Introduction

Power and social inequality shape patterns of land use and resource management. This book explores this relationship from different perspectives, illuminating the complexity of interactions between human societies and nature. Most of the contributors use the perspective of “political ecology” as a point of departure, recognizing that human relations to the environment and human social relations are not separate phenomena but inextricably intertwined (Peet and Watts 1996; Bryant and Bailey 1997; Low and Gleeson 1998; Paulson and Gezon 2005; Biersack and Greenberg 2006; Peet et al. 2011). What makes this volume unique is that it sets this approach in a trans-disciplinary, global, and historical framework.