unfamiliar circumstances is
provocative and potentially useful. However, it is also an idea that should be treated
with some caution. Statements or claims about how the entire planetary system is
changing and that all of humanity will be affected suggest that everyone is in the
same boat. That is not true in at least two ways. First, the most significant, contribut-
ing factor of climate change, the burning of fossil fuels, was caused by certain parts
of the human population who used this energy to expand empires and industries as
well as violence and destruction. The costs and benefits of this fuel use were (and
continue to be) uneven. Second, the impacts of climate change such as increased
heatwaves and droughts, and less predictable and more powerful storm systems,
will not affect everyone in the same way. Richer people in some places will be able
to buy their way out of harm or insecurity whereas people with fewer options may
have little choice when conditions become difficult. References, then, to challenges
faced by everyone on the planet prioritize and promote a global, all-encompassing
view while overlooking the stark variations in cause and effect. Although the very
word “Anthropocene” refers to all humans (“anthropo”), it might more usefully be
a reminder of the variety of experiences and situations that humans face. As Gert
Goeminne has aptly observed, “What is indeed going almost unnoticed . . . is that
the apocalyptic climate scenarios paralyze the political struggle” (2010, p. 208).
Overview of sections and chapters
Most of the chapters in this book address one or more of these key themes or points
of entry to environmental geopolitics, and the chapters are arranged loosely around
these themes. Several chapters go beyond the organizational structure of the book
to address issues related to this subfield such as methodology, policy implications,
and possible areas for future work.
Interpreting and measuring the environment

Since a fundamental aspect of environmental geopolitics has to do with how we
understand what the environment is, the chapters in this section ask questions
about how we value, calculate, and assess the environment and why scientific
methods and measures matter.
In their chapter “Getting the measure of nature: the inconspicuous geopolitics

of environmental measurement”, Brendon Blue and Marc Tadaki examine the
“apparent objectivity of quantified data.” Data on the physical environment are
frequently used to support and promote particular views about how to manage,
value, and engage with “nature,” so it is important to understand how measurement

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may be selectively used to generate and perpetuate one view over another. Blue and
Tadaki consider how measurements are valuable only insofar as they are accepted
and agreed upon by scientific practice. In this way, measurements of the physical
world are also social phenomena and constructs. As critical geopolitics seeks to
question how power is maintained or challenged through the production of geo-
graphical knowledge, this chapter considers the role of scientific measurement in
struggles over power and the representation of place, nature, and, in this case, the
meaning of swimmable rivers.
Noella J. Gray, Leslie Acton and Lisa M. Campbell consider the intersection of sci-
ence and ocean geopolitics in their chapter, “Science, territory, and the geopolitics
of high seas conservation.” They examine how the deployment of certain forms
of measurement serves to reinforce practices of territorialization and the control
over spatial representation. They draw on two case studies: international efforts
to promote conservation on the high seas through the identification of marine
protected areas, and challenges to conservation efforts focused on the inherently
and spatially dynamic Sargasso Sea. Biologically significant ecosystems on the high
seas lie beyond national jurisdiction, so efforts to protect these areas of biological
diversity must somehow be made amenable to the spatial logics of sovereign states
and territorial definitions and management. Similarly, the Sargasso Sea is an ever-
changing and always moving mass of aquatic life, and it, too, challenges traditional
approaches to conservation efforts that tend to identify protected phenomena as
something that may be clearly defined and spatially bounded. In both cases, these
authors consider practices of territoriality as reflective of contested ways of know-
ing and interpreting the world.
In the third chapter in this section on interpreting and measuring the environment,
Birgit Schneider and Lynda Olman assess the Global Forest Watch platform, which
purportedly aims to monitor forest-related human activity and invites local input
and feedback into its larger-scale view. In “The geopolitics of environmental global
mapping services: an analysis of Global Forest Watch”, these authors consider how
this top-down representation of forests establishes a geopolitical framework in
which certain political perspectives are embedded. Those perspectives are often at
odds with local, situated perspectives and forms of engagement with the platform.
In other words, they demonstrate how what appears to be a multi-scale system for
monitoring forests is actually pre-structured to validate a technocratic approach to
forest management and less of a means to support small-scale activism. How forests
are defined, measured, and monitored reflects struggles over different understand-
ings of the value and meaning of forests.
Power, knowledge, and human–environment interactions

The second point of entry to examining environmental geopolitics focuses on
human agency and how it may be obscured in claims about natural resources and
environmental features. Natural resources, as discussed earlier in this chapter, do
not directly cause political, economic, and social outcomes but are often entangled

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in these human systems. The chapters in this section highlight how power takes
many forms and is reflected not only in text and narratives, but also in materialities,
practices, and identities – all of which provide promising avenues for analysis.
This section begins with Philippe Le Billon and Lauren Shykora’s chapter, “Conflicts,
commodities and the environmental geopolitics of supply chains.” These authors
step away from resource determinism’s focus on either the absence or presence of
resources and environmental conditions to draw attention to transnational flows of
commodities. The supply chains for various commodities, themselves, are geopolit-
ical constructs portrayed to consumers, selectively, as contributing to conflict or to
peaceful conditions in particular places. Le Billon and Shykora look at three com-
modities associated with conflict or environmental degradation – oil, diamonds,
and palm oil, and they also look at quinoa as an example of a commodity that is
idealized as contributing to positive outcomes in both source locations as well as
sites of consumption. Across all of these supply chains, particular interests and
forms of power are reinforced through selective portrayals of material connections.
In his chapter “Underground geopolitics: science, race, and territory in Peru during
the late nineteenth century”, Matthew Himley provides a historical analysis of how
geographical knowledge of subsurface earth science was intertwined with social
geographies of economic development, race, and power in Peru. He demonstrates
the importance of understanding how physical, subsurface features were studied
and portrayed in ways that contributed to above-ground geographies of power and
discrimination. Far from being objective facts about nature, science and scientific
endeavors are shown to be extensions of geopolitics playing out on the earth’s
surface and used in selective ways to benefit some groups of people and processes
over others.
Coleen A. Fox and Christopher Sneddon highlight different knowledges and expe-
riences in their chapter “Local knowledges and environmental governance: making
space for alternative futures in the Arctic circumpolar region and the Mekong
River Basin.” Drawing examples from the Mekong River Basin and from Arctic
locations, they highlight local perceptions of environmental features and processes
and how those understandings come into tension with knowledges and processes
at larger spatial scales. In these places, communities that are dependent on local
resources are affected by priorities and decisions made at national and regional
levels. The interests and knowledges of these communities are often overlooked
by these larger-scale geopolitical processes. In the Arctic, climate change-induced
melting ice is shifting traditional patterns of livelihoods while simultaneously
attracting new actors interested in other forms of resource development. In the
Mekong River Basin, upstream decisions to construct dams for hydroelectric power
development serve the interests of powerful actors who do not take into account
localized effects of dams on downstream communities. The chapter emphasizes
not only the multiplicity of knowledges surrounding any particular environmental
context, but also how the selective use of knowledge serves certain interests and
reinforces power imbalances.

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Overcoming selective spatial focus

The third theme or point of entry into environmental geopolitics has to do with
observing how a selective spatial focus can serve a particular geopolitical agenda.
Environmental geopolitical analysis considers how environmental features are
used to extend geopolitical arguments, so investigating the spatial scale at which
environmental features are interpreted or obscured in order to reinforce claims
to power is a defining aim of environmental geopolitics. The three chapters in this
section are all focused on a particular place or region. They summarize results of
grounded fieldwork or place-specific cartographic analysis. These three chapters
are able to position their place-specific case studies into multiple spatial scales of
activity to demonstrate the importance of selective spatial focus. Recognizing selec-
tive geographies in geopolitical claims about the environment creates potential to
generate more just, inclusive, and forward-looking interpretations of our place with
the environment.
In their chapter “The geopolitics of transportation in the melting Arctic,” Frédéric

Lasserre and Pierre-Louis Têtu challenge the popular idea that an increasingly
ice-free Arctic Ocean will attract more international traffic through that ocean.
Despite mass media speculation that a more accessible Arctic Ocean would lead
to significant levels of commercial traffic taking advantage of shorter routes across
the Arctic, these authors demonstrate that shipping traffic in the Arctic has taken
a substantially different pattern. Not only has trans-Arctic shipping not signifi-
cantly increased, localized traffic in support of terrestrial resource exploitation has
notably increased in the number of trips. Without a clear understanding of what
actually drives shipping patterns in Arctic regions, mainstream assumptions about
impacts of this changing environment are inherently misleading.
Another approach to looking at multiple, intertwined spatial scales is demonstrated

in “Environmental geopolitics of rumor: the sociality of uncertainty during northern
Thailand’s smoky season.” In that chapter, Mary Mostafanezhad and Olivier Evrard
look at the sociality of rumor in the context of seasonal air pollution, sometimes
referred to as a haze crisis, in northern Thailand. In their fieldwork and ethnographic
research, they discern distinct social groups who self identify as upland and lowland
people from different regions of the country. These groups have different interpreta-
tions of the cause of the haze as well as its significance. In their chapter, these authors
examine the kinds of evidence and knowledge brought to bear in these different, local
narratives about the environment in which these social groups live. They find that
elements of ethnicity, urban–rural interactions, and communication technologies
contribute to the ways that these groups understand and explain the haze.
Taking a different look at the interrelatedness of spatial scales in resource extrac-

tion, Jesse Swann-Quinn focuses his chapter, “Digging deep: crossing scale in the
Georgian mining industry,” on mining in Georgia. Utilizing fieldwork, interviews,
and document analysis, he considers the spatial politics and networks involved
in mineral extraction practices that tie together global demand, transnational

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industrial interests, and local perceptions of mining’s costs and benefits. Different
actor groups create different spatial framings of environmental features and mining
practices depending on how that group perceives and portrays advantages or nega-
tive impacts of these practices. Swann-Quinn looks at how these spatial scales are
constructed differently by different interest groups associated with mining, yet
these spatial framings of the mining industry do not fit neatly into discrete spatial
scales or boxes. Instead, Swann-Quinn’s analysis shows how political practices
operate simultaneously at multiple spatial scales. The spatial dimensions of these
different political pursuits reflect the geopolitical landscape of mining in Georgia.
Final chapter and looking ahead
The final chapter of this volume summarizes how each chapter contributes not
only to the three key themes or entry point of environmental geopolitics but to
the subfield of environmental geopolitics. The chapter also initiates a conversation
among scholars in this field about how we might usefully move forward to generate
meaningful questions about environmental geopolitics and address them in useful
and creative ways. Of particular interest are dominant discourses about environ-
mental features and their relationship to human systems and interests. Whether
the topic is energy consumption, food riots, sustainable cities, disease vectors, land
use change, conflict related to resources, logistics and environmental management,
environmental measures and assessment, thinking globally or acting locally in a
context of Anthropocenic change, environmental geopolitics encourages the care-
ful examination of dominant discourses and the geographic and environmental
knowledge and representations embedded in them. What kinds of material reali-
ties, identities, and practices do these dominant ways of thinking promote as valu-
able and important, and what kinds of material realities, identities, and practices
are minimalized, overlooked, or obscured by these same ways of thinking? How
do policymakers, public figures, popular culture, and people as citizens and as
consumers perpetuate or potentially challenge dominant or mainstream narratives
that shape how we understand, discuss, and engage with environmental features?
These are key questions underlying environmental geopolitics, and the chapters in
this book provide examples of how scholars and researchers are creatively address-
ing those questions.
References
Asdal, Kristin, Tone Druglitro, and Steve Hinchliffe (eds) (2016), Humans, Animals and Biopolitics: The
More-Than-Human Condition, London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge.
Bridge, G. (2010), “Geographies of peak oil: The other carbon problem,” Geoforum, 41(4), 523–30.
Edwards, Paul N. (2010), A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global
Warming, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Goeminne, G. (2010), “Climate policy is dead, long live climate politics!,” Ethics, Place & Environment: A
Journal of Philosophy & Geography, 13(2), 207–14.

