ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the interplay between the two senses of representation. A distinctive feature of both human rights and ecopolitics is that both are transnational in nature and as such are dynamically related to the transnationalism of ethnicity, which is also emerging as a dimension of identity in contrast to the diminishing power of the nation-state to inform and manipulate 'peasant' identities. Social class is an abstract concept that historically has provided little basis for deeply felt solidarity among subalterns, which has led to concerted, coordinated, long-term collective political action on their part. Nationalism, ethnicity, democracy, regionalism, and religion have proven to be far more potent bases of collective identity. Class analysis and the politics based on it have been bedeviled by binary thinking, which predisposes one to look for sharp cleavages between classes marked as such in the competition for value.