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Hemmingsen, E. (2010), “At the base of Hubbert’s Peak: grounding the debate on petroleum scarcity,”
Geoforum, 41(4), 531–40.
O’Lear, Shannon (2018), Environmental Geopolitics, Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield.
Scanlan, S. J. (2013), “Feeding the planet or feeding us a line? Agribusiness, ‘grainwashing’ and hunger in
the world food system,” International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture & Food, (3), 357–82.
Swyngeouw, Erik (2010), “Trouble with nature: ‘ecology as the new opium for the masses,’” in Jean
Hillier and Patsy Healy (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Planning Theory: Conceptual
Challenges for Spatial Planning, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. 299–318.
Zizek, Slavoj (1991), Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan Through Popular Culture,
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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PART I
Interpreting and Measuring the Environment
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2 Getting the measure of nature:
the inconspicuous geopolitics of
environmental measurement
Brendon Blue and Marc Tadaki
Introduction
Measurements are ubiquitous in contemporary environmental debates and deci-

sion making. Able in principle to be externally verified, and therefore not entirely
malleable to the will of those who would deploy them, measurements confer a
sense of objectivity and transparency to claims about the material world (Porter
1995). They lend credibility to claims of a global biodiversity crisis, for example,
which draw heavily on maps of forest cover, calculations of species richness and
systematic observations of ongoing resource extraction. Indices of temperature, ice
mass, oceanic heat content and greenhouse gas emissions are similarly enlisted in
calls to change behaviour in the face of human-induced climate change. Around
the world, governments turn to economic calculations, ecological surveys and
monitoring data to inform and authenticate their efforts to decarbonize economies,
protect endangered species, and enhance or restore ecosystem health.
But measurements do not simply exist, waiting to be selected to support claims

about the environment. Measurement only occurs if someone considers a phenom-
ena to be worthy of description, and measures acquire their explanatory and rhe-
torical power through inherently social processes of validation and consumption.
Choices of what to measure, and how, are commonly understood as technical tasks,
far removed from the political questions of how the resulting information should
be used, yet these decisions fundamentally influence how environmental problems
are understood and what possible solutions to them are imagined (Turnhout et
al. 2019). Thus, while measures may be taken for granted as simply describing the
natural world, they are necessarily entangled with ideas about what – and who –
matters for environmental decision making (Blue and Brierley 2016).
Critical geopolitical enquiry traditionally emphasizes the role that ideas about the
world play in reproducing power relations between groups of people (Dodds 2001;
O’Lear 2018). As in other critical social sciences, this focus on discursive construc-
tion represents a desire to identify possibilities for making the world differently.
If phenomena that were hitherto taken for granted as fundamental or essential
might in fact be social constructs, the argument goes, they could be remade in
16
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GETTING THE MEASURE OF NATURE 17
ways that are fairer, more just and less violent. Yet, while discourse shapes people’s
understandings and actions, environmental problems are also constituted and con-
strained by material realities (see Dalby 2014). As a powerful means for represent-
ing and changing these realities, and as a practice that is both distinctively social
and distinctively more-than-social, measurement provides a valuable window into
the geopolitics of contemporary environmental problems.
In this chapter we seek to illustrate the value of attending to the inconspicuous

geopolitics of measurement. We do this by examining two episodes in which ‘good
condition’ for freshwater has been articulated and made quantifiable. First, we
provide an account of efforts by scientists to conceptualize river health as the basis
for intervention into freshwater ecosystems. A close reading of these competing
visions of what human–freshwater relations should be demonstrates how measur-
ing the environment can be an inconspicuous political act, no less influential for
being hidden behind the disinterested language of expertise. Second, we explore
the material–social dynamics of attempts by central government in Aotearoa/New
Zealand to define river condition in a particular way – the ability for people to swim
in it – as the basis for reporting on and improving the state of freshwater. This
analysis demonstrates how powerful actors select and frame environmental meas-
ures to tell stories that suit their understandings of what matters for freshwater. We
also, however, show that environmental measures can be enrolled to speak back to
powerful claims on both socio-political and material grounds.
Measuring good ecological condition: competing interpretations of

river health
Since the late 1980s, the cornerstone ideals and assumptions of conservation
ecology have come under attack on a combination of philosophical, ethical and
scientific fronts (see Callicott and Nelson 1998). The notion of a pristine pre-
human wilderness as a naturally stable state, threatened by human interference and
destruction, had been a linchpin of Western conservation movements in the early
twentieth century. By representing nature as separate from people, unable to coex-
ist with human development, this ideal encouraged conservation efforts focused
on preserving notionally pristine landscapes by excluding people from them. The
burden of these efforts was disproportionately felt by indigenous people, who were
dispossessed of their land on the premise of protecting it (Spence 2000), and by
those in economically poorer countries containing the bulk of the world’s less
developed land (Guha 1989). Alongside these considerations of justice, insights
emerging from the environmental sciences showed that the landscapes and eco-
systems humans had come to assume were in ‘climax’ or ‘equilibrium’ states simply
represent a point in time rather than a stable reference from which to evaluate
human intervention (Perry 2002). In the face of these developments it has become
increasingly difficult to sustain the notion that conservation is simply a matter of
preserving and restoring unspoilt wilderness.

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This problematization of the pristine ideal presents a fundamental challenge for

those tasked with managing rivers: what exactly should they be aiming for, if not
a natural state? Since the mid-1990s, the concept of river health has emerged as a
way of answering this question by providing an alternative way of imagining what
a river in ‘good’ condition might be and do. It is not self-evident that we should
measure river health. As critics were quick to point out, health is not a readily
observable ecological property (see Suter 1993). The philosophical traditions on
which Western environmental governance is based do not tend to consider the
wellbeing of landscape entities such as rock outcrops or mountains. Nonetheless,
the concept of river health presents a powerful, attractive metaphor for those who
seek to influence environmental outcomes in a context of increasing human inter-
actions with freshwater (Fairweather 1999).
Putting this broader understanding of environmental wellbeing into practice, how-

ever, presents a rather different challenge. Several ecologists have attempted to
operationalize ecosystem health by developing tools for assessing and monitoring
environmental condition. These efforts, culminating during the late 1990s, pro-
duced two rather contrary models: James Karr’s indices of ‘biotic integrity’ (IBIs),
focusing primarily on freshwater ecosystem composition (Karr 1999), and a func-
tionalist approach emphasizing productivity and resilience developed by Robert
Costanza and colleagues (see Costanza and Mageau 1999). Attempting to come to
grips with the implications of the ongoing debates over the appropriate aims and
approaches of conservation ecology, each of these models attempts to provide the
means for understanding ecological condition in landscapes influenced by people.
In doing so, they offer rather different answers to the question of how rivers should
be.
The IBIs developed by Karr and various colleagues present a multi-metric approach
to river health that utilizes benthic community structure and composition data
to infer the extent to which a waterway has been impacted by human activity (see
Kerans and Karr 1994). These metrics, which have been shown through field testing
to correspond with qualitative assessments of human-induced disturbance, include
the in-stream presence of particular insect larvae species such as Ephemeroptera
(mayflies) and Trichoptera (caddisflies), along with the existence of higher-order
predators and species deemed intolerant of disturbance. Calibrated against a ‘refer-
ence condition’ representing a ‘normal’, undisturbed state, these species are proxies
for the extent to which a waterway has been negatively impacted by human activity:
in Karr’s understanding, become less healthy. While exact definitions and uses of
reference condition can vary (Stoddard et al. 2006) they are a common feature of
river restoration theory and practice, integrated for example into the European
Water Framework Directive (Bouleau and Pont 2015). For Karr, an unmodified
reference condition is intended to provide an objective but flexible standard for
assessing waterways. By asking how a stream’s ecological composition differs from
what might be anticipated given its biophysical context, we might gain a sense of
the extent and magnitude of human impacts on that river.

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This approach to measuring river health offers a fairly traditional model of conser-
vation, aimed at protecting and restoring the ‘correct’ assemblage of species for a
particular place. The reliance on reference condition, however, produces a rather
circular logic. While the indicators included have undergone rigorous testing to
demonstrate that they are associated with rivers in subjectively ‘good’ condition, we
only know that those rivers are in good condition because they have been deemed
to be so. In other words: we can tell that a stream is healthy because it seems less
impacted by humans, and because it seems less impacted by humans we can tell
that it is healthy. This becomes a particular problem when using reference condi-
tion to assess streams in places such as Europe where long, ubiquitous histories of
human modification leave no clear analogue for an ‘undisturbed’ condition, even
if such states were indisputably desirable (Dufour and Piégay 2009). Managing
towards an apparently undisturbed reference condition in such landscapes can
entrench limited and unrealistic ideals of pristine wilderness, with little relation to
the places they are intended to describe.
The approach of Costanza and colleagues, on the other hand, is much less concerned
with what ‘should’ comprise a given ecosystem than with the work that ecosystem
does. Their focus on ecosystem vigour, organization and resilience has little regard
for which species live in a river – least of all their endemic or exotic status – as long
as they sustain an ecosystem that is diverse, productive and capable of recovering
quickly after disturbance. Applied to freshwater, their model describes how human-
induced stresses such as reduced water quality and overfishing can decrease ecosys-
tem productivity through infertility and loss of breeding-age individuals, modifying
community structure as particular species become dominant and rendering ecosys-
tems more vulnerable to sudden, drastic change (Rapport et al. 1998).
Costanza and colleagues do not rely on place-specific reference conditions based

on a sense of biophysical history and context. Instead, they provide a set of osten-
sibly universal, comprehensive principles for understanding ecosystem condition
largely in terms of the ability to sustainably convert sunlight into biomass. This
approach implies that any increase in the dimensions of vigour, organization or
resilience represents an improvement in the health of that ecosystem, irrespective
of the cause, and that this ‘should be a primary design goal for ecological engi-
neering’ (Costanza 2012, p. 26). In doing so, it almost entirely abandons the claim
that the past represents an inherently desirable guiding ideal for environmental
management.
The models of river health advocated by Karr and Costanza differ not only in their
understandings of what good condition for freshwater is, but in who should be
responsible for achieving those outcomes. Karr’s more conventional understanding
of river condition implicitly assumes that the state should be the primary actor
responsible for environmental protection and restoration. As a monitoring tool,
IBIs are intended to allow ‘Biologists, managers, regulators, and decision makers’
to regulate against environmental damage and to prioritize public river-restoration
funding for the public good (Karr 1999, p. 232). Costanza’s approach, on the other

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hand, embodies an increasing trend towards highlighting the monetary value of

ecosystem ‘services’ to advocate for particular environmental outcomes (see
Dempsey 2016). By explicitly comparing ecosystem productivity with economic
models of welfare such as gross domestic product, Costanza and Mageau (1999)
position non-human labour as a commodity to be priced and traded with the hope
of incentivizing the efficient delivery and utilization of services (see Peterson et
al. 2010). By making the environment visible as a source of potential profit, this
approach potentially devolves environmental responsibility and agency to an
entirely different set of non-government actors.
Despite their differences, these two models for environmental advocacy share a
commitment to, and reliance on, the creation of putatively objective facts regard-
ing the environment. Both Costanza and Karr present a series of case studies and
examples to demonstrate the reliability and relevance of their assessment regimes.
Despite this shared commitment to the material, however, these approaches rep-
resent rather different understandings of how people should live with and inter-
vene in contemporary ecosystems. By contrasting Karr’s relatively conventional
approach to river health with Costanza’s modernist understanding that places no
particular value on past or present ecosystem states, we can see how the creation of
measures such as these is not simply a scientific act, but also a deeply political one.
In producing measures of environmental good, such as different interpretations of

river health, scientists can operate as geopolitical actors by promoting particular
understandings of what ‘the problem’ is and how it should be addressed. In the
next section, we consider a more overt example of the geopolitics of measurement
by tracing the efforts of political actors to institute a specifically human value,
‘swimmability’, as a public aspiration for rivers in New Zealand. This episode dem-
onstrates how measures played a dual role of both guiding public attention towards
a narrowed understanding of freshwater, while also providing opportunities for
claims regarding the state and future of New Zealand’s rivers to be contested.
The strategic selection and deployment of environmental

measures: contesting ‘swimmability’ in Aotearoa/New Zealand
In 2017, New Zealand’s erstwhile centre-right government declared their plan to

make ‘90% of rivers and lakes swimmable by 2040’ (Small and Mitchell 2017). Under
pressure from a public increasingly concerned with the state of New Zealand’s
rivers, and facing criticism for weak environmental standards and investing in
an agricultural industry that is the primary driver of water quality decline across
the country (see Joy 2015), the government sought to prove once and for all that
they were effective environmental stewards. The rhetoric was unassailable: who
wouldn’t want 90% of rivers to be swimmable?
Upon scrutiny, though, this target is not as straightforward as it first appears. For
a start, the ability to swim in a river is only one of a wide set of concerns, values

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and aspirations for freshwater in a postcolonial setting where human–environ-

ment relations are under active negotiation. The 90% swimmable goal strategically
selects and deploys ecological measures to confine and direct the horizons of public
discourse and action. In particular, the policy defines both what a river is, and what
makes it swimmable, in very specific ways.
To calculate which rivers across the country were or could be swimmable, the
Ministry for the Environment (MfE) first needed to determine what counted as
a river. To do this, MfE applied the crude qualitative tool of stream order (see
Strahler 1952) to existing maps and geographical data layers, including only water-
ways of fourth order and above. As a result, when the government’s target of 90%
swimmable rivers was announced, accompanying maps only included the largest
waterways. Within weeks, environmentalists had roundly criticized the proposals.
The environmental non-governmental organization Forest & Bird, for example,
responded by publishing maps of all streams in New Zealand. These maps, which
included smaller first-, second- and third-order streams, revealed that ‘There are
450,000kms of mapped streams and rivers in New Zealand, but only 45,000kms
(just 10%) of them are covered by the Government’s proposed new National Policy
Statement on Freshwater’ (Forest & Bird 2017).
By including only the largest streams, some 90% of New Zealand’s waterways had
been excluded from the new requirements to report upon and improve swimmabil-
ity. The MfE justified this by claiming that ‘Around 90 percent of New Zealand’s
catchments flow into rivers that are fourth order or bigger’, and would therefore
be addressed indirectly (emphasis added, Ministry for the Environment 2017).
Environment Minister Nick Smith added that it is ‘not practical’ to protect small
waterways through national regulation, but accepted that they should nevertheless
be looked after by local authorities (Smith 2017b).
Depending on one’s perspective, 90% of New Zealand’s rivers were therefore either
included in, or excluded from, the new swimmability policy. Both of these posi-
tions can be defended with environmental measures. The MfE’s statement did not
deny that all streams that are third order and smaller would be excluded from
the new criteria, but implied that they would also be targeted for improvement
due to their status as tributaries to streams covered directly by new regulations.
Environmental advocates, meanwhile, raised awareness of the limited scope of the
policy by compiling lists of well-known streams excluded from the new targets
(Forest & Bird 2017). Any aspirations people have to swim in first-, second- and
third-order streams would be neglected due to the stream order threshold.
The second step in making New Zealand’s rivers swimmable again involved defining
what, exactly, swimmability is. Does it require water of a certain depth, water clar-
ity, lack of algae, or safe water speed? Does swimmability require particular mor-
phological characteristics, such as the presence of swimming holes (deep pools)?
Must a stream be swimmable at all times, as would be expected in a public pool, or
should swimmers take personal responsibility for checking conditions beforehand?

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Does swimmability require actual swimming to take place, or need it merely exist in
potentia? These are all important questions that are answered – either explicitly or
through neglect – through the creation of metrics for swimmability.
The answer was found in a single metric: E. coli bacteria counts. Water quality had
long been a major concern for many rivers in New Zealand, and river management
was intended to address this in terms of both human recreation and ecosystem
condition. Reflecting this, in 2014 standards for freshwater were introduced incor-
porating a range of attributes including nitrate, periphyton, ammonia and dis-
solved oxygen alongside E. coli (New Zealand Government 2014). In 2017, the new
freshwater policy proposed to strengthen only swimmability above the previous
levels, which for rivers would be assessed through E. coli counts as a proxy for faecal
contamination.
Immediately upon release, the revised standards were met with widespread criti-
cism from environmentalists and some prominent scientists. This criticism did not,
however, point out the narrow scope of the additional standards, which focused
only on E. coli instead of the more balanced treatment of ecological and recrea-
tional objectives in the 2014 policy. Rather, attention turned to what the new limits
were for E. coli.
On the face of it, the requirement that 90% of rivers be swimmable by 2040 rep-
resented a considerable improvement upon the 2014 standards, which required
only that all rivers be safe for wading. The meaning of swimmability, however, had
changed. Whereas the 2014 standards defined a B as the minimum swimmable
grade, in 2017 a C was now deemed safe for swimming. Grade boundaries were
also defined differently: whereas the 2014 grades relied only on 95th percentile (P95)
E. coli counts, meaning that 95% of water samples taken each year must fall below
the relevant limit, the 2017 scheme relaxed these criteria and introduced a new,
lower annual median threshold (Table 2.1). In effect, this change tolerated short-
term peaks of E. coli in favour of a lower annual average.
Focusing on the newly relaxed allowable peak E. coli counts, the environmen-
tal group Choose Clean Water ran a prominent billboard in the nation’s capital
in March 2017 claiming ‘The government thinks you won’t notice more poo in
your water’ (Cann 2017). Environment Minister Smith (2017c) published a press
release titled ‘Claims of lower water standards wrong’, emphasizing that time-based
exceedances acknowledged that rivers experience raised bacterial levels during rain
and storm events and that this should not unduly affect people’s perceptions of a
river’s general level of swimmability. Despite these attempts at explanation, envi-
ronmental activists and Green Party politicians accused the government of ‘shifting
the goalposts’ of New Zealand’s environmental status and aspirations by redefining
swimmability more permissively (see Small and Mitchell 2017).
To formally refute these accusations, the Ministry for the Environment contracted
scientists from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)

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Table 2.1 Swimmability grades in the 2014 and 2017 New Zealand National Policy
Statements for Freshwater Management
Grade Year Grade thresholds for E.coli count/100ml, Regulatory Risk of

calculated annually status infection if
immersion (%)
P95 Median Samples Samples
exceeding exceeding
260 (%) 540 (%)
A 2014 260 – – – Swimmable 1

2017 540 130 20 5 Swimmable 1
B 2014 540 – – – Swimmable 5
2017 1000 130 30 10 Swimmable 2
C 2014 1000 – – – Wadeable >5
2017 1200 130 34 20 Swimmable 3
D 2014 >1000 – – – Not allowed –
2017 >1200 260 50 30 Not allowed >3
E 2014 – – – – – –
2017 >1200 >260 >50 >30 Not allowed >7
Source: New Zealand Government (2014, 2017)
to independently compare the 2014 and 2017 grading systems. When their report
was published alongside further technical explanation from the MfE, Minister
Smith claimed vindication:
These reports . . . confirm that the changes to the National Policy Statement in moving from
a wadeable standard of a median 1000 E. coli/100ml to swimmable with a median of 130
E. coli/100ml for 90 per cent of waterways provides for a significant improvement in the
microbiological water quality in our waterways. (Smith 2017a)
This statement is not untrue. The 2014 policy set a very weak standard for occa-
sional immersion (for example: wading, not swimming), using an annual median of
1000 E. coli/100ml, tolerating a high risk (>5%) of infection. The new swimmability
targets for A, B and C grades are based upon total immersion (i.e. swimming),
requiring annual medians of ≤130 E. coli/100ml for 90% of monitored waterways
by 2040 in addition to the amended time-bound statistical criteria contained in
Table 2.1. Comparing the 2014 ‘national bottom line’ (median 1000 E. coli/100ml)
against the new equivalent statistic (≤130 E. coli/100ml) indeed generates a positive
evaluation of the new policy: the 2014 allowable median was less stringent than the
2017 one.
Yet Minister Smith’s take on the report’s conclusions presents a selective sample.
At stake was whether the 2017 classifications of swimmable rivers were more
permissive than the 2014 system, which measured swimmability but did not


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directly require it. Applying both grading systems to all available data for rivers (of
all sizes), the NIWA scientists found that while only 30% of rivers were swimmable
under the 2014 system, the 2017 grading scheme classified 43% of New Zealand’s
rivers as currently swimmable: the new swimmability regime was therefore more
permissive (McBride and Soller 2017). Of fourth-order-and-larger streams, 31%
were swimmable under the 2014 scheme and 46% under the 2017 scheme. By
redefining thresholds of E. coli, the government had effectively turned 13% of New
Zealand’s rivers swimmable overnight.
Of all the rivers that could be monitored for swimmability, only the largest were
included. Of all the ways that swimmability could be defined, E. coli became the
single determining measure. Of all the ways that E. coli could relate to the desired
outcome of ‘swimmability’, only a limited set of statistical measures were chosen.
These selections made specific realities of rivers visible to the New Zealand public,
enabling E. coli measures to be seen at the national scale and compared across
rivers. These metrics directed the focus of public expectation towards a narrow set
of biophysical parameters, telling us which rivers to care about, which threats to be
wary of, and what improvement and decline looked like.
Drawing attention to particular environmental conditions in this way is a political

act, inevitably privileging and entrenching certain political interests and ways of
relating to nature (Tadaki and Sinner 2014). Taking for granted the government’s
claims about swimmability would miss the opportunity to identify the hidden win-
ners and losers of environmental policy. The winners, who the government claimed
included anyone who wants to swim in a river, subtly excluded people interested
in swimming in smaller streams, people with low tolerance for risk of bacterial
infection, and humans and non-humans primarily concerned with aspects of river
quality that were not addressed by the revised policy’s focus on E. coli. This limited
framing of the problem relied heavily on legitimacy produced through the inde-
pendent interpretive work of scientists. By revealing the material implications of
the new targets, however, those scientists’ analysis also opened up new terrain on
which to contest the government’s narrative of environmental stewardship.
Concluding discussion
Measurement is not just a way of describing the world, but a means for changing
it. In offering specific ways of measuring river health, ecologists have shaped not
only our understandings of how rivers are but also what they can and should
become. Similarly, by institutionalizing selective measures of swimmability into
policy, politicians in New Zealand narrowed not only the definition of what mat-
ters for freshwater – that able-bodied people can immerse themselves in it with
a reasonable expectation of avoiding infection by faecal pathogens – but also of
which rivers that matters for. As our ability to quantitatively characterize the bio-
physical world continues to improve, and as regimes of ecological measurement
are ever more enmeshed within systems of environmental governance around the

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globe, it becomes increasingly important to understand how measurement reflects,

supports and potentially challenges dominant discourses regarding the environ-
ment and people’s place in it.
The politics of environmental measures can be examined from at least two entry
points. Looking inside the measures themselves, as we have with river health, allows
us to account for the ways that ‘what is desirable’ is quietly prefigured by scientific
conceptions of the environment. Measures contain politics, even before politicians
or other political actors draw upon them. Whether river health is measured by
alignment with a reference condition, by its ecological functions or by some other
standard is a choice that bears significant consequences. In an urban context, for
example, it could tip the balance between management efforts that ‘turn back the
clock’ on environmental change versus strategies that attempt to optimize and
enhance stream functions that have already been fundamentally altered. Measures
of river health therefore both contain, and conceal, specific answers to deeply
political questions about how and for whom ecosystems should be altered.
In addition to looking inside such measures, geopolitical analysis can also look at
how they are selected, deployed and contested by political actors. As we explored
in the context of New Zealand’s swimmability debates, geopolitical claims-making
takes place with and through environmental measures. Political actors select meas-
ures from the world and enrol them into the stories they tell about themselves, the
environment and their actions. By selecting specific E. coli measures and packaging
these into a story about swimmable rivers, Minister Smith used a ‘90% swimmable’
aspiration to enlist the support of the New Zealand public while simultaneously
putting a positive spin on his government’s environmental record. E. coli measures
that were aimed at the future were also about changing a sense of the present
and the past. But measures are not simply determined by the utterances of the
powerful; their unique biophysical and scientific construction renders them open
to contestation in ways that other geopolitical claims are not. In our example, the
material environment provided the grounds for environmental groups to contest
swimmability metrics by producing maps of streams excluded from the policy.
Swimmability metrics also rely upon the authority of science and scientists, who,
in our case, found that the 2017 grades were in fact more permissive than the
2014 grading scheme. As such, environmental measures present a unique type of
geopolitical text whose validity is determined by both the material world and by the
social norms, communities and institutions of scientists.
In the introduction to this book (Chapter 1), Shannon O’Lear outlines three persis-
tent characteristics of geopolitical claims-making: that they tend to selectively por-
tray and represent what the environment is, that they tend to overlook or obscure
human agency, and that they tend to overlook the nuances of place and context in
human–environment interactions. A methodological focus on measurement pro-
vides unique insight into how arguments regarding what the environment is, and
what people’s relationship with it should be, are made, maintained and potentially
challenged.

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As we have shown here, the use of measurement in geopolitical discourse can be

analysed for the simultaneously productive and limiting ways in which it represents
the world. A geopolitics of measurement can examine and explain how measure-
ments pre-select which biophysical phenomena are seen, valued and understood,
and which are not. While measures of river health have proven a valuable tool for
highlighting the declining state of freshwater, they have also emphasized certain
aspects of freshwater at the expense of others: indicator species or easily measur-
able nutrients become the primary lens through which environmental problems for
that waterway are understood and responded to (see Bouleau 2014). This dynamic
often acts to reinforce the privileging of features deemed important by powerful
groups of people. Salmonids, for example, which are popular with sport fishermen
– and they are usually men – are regularly included in assessments of river health
ahead of the native fish that they displace (Blue 2018). Similarly, while the 2017
change in E. coli thresholds described here sparked a public uproar, attention was
focused almost entirely on the new measures themselves rather than on other ways
river conditions might be understood.
By design, measurement acts as a mechanism to enhance certain kinds of human

agency. By making specific aspects of the environment visible to governance
regimes, measurement motivates specific actors to reshape ecosystems in particu-
lar ways. By selectively highlighting certain components of freshwater systems,
metrics for river health or swimmability are intended to direct attention, expecta-
tions and investment towards particular kinds of environmental action. Whether
challenging authority by highlighting ongoing decline in freshwater ecosystems,
or enhancing it through a neatly packaged set of measures which a government
can use to demonstrate progress, these measures influence not just what action is
perceived as necessary but who should exercise control over it. This emphasis on
quantifying and optimizing specific environmental attributes can constrain peo-
ple’s agency in two key ways. First, it can influence how management efforts are
directed, narrowing their scope to attributes that are measurable and therefore
limiting whose perspectives are incorporated within management efforts (Dufour
et al. 2017; Tadaki and Sinner 2014). Second, a focus on measureable outcomes
tends to make specific actors responsible for achieving them. In New Zealand it was
not central government who would make 90% of rivers swimmable, but 16 regional
authorities, with constituencies varying considerably in size, socio-economic status
and biophysical character. This manoeuvre allowed central government to claim
the victory of improved swimmability while leaving the risks, conflicts, costs and
likely failures of implementation to others.
Finally, quantification has long been associated with forms of explanation that
emphasize universal principles over nuanced accounts of particular places (Porter
1995). Attempts to produce general laws of explanation, or to articulate generic
values, are inevitably abstractions that paper over local differences. Costanza’s
attempt to provide a universal framework for ecosystem health makes little conces-
sion to non-economic values of ecosystems, for example, while Karr’s focus on
indicators for naturalness fails to account for the often substantial value to be found

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even in highly modified landscapes. Such measures can neglect long histories of
entanglement between people and the environment, while at the same time sup-
porting very particular visions of how those relationships should look in the future.
The politically inflected values embedded within these arguments are increasingly
re-examined by postcolonial scholarship from New Zealand, as indigenous possi-
bilities for understanding and relating to the environment are considered alongside
and in conversation with conventional Western science (see Clapcott et al. 2018;
Parsons et al. 2019; Ruru 2018; Te Aho 2018).
This chapter has explored how measurement acts as a tool through which specific
visions of the environment both manifest and find support. When we disagree
with these visions, it can be tempting to blame this dynamic on the inherently
reductionist act of rendering a landscape into a small set of variables that can only
ever provide a partial account of the environment. Certainly, measures often act as
discursive resources that are selectively mobilized by political actors to craft and
promote particular, ideological visions of social and environmental justice. Unlike
some other geopolitical discursive resources, however, the credibility of ecological
measures is not simply determined by the power of those wielding them. Rather,
measures can be interpreted, reinterpreted, debated and potentially rejected based
on scientific norms that usually lie outside the direct reach of political actors.
Consider, for example, that the NIWA scientists employed to authoritatively dis-
prove environmentalists’ criticisms of the new swimmability targets ultimately
concluded that the new standards were numerically more permissive: the criticisms
were, in fact, deemed valid. NIWA scientists’ statistical measures were accountable
to the data set from which they derived, and the statistical norms governing their
analysis, as much as – if not more than – the political needs of a government under
fire.
As the project to denaturalize discourse turns increasingly towards the biophysical

environment, it introduces a new actor and stakeholder to claims regarding what is,
what is not, and what should be. This stakeholder – the non-human world – cannot
directly speak for itself. Rather it is spoken of, and for, in a range of different ways by
a range of different people. Understanding how nature is spoken for through meas-
urement draws attention to how environmental measures can simultaneously act
to support, limit, conceal and reveal geopolitical arguments. It is precisely because
it is so easy to treat measurements as objective referents for reality, to assume that
what can be measured is what matters, that there is substantial value in attending to
the inconspicuous geopolitics of environmental measurement.
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M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 29 17/01/2020 11:58

3 Science, territory, and the geopolitics
of high seas conservation
Noella J. Gray, Leslie Acton, and Lisa M. Campbell
Introduction
Oceans have emerged as a primary focus of global environmental geopolitics in

the 21st century. They are at the centre of numerous new and renewed efforts
by multiple actors to assert sovereignty and develop economic opportunities. For
example: in the South China Sea, China has engaged in reclamation and island-
building activities in order to assert territorial claims at sea (Davenport 2018). In
the Arctic, declines in sea ice are sparking territorial conflicts, as states seek to
assert or challenge sovereignty in relation to dynamic material entities (ice/water)
and legal orders (Shake et al. 2018). In the Pacific, small island states are asserting
a dynamic, extra-territorial sovereignty enabled by the mobility of migratory tuna,
fishing vessels, and global capital (Havice 2018). In the deep sea, the geopolitics
of mining are being actively shaped by both the spatial and temporal complexity
of deep sea environments, even as they are influenced by traditional concerns for
capital accumulation, state control of territory, and environmental impacts (Childs
2018). Globally, many nations are adopting the discourse of ‘blue economy’ as a way
to orient political, economic, and territorial attention toward oceanic opportunities
(Silver et al. 2015).
In some ways, these examples represent traditional concerns with oceanic geo-
politics – with the oceans as a stage for the unfolding of geopolitical dramas cen-
tered on military conflict and capitalist expansion, and the inter-relations among
them (Greenberg 2013). Marine resources (for example fish, minerals), and the
competition for control over their extraction, continue to dominate geopolitical
attention, while changing geopolitical relations influence resource extraction and
management regimes. Ocean space and resources continue to play a central role
in inter-state relations, increasingly defining state identities and territorial claims,
such as in the case of Small Island Developing States identifying as ‘large ocean
states’ (Chan 2018). However, these examples also challenge traditional distinc-
tions between land and sea (and sea and ice), state and non-state, and cooperation
and conflict. They point to the ways in which ocean governance is challenged by
the dynamic materiality of oceans, the mobility of both marine resources and the
capital and technologies associated with marine extraction, conflicting interests
in and understandings of ocean space, and the persistent tension between rapidly
30
Noella J. Gray, Leslie Acton, and Lisa M. Campbell - 9781788971249
M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 30 17/01/2020 11:58

SCIENCE, TERRITORY, AND THE GEOPOLITICS OF HIGH SEAS CONSERVATION 31
increasing knowledge of the oceans alongside tremendous uncertainty and large

gaps in ocean knowledge. The oceans remain a frontier space – not only a com-
modity frontier, but also increasingly a scientific and jurisdictional frontier marked
by novel conservation interventions (Havice and Zalik 2018).
In this chapter, we examine two recent efforts to territorialize the oceans for
conservation, demonstrating that the ways in which ocean science – observation,
measurement, interpretation – is translated into calculable objects of governance,
playing a critical role in defining geopolitical interactions, both challenging and
reinforcing conventional ideas of territory and space. While marine conservation is
clearly tied to territorial and geopolitical projects within states’ exclusive economic
zones (Chan 2018; Gruby et al. 2017), we focus here specifically on efforts to terri-
torialize the high seas, those areas beyond national jurisdiction. We summarize and
bring together two related projects: (1) a study of long-term international efforts
to advance biodiversity conservation on the high seas, drawing on the results of
five collaborative event ethnographies (Gray 2018); and (2) research on a regional
conservation initiative in the Sargasso Sea, drawing on document analysis and
semi-structured interviews (Acton et al. 2019).1
Together, these two cases illustrate the intertwining of science and ocean geo-
politics, demonstrating that who deploys science – and how – has important impli-
cations for territorialization practices on the high seas. As novel scientific and
technological knowledge and representations of the ocean emerge, they simultane-
ously enable and constrain ocean governance innovation and geopolitical strate-
gies. The chapter considers three challenges associated with the science–territory
nexus in ocean space. First, new scientific representations of ocean space reproduce
a seemingly objective and complete ‘view from nowhere’ (Lehman 2017), belying
the always incomplete, fragmented, and situated nature of ocean knowledge. As
territorial claims are advanced for high seas conservation, it is essential to interro-
gate the knowledge underpinning these claims. Second, high seas territorialization
processes highlight the privileging of certain kinds of knowledge and knowledge-
making processes, which largely ignore or oversimplify human activities and
relations to ocean space. Finally, the production of fixed, simplified scientific rep-
resentations for conservation policymaking demonstrates the limits of traditional
understandings of space and territory when applied to oceans, while also pointing
to ways in which territorial strategies may evolve moving forward.
Producing marine conservation territories on the high seas
While marine territorialization takes many forms, marine protected areas (MPAs)
play a central role in international marine biodiversity conservation efforts
1 This chapter adapts and reprints material from Gray (2018), with the permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd, and
Acton et al. (2019), with permission from Elsevier. For further details on both projects, please refer to the original
papers.

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 31 17/01/2020 11:58

(Campbell et al. 2016; Campbell and Gray 2019; Gray et al. 2014). The IUCN defines
protected areas, including MPAs, as any “clearly defined geographical space, recog-
nized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the
long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural
values” (Dudley 2008, p. 8). The Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
set a target of 10% of global oceans protected within MPAs by 2020 (CBD 2010a),
a target that is also integrated into the United Nations Sustainable Development
Goal 14 for the Oceans. Marine protected areas currently cover 6.97% of the global
ocean; this includes coverage of 16.03% of coastal and marine areas within national
jurisdiction, but only 1.18% of areas beyond national jurisdiction (the high seas)
(UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2018). Of the currently listed 15,604 MPAs in the World
Database on Protected Areas, only nine sites are on the high seas (UNEP-WCMC
and IUCN 2018). While biodiversity conservation on some parts of the high seas
is possible using existing sectoral and regional agreements, scholars and conser-
vationists argue there is a need for a more cooperative, integrated, multi-sectoral
approach (Gjerde et al. 2016).
However, the overarching legal framework for the oceans – the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – does not currently provide a legal
mechanism for establishing marine protected areas or otherwise ensuring marine
biodiversity conservation in areas beyond national jurisdiction. With a few excep-
tions, MPAs lack institutional and legal support to function as objects of govern-
ance for the high seas. As “Earth’s last conservation frontier” (Gjerde et al. 2016,
p. 56), the high seas offer an unparalleled conservation opportunity (Campbell and
Gray 2019). To seize this opportunity, countries began negotiations in 2018 for a
new Implementing Agreement to UNCLOS, in order to better enable biodiversity
conservation in areas beyond national jurisdiction (UN 2018). The draft text of this
agreement identifies a “package” of issues, including MPAs and other area-based
management tools (see also Gjerde et al. 2016; UN 2018). If adopted, it will be the
culmination of a long-term, organized effort to advance biodiversity conservation
on the high seas, which has included more than two decades of advocacy work,
informal and formal UN processes, and legal and biophysical research.
Understanding this effort to advance high seas conservation using MPAs requires
an analysis of territory and territoriality at sea. Territory is conventionally under-
stood as a bounded space, within which a particular actor or group, typically a state,
exercises control (Elden 2010). Territoriality refers to the continual reproduction
of relations of control and/or authority in relation to bounded spaces (Elden 2010;
Steinberg 2009). The high seas are, by definition, beyond national jurisdiction and
therefore challenge the traditional association of MPAs with territorial state sov-
ereignty (Scott 2012). However, as Steinberg (2009, p. 472) argues, “geographies of
territoriality must examine not just the . . . space constructed inside the territories
of sovereign states but also the spaces on the outside that are designated as not
being amenable to this organization of space.” In this chapter, we examine efforts to
make “unamenable space” (the high seas) amenable to the spatial logic and ideas of
control and management associated with the concept of territory.

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 32 17/01/2020 11:58

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
In einer Schieblade lagen alle seine Sachen, sie nahm sie nie
heraus. Sie wußte ja doch, wie jedes Stück aussah und wie es sich
auf der Handfläche anfühlte — das glatte, weiche Linnen, die rauhe
Wolle und die halbfertige Jacke aus grünem Flanell, die sie mit
Butterblumen bestickt hatte, die sollte er haben, wenn er
ausgefahren wurde. —
Sie hatte ein Bild vom Strande angefangen mit den roten und
blauen Kindern auf dem weißen Sandstrand. Einige der
teilnehmenden Damen kamen herbei, schauten zu und versuchten,
eine Bekanntschaft anzubahnen: „Wie nett!“ Sie war aber
unzufrieden mit der Skizze und mochte sie nicht beendigen, auch
eine neue wollte sie nicht anfangen. —
Eines Tages schloß das Badehotel wieder, es stürmte auf See,

und der Sommer war vorüber.
Gunnar schrieb aus Italien und riet ihr, herunterzukommen.
Cesca wollte sie nach Schweden haben. Die Mutter, die nichts
wußte, schrieb und begriff nicht, warum sie dort blieb. Jenny dachte
daran, fortzureisen, konnte aber zu keinem Entschluß kommen.
Obgleich doch allmählich eine unbestimmte Sehnsucht in ihr wach
wurde. Sie wurde selbst dadurch nervös, daß sie so umherging und
nichts tun konnte. Sie mußte einen Entschluß fassen — wenn sie
auch nur eines Nachts von der Mole aus in die See spränge.
Eines Abends hatte sie die Kiste mit Heggens Büchern
hervorgeholt. Unter ihnen befand sich ein Band italienischer
Gedichte — Fiori della poesia italiana. Eine Ausgabe, für Touristen
berechnet, in einfaches Leder gebunden. Sie blätterte darin, um zu
sehen, ob sie all ihr Italienisch vergessen hätte.
Sie schlug das Buch zufällig bei Lorenzo von Medicis
Karnevalslied auf und fand ein zusammengefaltetes Stück Papier,
von Gunnars Hand beschrieben:
„Liebe Mutter. Jetzt kann ich Dir endlich berichten, daß ich
glücklich und wohl in Italien angekommen bin, und daß es mir
in jeder Hinsicht gut geht, sowie —“ Der Rest des Bogens war
mit Vokabeln bedeckt. Bei den Verben standen zugleich die
Deklinationen. Auch am Rande des Buches standen
Vokabeln — ganz dicht, an dem tragisch frohen
Karnevalsgedicht entlang. „Wie schön ist die Jugend, die so
schnell entflieht“.
Selbst die gewöhnlichsten Worte waren aufgeschrieben. Gunnar

mußte versucht haben, das Lied zu lesen, gleich nachdem er nach
Italien gekommen war — ehe er etwas von der Sprache konnte. Sie
sah auf dem Titelblatt nach: G. Heggen, Firenze und die Jahreszahl
stand dort. Das war, ehe sie ihn kennengelernt hatte.
Sie blätterte und las hier und da. Dort stand Leopardis Hymne an
Italia, für die Gunnar so begeistert war. Sie las sie. Der Rand war
schwarz von Vokabeln und Tintenflecken.
Es schien wie ein Gruß von ihm, eindringlicher als alle seine
Briefe. Er rief sie, jung und gesund, fest und voller Tatendrang. Er
bat sie, zum Leben zurückzukehren und zur Arbeit. Ja, wenn sie sich
doch zusammennehmen und wieder anfangen könnte. Sie mußte
versuchen, zu wählen zwischen Leben — oder Tod. Sie wollte
wieder dort hinab, wo sie sich einst frei und stark gefühlt hatte, allein,
nur mit ihrer Arbeit. Sie sehnte sich danach, und nach den
Freunden, den zuverlässigen Kameraden, die einander nicht so
nahe kamen, daß Leid daraus entstand, sondern Seite an Seite,
jeder in seiner eigenen Welt, die auch all den anderen gehörte,
miteinander dahinlebten, im Vertrauen auf ihr Können, in der Freude
an ihrem Schaffen. Sie wollte das Land wiedersehen, das felsige
Land mit den stolzen, strengen Linien und den sonnedurchtränkten
Farben.
Kurz darauf reiste sie nach Berlin. Sie lief einige Tage in der
Stadt umher, so auch in den Galerien. Aber sie fühlte sich müde,
fremd und überflüssig. So fuhr sie weiter nach München.
In der Alten Pinakothek sah sie Rembrandts Heilige Familie. Sie
betrachtete das Bild gar nicht als Malerei an sich, sie sah nur die
junge Bauersfrau, das Hemd von der milchgefüllten Brust
weggezogen und das Kind anschauend, das eingeschlafen war.
Liebkosend griff die Mutter um sein eines bloßes Füßchen. Ein
häßlicher kleiner Plebejerjunge war es, aber strotzend vor
Gesundheit, und er schlief so gut, war so herrlich und lieb. Josef
guckte über der Mutter Schulter auf ihn nieder. Es war aber kein alter
Josef, und Maria war keine weltfremde Himmelsbraut. Es war ein
kräftiger, mittelalterlicher Handwerker mit seiner jungen Frau, und
das Kind war ihrer beider Lust und Freude.
Am Abend schrieb sie an Gert Gram. Einen langen Brief, zart und
traurig — aber es war ein Lebewohl für immer.
Am nächsten Tage löste sie eine Karte direkt bis Florenz. Beim
ersten Morgengrauen saß sie am Abteilfenster nach einer
schlaflosen Nacht im Zuge. Wildbäche hüpften silbrig über
waldbewachsene Felshänge. Es wurde licht und lichter, die Städte,
an denen sie vorüberflog, nahmen mehr und mehr italienischen
Charakter an. Rostbraune und moosgoldene Dachziegel, Loggien an
den Häusern, grüne Stabjalousien an rotgelben Hauswänden,
barocke Kirchenfassaden, die Bogenreihen der Steinbrücken
draußen im Fluß. Die Schilder auf den Stationen trugen jetzt
deutschen und italienischen Text. Weinberge zeigten sich außerhalb
der Städte und graue Burgruinen erschienen auf den Bergkuppen.
Ala. Sie stand an der Zollschranke, die verdrießlichen Passagiere
aus der ersten und zweiten Klasse betrachtend — und war so
sinnlos froh. Nun war sie wieder in Italien. Der Zollbeamte lächelte
sie an, weil sie blond war, und sie lächelte zurück, weil er sie für die
Kammerjungfer dieser oder jener Herrschaft hielt.
Die Felsketten wichen zur Seite, lehmgrau mit blauen Schatten in
den Klüften, das Erdreich leuchtete rostrot, die Sonne flammte weiß
und glühend auf.
In Florenz aber war es bitter kalt und trübe in diesen
Novembertagen. Müde und verfroren irrte sie etwa vierzehn Tage in
der Stadt umher, ihr Herz blieb kalt gegen all die Schönheit, die sie
erblickte, und melancholisch und mutlos, weil sie sich nicht wie
früher an ihr wärmen konnte. —
Eines Morgens fuhr sie nach Rom. Die Felder in der
toskanischen Landschaft waren von weißem Reif bedeckt. Später
am Tage lichtete sich der Nebel und die Sonne erschien. Sie sah die
Stelle wieder, die sie nie vergessen konnte: Der Trasimenische See
lag fahlblau zwischen den Felsen im Dunst. Ins Wasser hinaus
schoß eine Landzunge mit den Türmen und Zinnen einer kleinen
steingrauen Stadt. Eine Zypressenallee führte vom Bahnhof aus dort
hinüber. —
In Rom hielt sie in strömendem Regen ihren Einzug. Gunnar war
auf dem Bahnhof und nahm sie in Empfang. Er preßte ihre Hände,
als er sie willkommen hieß. Während sie im Regen, der vom grauen
Himmel auf das Straßenpflaster niederklatschte, nach der Wohnung
ratterten, die er ihr verschafft hatte, fuhr er mutig fort zu plaudern
und zu lachen. —
VIII.
Heggen saß am äußersten Ende des Marmortisches und nahm
an der Unterhaltung fast nicht teil. Ab und zu schielte er zu Jenny
hinüber, die sich, Whisky und Selter vor sich, in eine Ecke geklemmt
hatte. Sie unterhielt sich übertrieben lebhaft quer über den Tisch mit
einer jungen schwedischen Frau und nahm nicht im geringsten Notiz
von den neben ihr sitzenden Dr. Broager und der kleinen dänischen
Malerin, Loulou von Schulin, die beide versuchten, ihre
Aufmerksamkeit auf sich zu lenken. Heggen sah, sie hatte wieder
zuviel getrunken.
Sie bildeten eine kleine Schar von Skandinaviern und einigen
Deutschen, die in einer Weinkneipe zusammengetroffen und jetzt
am Ende der Nacht im hintersten Winkel eines düsteren Cafés
gelandet waren. Die Gesellschaft hatte dem Alkohol reichlich
zugesprochen und war sehr wenig gewillt, den Aufforderungen des
Wirtes nachzukommen, zu gehen, da es weit über die
vorgeschriebene Polizeistunde sei und er zweihundert Lire Strafe zu
zahlen haben würde, ja sicher!
Gunnar Heggen war der einzige, der es mehr als gern gesehen
hätte, daß das Trinkgelage ein Ende nähme. Er war der einzig
Nüchterne und hatte schlechte Laune.
Dr. Broager brachte alle Augenblicke seinen schwarzen
Schnurrbart auf Jennys Hand an. Wenn sie diese an sich zog,
versuchte er es auf ihrem nackten Arm. Die andere Hand hatte er
hinter ihr aufs Sofa gelegt. Sie saßen zusammengedrängt im Winkel,
so daß jeder Versuch, sich ihm zu entwinden, umsonst gewesen
wäre. Im übrigen war ihr Widerstand auch ziemlich schwach, und sie
lachte ohne Zorn über seine Zudringlichkeit.
„Pfui!“ sagte Loulou von Schulin und zog die Schultern hoch.
„Daß Sie das ertragen können! Finden Sie ihn denn nicht widerlich,
Jenny?“
„O doch, natürlich. Aber Sie sehen ja, er ist genau so wie eine
Schmeißfliege — es nützt nichts, ihn wegzujagen. Pfui, hören Sie
doch auf, Doktor —“
„Pfui,“ sagte die andere wie vorher. „Daß Sie das aushalten
können!“
„Pah! Ich kann mich ja mit Seife abwaschen, wenn ich nach
Hause komme.“
„So?“ Loulou von Schulin warf sich über Jennys Schoß und
streichelte ihre Arme. „Wir geben jetzt auf die armen schönen Hände
acht! Sehen Sie!“ Sie hob die eine Hand in die Höhe und zeigte sie
der Tafelrunde. „Ist sie nicht entzückend?“ Dann löste sie ihren
giftgrünen Automobilschleier vom Hute und hüllte Arme und Hände
darin ein. „Ins Fliegennetz — seht doch nur!“ Und sie streckte
Broager blitzschnell die Zunge heraus.
Jenny blieb einen Augenblick, die Arme in den grünem Schleier
gewickelt, sitzen. Dann machte sie sich frei und zog Jacke und
Handschuhe an.
Broager versank in einen kleinen Halbschlummer. Aber Fräulein
Schulin hob ihr Glas:
„Prost! Herr Heggen!“
Er tat, als hörte er nicht. Erst, als sie es wiederholte, griff er nach
seinem Glase. „Pardon — ich sah nicht,“ trank und sah wieder fort.
Dieser oder jener lächelte. Da Heggen und Fräulein Winge Tür
an Tür im obersten Stockwerk irgendwo drüben zwischen Babuino
und Corso wohnten, glaubte man genug zu wissen. Was aber
Fräulein von Schulin betraf, so war sie vorübergehend mit einem
norwegischen Schriftsteller legitim verheiratet gewesen, reiste dann
von ihm und dem Kinde in die weite Welt hinaus, wo sie wieder ihren
Mädchennamen, die Anrede Fräulein und Malerin angenommen
hatte, und außerdem Freundschaften mit Frauen unterhielt, worüber
besonders üble Gerüchte im Umlauf waren.
Der Wirt kehrte wieder zur Gesellschaft zurück und
parlamentierte eindringlich, um sie zur Tür hinauszubekommen. Die
beiden Kellner löschten die Gasflammen drüben im Lokal und
stellten sich abwartend am Tische auf. Es blieb also nichts anderes
übrig, als zu bezahlen und dann zu gehen.
Heggen gehörte zu den letzten, die das Lokal verließen. Drüben
auf dem Marktplatz im Mondenschein sah er, wie Fräulein Schulin
Jennys Arm ergriff. Sie liefen auf eine leere Droschke zu, die die
anderen im Begriff waren zu stürmen. Er sprang hinüber und hörte
von weitem Jenny rufen: „Ihr wißt, die in der Via Paneperna.“ Sie
hüpfte in die überfüllte Droschke und fiel irgend jemanden auf den
Schoß.
Aber einige Damen wollten wieder ins Freie, andere in den
Wagen — ununterbrochen sprang jemand aus der einen Wagentür
hinaus und in die andere hinein. Der Kutscher saß unbeweglich auf
dem Bock und wartete. Der Gaul schlief, den Kopf bis fast aufs
Steinpflaster gesenkt.
Jenny stand wieder auf der Straße, aber Fräulein Schulin
streckte die Hand nach ihr aus — es war noch Platz.
„Es ist eine Schande um das Pferd,“ sagte Heggen kurz. So
begann sie denn zu gehen, neben ihm, als letzte in der Schar derer,
die in der Droschke nicht Platz gehabt hatten. Der Wagen rollte
langsam vorauf.
„Du willst doch nicht behaupten, daß du länger mit diesen
Menschen zusammen sein magst, ganz bis zur Via Paneperna
hinaustrotten nur deswegen?“ sagte Heggen.
„Oh, wir werden schon unterwegs eine leere Droschke finden —“
„Daß du dazu Lust hast — betrunken wie die Lumpen sind sie
auch — alle miteinander,“ wiederholte er.
Jenny lachte müde.
„Das bin ich sicher auch.“
Heggen antwortete nicht. Sie waren bis zur Piazza di Spagna
gekommen. Da stand sie still:
„Du willst also nicht mitgehen, Gunnar?“
„Wenn du es durchaus noch weiter mitmachen willst, dann ja —
sonst nicht.“
„Du brauchst doch um meinetwillen nicht — du kannst dir doch
denken, daß ich schon nach Hause finden werde.“
„Gehst du mit, so gehe ich auch mit. Ich erlaube dir nämlich nicht,
dich allein mit diesen betrunkenen Menschen herumzutreiben.“
Sie lachte, das gleiche matte und gleichgültige Lachen.
„Zum Teufel, dann bist du morgen so müde, daß du mir auch
nicht sitzen kannst.“
„Oh, ich werde das schon fertigbringen.“
„Das glaube ich nicht. Ich kann jedenfalls nicht ordentlich
arbeiten, wenn wir so die ganze Nacht durchbummeln.“
Jenny zuckte mit den Schultern. Aber sie schlug die Richtung
nach Babuino ein, den anderen entgegengesetzt.
Zwei Polizisten in ihren Umhängen gingen an ihnen vorüber.
Sonst war nicht die Spur von Leben auf dem öden Platz. Der
Springbrunnen rieselte vor der Spanischen Treppe, die inmitten der
immergrünen, schwarzen und silberblinkenden Büsche der Anlagen
vom Mondenschein weiß übergossen dalag.
Jenny sagte plötzlich hart und spöttelnd:
„Ich weiß, es ist gut gemeint, Gunnar. Es ist nett von dir, daß du
versuchst, auf mich aufzupassen. Aber es hat keinen Zweck.“
Er schwieg.
„Nein, wenn du selbst nicht willst,“ sagte er kurz nach einer
Weile.
„Willst,“ äffte sie ihm nach.
„Ja, ich sagte ‚willst‘.“
Jenny atmete kurz und heftig, als wollte sie etwas antworten, hielt
aber an sich. Ekel stieg in ihr auf — halbbetrunken war sie, das
wußte sie selbst sehr wohl. Es fehlte ja noch, daß sie hier aufschrie,
jammerte und heulte, berauscht, wie sie war, Gunnar gegenüber. Sie
biß die Zähne zusammen.
So kamen sie zu ihrer Haustür. Heggen schloß auf, entzündete
ein Wachshölzchen und begann, die endlos dunkle Treppe
hinaufzuleuchten.
Ihre beiden Zimmerchen lagen für sich auf einem halben
Stockwerk oben am Ende der Treppe. An den Türen vorüber lief ein
kleiner Gang, der in einer Marmortreppe zum flachen Dach des
Hauses endigte.
In ihrer Tür reichte sie ihm die Hand:
„Gute Nacht, Gunnar — hab Dank,“ sagte sie leise.
„Ich danke dir. Schlaf gut —“
„Gleichfalls.“
Drinnen in seinem Zimmer öffnete er das Fenster. Gerade
gegenüber glänzte der Mondschein auf einer ockergelben
Hauswand mit geschlossenen Fensterläden und schwarzen eisernen
Balkons. Der Pincio erhob dahinter seinen Gipfel mit den
scharfabstechenden dunklen Laubmassen gegen den
mondlichtblauen Himmel. Darunter lagen alte, moosbewachsene
Dächer; wo des Hauses kohlschwarzer Schatten endete, hing
leichenfahle Wäsche zum Trocknen auf einer niedrigen Terrasse.
Gunnar beugte sich weit über das Fenstersims, traurig und
angewidert. Tod und Teufel, war er denn engherzig oder — aber
Jenny in diesem Zustande zu sehen —!
Aber gerade er hatte sie zuerst in dieses Getriebe
hineingezogen. Um sie aufzumuntern. Sie verkümmerte ja in den
ersten Monaten wie ein kranker Vogel. Er hatte geglaubt, es würde
für sie Beide eine boshafte Unterhaltung sein, die anderen zu
beobachten — diese Affen. Er hatte ja nicht geahnt, daß es eine
derartige Wirkung haben könnte.
Er hörte sie aus ihrem Zimmer und hinauf zum Dache gehen.
Heggen zauderte einen Augenblick. Dann folgte er ihr.
Sie saß in dem einzigen Stuhl dort oben, hinter der kleinen
Wellblechlaube. Die Tauben gurrten schläfrig in ihrem Schlage, der
auf dem Laubendach angebracht war.
„Bist du noch nicht zu Bett gegangen?“ sagte er leise. „Du wirst
dich erkälten.“ Er holte ihren Schal aus der Laube und reichte ihn ihr,
dann setzte er sich auf den Mauerrand zwischen die Blumentöpfe.
Eine Weile starrten sie so schweigend über die Stadt, deren
Kirchenkuppeln im Mondenlicht schwammen. Die Linien der fernen
Höhenzüge waren vermischt.
Jenny rauchte. Auch Gunnar zündete sich eine Zigarette an.
„Ich merke übrigens, ich vertrage fast nichts mehr — beim
Trinken meine ich. Es wirkt sofort,“ sagte sie gleichsam
entschuldigend.
Er sah, daß sie jetzt völlig nüchtern war.
„Ich finde, du solltest es jetzt eine Weile lassen, Jenny. Auch das
Rauchen, solltest jedenfalls nur ganz wenig rauchen. Du hast ja über
dein Herz geklagt.“
Sie antwortete nicht.
„Im Grunde bist du ja über diese Menschen der gleichen Meinung
wie ich. Ich begreife nicht, daß du dich dazu herablassen magst, mit
ihnen zusammen zu sein — in dieser Art und Weise.“
„Mitunter,“ sagte sie leise, „braucht man — Betäubung, gerade
heraus gesagt. Und was das Sichherablassen betrifft —.“ Er blickte
ihr in das weiße Antlitz. Das unbedeckte blonde Haar flimmerte im
Mondlicht. „Mitunter finde ich: nicht. Obgleich — jetzt in diesem
Augenblick zum Beispiel, schäme ich mich. Jetzt bin ich also
ungewöhnlich nüchtern, siehst du.“ Sie lachte ein wenig. „Manchmal
ist das nicht der Fall, selbst wenn ich nichts getrunken habe. Dann
überkommt mich das Verlangen, mit dieser Sorte zusammen zu
sein.“
„Es ist gefährlich, Jenny,“ flüsterte er. Und nach einer Weile: „Ich
kann mir nicht helfen, aber ich fand das heute Abend widerlich. Ich
habe manches gesehen — wie es zugeht. Ich möchte dich doch
nicht gern sinken sehen, so enden sehen wie etwa Loulou —.“
„Du kannst durchaus ruhig sein, Gunnar. So ende ich nicht. Im
Grunde bin ich zu so etwas gar nicht fähig. Ich werde schon vorher
einen Punkt machen —.“
Er blickte still auf sie.
„Ich weiß, was du meinst,“ sagte er schließlich leise. „Aber Jenny,
andere haben ebenso gedacht. Und wenn man dann eine Zeitlang
den Strom abwärts geschwommen ist — so tut man es nicht mehr —
das, was du einen Punkt machen nennst.“
Er glitt von der Mauerkante herab, ging auf sie zu und ergriff ihre
Hand:
„Du Jenny, hör damit auf — ja?“
Sie erhob sich und lachte kurz.
„Vorläufig wenigstens. Ich bin sicher für eine lange Zeit von
meiner Bummelsucht geheilt, glaube ich.“
Sie standen einen Augenblick still. Dann schüttelte sie seine
Hand:
„Gute Nacht, mein Junge. — Und morgen sitze ich dir,“ sagte sie
auf der Treppe.
„Ja, danke.“
Heggen verweilte noch etwas, nachdenklich, während er ein
wenig fröstelte. Dann ging er in sein Zimmer hinunter.
IX.
Sie saß ihm am nächsten Tage nach dem Frühstück, bis es zu
dämmern begann. Ruhte sie sich aus, so wechselten sie einige
gleichgültige Worte, während er fortfuhr, am Hintergrund zu arbeiten
oder die Pinsel wusch.
„So!“ Er legte die Palette fort und ordnete den Malkasten. „Für
heute bist du erlöst!“
Sie ging zu ihm, und sie betrachteten das Bild.
„Das Schwarz ist sehr fein — findest du nicht, Jenny?“
„Doch. Ich finde, es läßt sich gut an.“
„Ja,“ er blickte auf die Uhr. „Es ist eigentlich Essenszeit — gehen
wir zusammen?“
„Ja, gern. Ich will nur mein Kostüm anziehen, wartest du so
lange?“
Kurz darauf, als er an ihrer Tür pochte, stand sie fertig da, den
Hut vor dem Spiegel aufsetzend.
Wie schön sie ist, dachte er, als sie sich ihm zuwandte. Schlank
und hell in dem festanliegenden stahlgrauen Kleide, wirkte sie so
damenhaft fein und zugeknöpft, kühl und stilvoll. Und er wollte nicht
glauben, was er selbst gedacht hatte —.
„Hattest du nicht übrigens mit Fräulein Schulin verabredet, sie
heute Nachmittag zu besuchen, um dir ihre Sachen anzusehen?“
„Ja, ich gehe aber nicht hin.“ Sie wurde sehr rot. „Ehrlich gesagt,
habe ich keine Lust, diese Bekanntschaft zu pflegen — an ihren
Sachen ist wohl auch nicht viel zu sehen?“
„Nein, das weiß der Herrgott! Ich begreife nur nicht, wie du ihre
Annäherungen gestern Abend zulassen konntest. Pfui, ich würde
lieber einen Teller mit lebenden Mehlwürmern essen.“
Jenny lachte. Dann sagte sie ernst:
„Die Aermste, im Grunde ist sie wohl unglücklich.“
„Pah — unglücklich! Ich begegnete ihr in Paris vor einigen
Jahren. Das Schlimmste ist ja, daß sie von Natur sicher gar nicht
pervers ist. Nur dumm und eitel. Nun war d a s interessant. Wäre es
modern gewesen, tugendhaft zu sein, so hätte sie auf einer Empore
gesessen und Kinderstrümpfe gestopft, vielleicht sich hin und wieder
damit beschäftigt, Rosen zu malen mit Tauperlen darauf. Sie wäre
die tugendsamste aller Johanne Luisen im Danneweg gewesen —
und obendrein fröhlich. Aber als sie den ‚Etatsrätlichen‘ entronnen
war, von denen sie stammte, da wollte sie den übrigen nicht
nachgeben, befreit und Malerin, und meinte, sie müsse sich jetzt
einen Liebhaber anschaffen um ihrer Selbstachtung willen.
Unglücklicherweise erwischt sie dann einen Tolpatsch, der sie in
andere Umstände bringt. Er ist altmodisch und will, daß sie sich —
völlig unmodern — heiraten und verlangt, sie solle das Kind warten
und die Wirtschaft führen.“
„Du kannst ja gar nicht wissen — es kann ja zum Teil auch
Paulsens Schuld gewesen sein, daß sie ihm davonlief.“
„Ja, natürlich war es seine Schuld. Er war altmodisch, wie
gesagt, und fand Geschmack am häuslichen Glück, er bot ihr wohl
zu wenig an Liebe und keine Prügel.“
„Ja ja, Gunnar. Du willst nun absolut haben, daß das Leben so
verflucht leicht zu übersehen sein soll.“
Heggen setzte sich rittlings über einen Stuhl und schlang die
Arme um die Lehne.
„Das wenige Gewisse im Leben, an das wir uns halten können,
ist wahrlich leicht genug zu übersehen. Man muß seine Rechnung
und seine Ansichten danach in Ordnung bringen. Mit all dem
Ungewissen aufräumen, so gut man kann, sobald es auf dem Tapet
erscheint.“
Jenny setzte sich aufs Sofa und stützte den Kopf in die Hand:
„Ich habe nicht mehr das Gefühl, daß es irgend etwas im Leben
gibt, worüber ich die genügende Uebersicht habe, so daß ich es als
Grundlage für meine Anschauungen gebrauchen oder meine
Rechnung danach machen könnte,“ sagte sie ruhig.
„Das ist nicht dein Ernst.“
Sie lächelte nur.
„War es nicht immer,“ sagte Gunnar.
„Es gibt wohl niemanden, der immer dasselbe meint.“
„Doch, immer, wenn man nüchtern ist. Wie du heute Nacht
sagtest, man ist nicht immer nüchtern, auch wenn man nichts
getrunken hat.“
„Jetzt — wenn ich mich hin und wieder nüchtern fühle —“ Sie
brach ab und schwieg.
„Du weißt, was auch ich weiß. Du hast es immer gewußt. Im
großen und ganzen leitet der Mensch sein Geschick selbst. Man ist
seines eigenen Schicksals Herr — in der Regel. Hin und wieder ist
man es nicht. — doch dann tragen Umstände die Schuld, über die
man nicht gebietet. Aber es ist eine gewaltige Uebertreibung, zu
behaupten, daß es oft der Fall sei.“
„Gott mag wissen, mir ist es nicht ergangen, wie ich gewollt,
Gunnar. Ich habe viele Jahre hindurch den Willen gehabt und nach
meinem Willen gelebt.“
Sie schwiegen beide eine Weile still.
„Eines Tages,“ sagte sie langsam, „änderte ich einen Augenblick
den Kurs. Ich fand es so kalt und hart, dieses Leben zu leben, das,
wie ich glaubte, das würdigste sei. So einsam, weißt du. So bog ich
denn einen Augenblick zur Seite, wollte jung sein und ein wenig
spielen. Und dadurch geriet ich in eine Strömung hinaus, die mich
trieb — ich endete in Dingen, mit denen in Berührung zu kommen,
ich niemals eine Sekunde für möglich gehalten hatte.“
Heggen schwieg.
„Es gibt einen Vers,“ sagte er dann leise. „Rosetti — er ist
nämlich ein weit besserer Dichter als Maler:
Was t h a t the landmark? What, — the foolish well

Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink
But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink
In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell,
(And mine own image, had I noted well!) —
Was that my point of turning? — I had thought
The stations of my course should raise unsought,
As altarstone or ensigned citadel.
But lo! The path is missed, I must go back,
And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring
Which once I stained, which since may have grown black.
Yet thought no light be left nor bird now sing
As here I turn, I’ll thank God, hastening,
That the same goal is still on the same track.“
Jenny erwiderte nichts.

„That the same goal is still on the same track,“ wiederholte
Gunnar.
„Glaubst du,“ fragte Jenny, „daß es so leicht ist, zu seinem Ziel
zurückzufinden?“
„Nein. Aber müßte man es nicht?“ sagte er beinahe kindlich.
„Was für ein Ziel hatte ich übrigens,“ sagte sie plötzlich hastig.
„Ich wollte so leben, daß ich mich niemals zu schämen brauchte,
weder als Mensch noch als Künstlerin. Niemals wollte ich etwas tun,
von dem ich wußte, daß es nicht richtig sei. Rechtschaffen wollte ich
sein, fest und gut und wollte niemals eines Menschen Schmerz auf
mein Gewissen laden. Und darin bestand dann das ganze
Verbrechen, das den Anfang bildete — woraus alles andere folgte?
Daß ich mich nach Liebe sehnte, ohne daß ein bestimmter Mann da
war, dem diese Sehnsucht galt. War das so seltsam? Daß ich so
gern glauben wollte, als Helge kam, daß er es war, nach dem ich
mich gesehnt? Daß ich es schließlich wirklich glaubte? Das war ja
der Anfang, worauf das andere folgte. Gunnar — ich h a b e geglaubt,
daß ich sie glücklich machen könnte — und dann tat ich ihnen nur
weh.“
Sie hatte sich erhoben und wanderte im Zimmer auf und nieder:
„Glaubst du, daß die Quelle, von der du sprichst — glaubst du,
daß sie jemals wieder rein und klar wird bei einer, die weiß, daß sie
selber sie getrübt hat? Meinst du, es würde mir jetzt leichter, zu
resignieren? Ich sehnte mich nach dem, wonach sich alle Frauen
sehnen. Und ich sehne mich jetzt — wieder danach. Nur mit dem
Unterschied, daß ich jetzt weiß, ich habe eine Vergangenheit. Und
eine Folge davon ist, daß ich das einzige Glück, das ich anerkenne,
nicht annehmen darf — denn es sollte frisch und gesund und rein
sein — und das alles bin ich selbst nicht mehr. Ich muß weiter eine
Sehnsucht mit mir schleppen, deren Erfüllung — oh, ich weiß es —
unmöglich ist. Diese Sehnsucht ist also mein Schicksal, mein ganzes
Leben ist durch sie gezeichnet.“
„Jenny,“ — Gunnar erhob sich ebenfalls — „ich behaupte
dennoch, es kommt auf dich selbst an — es m u ß so sein. Ob es
dein Wille ist, daß diese Erinnerungen dich vernichten oder ob du sie
als ein Lehrgeld betrachten willst, so grausam hart es sich auch
anhört. Das Ziel, das du einstmals vor dir hattest, war, glaube ich,
das richtige — für dich.“
„Kannst du dir denn nicht vorstellen, daß das unmöglich ist, mein
Junge. Es hat sich etwas in mich hineingeschlichen wie eine Säure,
die alles zerfrißt, was einst mein Wesen war; ich fühle selber, wie ich
inwendig zerfalle. — Oh. Und ich will doch nicht, ich will nicht. Und
ich habe ein Verlangen nach — ich weiß nicht —. Will alle Gedanken
zum Stillstand bringen. Sterben —. Oder leben — ein wahnsinniges,
abscheuliches Dasein, zugrunde gehen in einem Elend, das noch
fürchterlicher ist als dies —. Laß mich so tief in den Schmutz treten,
daß ich spüre, hiernach kommt das Ende. Oder —“ sie sprach leise
und wild, es klang wie erstickte Schreie — „mich unter einen
Eisenbahnzug schleudern — mit dem Bewußtsein der letzten
Sekunden, daß jetzt — jetzt gleich — mein ganzer Körper, Nerven
und Hirn und Herz, — alles — zu einem einzigen zuckenden blutigen
Klumpen zermalmt ist.“
„Jenny!“ schrie er auf. Er war fahl im Gesicht geworden. Dann
flüsterte er mühsam: „Ich kann dich nicht so sprechen hören.“
„Ich bin hysterisch,“ sagte sie beruhigend. Aber sie ging trotzdem
zu dem Winkel, wo ihre Leinwand stand und schleuderte sie fast die
Wand entlang:
„Man kann doch nicht leben und bestehen, um so etwas da zu
bearbeiten. Oelfarben auf die Leinwand zu kleistern — du siehst ja,
etwas anderes wird nicht daraus — tote Malkleckse. Du großer Gott,
du hast gesehen, wie ich die ersten Monate hindurch gearbeitet
habe, wie ein Sklave — ich kann überhaupt nicht mehr malen.“
Heggen betrachtete die Bilder. Es war ihm trotzdem, als fühle er
wieder festen Grund und Boden unter den Füßen.
„Du darfst ruhig deine aufrichtige Meinung über diese —
Schweinerei sagen,“ meinte sie herausfordernd.
„Ja, es sind nicht gerade schöne Sachen — das will ich gern
zugeben.“ Er stand, mit den Händen in den Hosentaschen, und
betrachtete die Bilder. „Aber d a s ist doch etwas, was einem jeden
von uns begegnen kann — Perioden, wo wir nicht können. Was das
betrifft, so müßtest du wissen, meine ich, daß es etwas
Vorübergehendes ist — für dich. Ich glaube nicht daran, daß man
sein Talent einbüßen kann, und wenn man noch so unglücklich ist.
Deine Arbeit hat übrigens zu lange geruht. Man muß sich doch
wieder erst einarbeiten, die Herrschaft über seine
Schaffensmöglichkeiten zurückgewinnen, siehst du. Allein die
Modellstudie dort, Mädel — es ist wohl bald drei Jahre her, seit du
einen Akt zeichnetest. So etwas bleibt nicht ungestraft, das weiß ich
aus Erfahrung.“
Er trat an das Regal und wühlte unter Jennys alten
Skizzenbüchern:
„Denk nur daran, wie du dich in Paris hochgearbeitet hattest —
ich werde dir Einiges zeigen.“
„Nein, nein — nicht das da,“ sagte Jenny hastig und streckte die
Hand nach dem Buche aus.
Heggen hielt es zusammengeklappt in der Hand und sah sie
erstaunt an. Sie wandte das Antlitz ab:
„O, du darfst übrigens ruhig hineinsehen. Ich versuchte nur, eines
Tages den Jungen zu zeichnen.“
Heggen blätterte langsam darin herum. Jenny hatte sich wieder
aufs Sofa gesetzt. Er betrachtete eine Weile die kleinen
Bleistiftzeichnungen von dem schlafenden Kindchen. Dann legte er
das Buch behutsam fort.
„Es war traurig, daß du deinen kleinen Jungen verlorst,“ sagte er
leise.
„Ja. — Hätte er gelebt, so wäre ja alles andere gleichgültig
gewesen, weißt du. Du sprichst vom Willen, aber eines Menschen
Wille kann nicht einmal — seines Kindes Leben — festhalten, und
dann —. Ich bin nicht dazu imstande, nach Höherem zu streben,
Gunnar, denn ich sah, dies war das Einzige, wozu ich etwas taugte,
woraus ich mir etwas machte — meines kleinen Knaben Mutter zu
sein. Ja, ihn konnte ich lieben. Vielleicht bin ich ein Egoist durch und
durch, denn jedesmal, wenn ich den Versuch machte, die anderen
zu lieben, so erhob sich mein eigenes Ich wie eine Mauer zwischen
uns. Doch der Knabe war mein. Hätte ich ihn, so könnte ich arbeiten
— ach, wie würde ich dann arbeiten! Ich schmiedete Pläne. Mir fiel
es wieder ein im vergangenen Herbst, als ich hierher reiste, — ich
wollte ja den Sommer mit ihm in Bayern verbringen. Ich fürchtete,
die Seeluft würde zu scharf für ihn sein. Er sollte im Wagen liegen
und unter den Apfelbäumen schlummern, während ich arbeitete.
Siehst du, ich könnte an keinen Ort der Welt kommen, wo ich nicht
im Traum schon mit dem Kind gewesen wäre. Es gibt auf der Welt
nichts Gutes und Schönes, von dem ich nicht gedacht, daß er es
lernen oder sehen sollte. Ich besitze nichts, was nicht auch ihm
gehörte, das rote Plaid brauchte ich, um ihn darin einzuhüllen. Das
schwarze Kleid, in dem du mich malst, wurde in Warnemünde für
mich genäht, nachdem ich genesen war, ich wählte diese Form,
damit es bequem wäre, ihn zurecht zu legen. Im Futter sind noch
Milchflecken.
Ich kann nicht arbeiten, weil ich ganz von ihm beherrscht bin. Ich
sehne mich so heftig nach ihm, daß es mich fast lähmt. Des Nachts
rolle ich mein Kopfkissen zusammen, nehme es in den Arm und
wimmere nach Bübchen. Ich rufe ihn und rede mit ihm, wenn ich
allein bin. Ich hatte ihn malen wollen, so daß ich Bilder von ihm aus
jedem Alter gehabt hätte. Jetzt wäre er bald ein Jahr alt gewesen,
denk nur — hätte Zähnchen bekommen und würde kriechen können,
hätte sich aufgerichtet und wäre vielleicht ein bißchen gelaufen.
Jeden Monat, jeden Tag denke ich, heute wäre er so und so alt
gewesen — wer weiß, wie er wohl ausgesehen hätte. — Alle
Frauen, die mit einem bambino auf dem Arme herumlaufen — alle
Jungen, die ich auf der Straße sehe, erinnern mich daran, wie wohl
meiner ausgesehen hätte, wenn er größer geworden wäre —.“
Sie schwieg wieder. Heggen saß ganz still vornübergebeugt.
„Ich glaubte nicht, daß es so sei, Jenny,“ sagte er leise und
heiser. „Ich sah wohl, daß es schmerzlich war, aber ich dachte,
andererseits — wäre es besser so. Hätte ich gewußt, wie es sich
wirklich verhielt, so wäre ich zu dir gekommen —.“
Sie antwortete nicht und fuhr fort in ihren Gedanken:
„Und dann starb er — so winzig, winzig klein. Es ist ja nur
Egoismus von mir, daß ich es ihm nicht gönne — gestorben zu sein,
ehe er anfing, das allergeringste zu verstehen. Er konnte nur nach
dem Lichte blinzeln oder schreien, wenn er zurechtgemacht werden
sollte oder hungrig war. Er suchte nach meiner Wange in dem
Glauben, es sei die Brust. Er kannte mich auch noch nicht, jedenfalls
noch nicht richtig. Ein ganz schwacher Schimmer von Bewußtsein
war vielleicht in seinem kleinen Köpfchen erwacht, aber stell dir vor,
er hat nie gewußt, daß ich seine Mutter war —. Einen Namen hat er
auch nicht gehabt, der Arme, nur Mutters Bübchen war er. Keinerlei
Erinnerung habe ich an ihn, außer dieser rein körperlichen.“ Sie
erhob die Hände, als drückte sie das Kind an sich. Dann fielen sie tot
und leer auf den Tisch zurück.
„Das erste Mal, als ich sein Gesichtchen an meine Wange legte,
war seine Haut so weich, ein wenig feucht, wie etwas
Eingeschlossenes, die Luft hatte sie ja noch kaum berührt, weißt du.
Ich glaube, man würde angewidert sein, einem neugeborenen Kinde
zu nahe zu kommen, wenn es nicht das eigene Fleisch und Blut ist.
Seine Augen, sie hatten noch keine richtige Farbe, waren dunkel, ich
glaube übrigens, sie wären graublau geworden. Sie sind so seltsam,
die Augen solcher kleinen Kinder — mystisch, hätte ich beinahe
gesagt. Und sein kleines Köpfchen — wenn er bei mir lag und die
Brust bekam, wenn er dann seine Nasenspitze flach drückte und es
oben in der kleinen Fontanelle pochte, das dünne, flaumige Haar —
er hatte soviel Haar, als er geboren wurde — dunkles —. Ich fand
ihn so entzückend. Ach, sein ganzer kleiner Körper. Ich denke ja an
nichts anderes. Ich kann ihn in meinen Händen spüren. Die Lenden
waren so rund — er war am dicksten in der Mitte, weißt du —. Und
sein Hinterteilchen war so komisch zusammengeklemmt, ein wenig
spitz — ich fand natürlich auch das wunderhübsch. O Gott, wie süß
war er, mein kleiner Junge —. Und dann starb er. — Ich hatte mich
gefreut auf alles, was kommen sollte, so daß ich nachher meinte, ich
hätte dem, was war, nicht genügend Beachtung geschenkt, der Zeit,
als ich ihn hatte; ich hätte ihn nicht genügend geküßt oder
betrachtet, obwohl ich in all den Wochen nichts anderes tat. — Und
zurück blieb dann nur die Lücke — du kannst dir nicht denken, wie
das war. Mir schien, als arbeite mein ganzer Körper in der
Sehnsucht nach ihm. Ich bekam eine Entzündung in der Brust, der
Schmerz und das Fieber waren nur die Sehnsucht, die hinauswollte.
Ich vermißte ihn in den Armen, zwischen den Händen und an der
Wange —. Manchmal, in den letzten Wochen, schloß er die Hand
um meinen Finger, wenn ich ihn hinstreckte. Einmal hatte er ganz
von selbst einige von meinen Haaren erwischt, die sich gelöst hatten
—. Die süßen, süßen kleinen Hände.“
Sie legte sich über den Tisch, schluchzte leise und heftig, daß sie
bebte.
Gunnar war aufgestanden, zögerte, im Zweifel mit sich, ein
Weinen in der Kehle. Dann lief er plötzlich zu ihr hin, hastig und
verlegen küßte er sie heftig auf den Scheitel.
Sie blieb eine Zeitlang liegen und weinte. Aber schließlich
richtete sie sich auf, ging zum Waschtisch und badete ihr Gesicht im
Wasser:

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A Research Agenda for Environmental

Geopolitics Shannon O'Lear

A Research Agenda for Environmental Economics 1st

Ecocritical Geopolitics Popular culture and

Infrastructuring Digital Sovereignty a research agenda

Becoming a Personal Trainer For Dummies, 2nd Edition

An Alternative Development Agenda for India 1st Edition

Education for Sustainable Development in the

Hello, Molly!: A Memoir 1st Edition Molly Shannon

The Black Agenda Bold Solutions for a Broken System 1st

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 1 17/01/2020 11:58

Titles in the series include:

A Research Agenda for Transport Policy A Research Agenda for Sustainable

A Research Agenda for Housing A Research Agenda for Climate Justice

A Research Agenda for Economic A Research Agenda for Federalism Studies

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 2 17/01/2020 11:58

Elgar Research Agendas

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 3 17/01/2020 11:58

Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.

A catalogue record for this book

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019954334

This book is available electronically in the

ISBN 978 1 78897 123 2 (cased)

Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

Shannon O’Lear - 9781788971249

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 4 17/01/2020 11:58

List of contributors vii

1 Environmental geopolitics: an introduction to questions and research

PART I INTERPRETING AND MEASURING THE ENVIRONMENT

2 Getting the measure of nature: the inconspicuous geopolitics of

PART II POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN–ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS

5 Conflicts, commodities and the environmental geopolitics of supply chains 59

PART III OVERCOMING SELECTIVE SPATIAL FOCUS

8 The geopolitics of transportation in the melting Arctic 105

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 5 17/01/2020 11:58

9 Environmental geopolitics of rumor: the sociality of uncertainty

Shannon O’Lear - 9781788971249

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 6 17/01/2020 11:58

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 7 17/01/2020 11:58

research and ­teaching focus on international development, environmental dimen-

Shannon O’Lear - 9781788971249

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 8 17/01/2020 11:58

Shannon O’Lear is Professor in the Geography and Atmospheric Science

Shannon O’Lear - 9781788971249

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 9 17/01/2020 11:58

Shannon O’Lear - 9781788971249

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 10 17/01/2020 11:58

4.1 Default layer selection on Global Forest Watch 47

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 11 17/01/2020 11:58

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 12 17/01/2020 11:58

When geographers study geopolitics, a key focus is on geographical knowledge and

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 1 17/01/2020 11:58

Environmental geopolitics draws attention to geopolitical knowledge and agendas

Drawing from political geography, environmental geopolitics examines how spatial

Shannon O’Lear - 9781788971249

M4845-O'LEAR_9781788971232_t.indd 2 17/01/2020 11:58

There is no single, one-size-fits-all geopolitics. Instead, geopolitical perspectives

List of contributors vii

1 Environmental geopolitics: an introduction to questions and research

2 Getting the measure of nature: the inconspicuous geopolitics of

PART II POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN–ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS

5 Conflicts, commodities and the environmental geopolitics of supply chains 59

8 The geopolitics of transportation in the melting Arctic 105

9 Environmental geopolitics of rumor: the sociality of uncertainty

research and teaching focus on international development, environmental dimen-

4.1 Default layer selection on Global Forest Watch 47

3. Recognize ways in which selective, spatial focus, such as universal