An ideal book for those coming to the anthropology of drugs for the first time, filling a surprisingly big gap in the literature Includes many case studies, such as drug tourism, the opioid crisis and 'county lines' in the UK as well as global examples from the Philippines, Mexico, North America and Europe Helps connect the anthropology of drugs to issues highly relevant to professional working in drug treatment, health, social work and mental health

An ideal book for those coming to the anthropology of drugs for the first time, filling a surprisingly big gap in the literature Includes many case studies, such as drug tourism, the opioid crisis and 'county lines' in the UK as well as global examples from the Philippines, Mexico, North America and Europe Helps connect the anthropology of drugs to issues highly relevant to professional working in drug treatment, health, social work and mental health

"Political ecology is a strong and growing interdisciplinary field of inquiry, and this book makes a welcome and unique contribution. Susan Paulson and Lisa Gezon have put together an engaging and well-written collection that is full of fresh ideas and applications related to current theoretical debate, concepts, and methods."-Marianne Schmink, director, Tropical Conservation and Development Program, University of Florida "Political ecology and ecologists are sure to benefit from this splendid array of rigorous, richly contextualized, and far-reaching accounts that injects a masterful blend of political analysis and attention to the lifeworlds of diverse peoples worldwide into environmental studies."-Karl Zimmerer, professor and chair, Department of Geography and Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison "An ingenious mix of genealogy and the unfolding future of political ecology, bringing fresh insights to the dynamics of place, power, and people across the globe."-Dianne Rocheleau, coeditor of Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experiences As environmental issues become increasingly prominent in local struggles, national debates, and international policies, scholars are paying more attention to conventional politics and to more broadly defined relations of power and difference in the interactions between human groups and their biophysical environments. Such issues are at the heart of the relatively new interdisciplinary field of political ecology, forged at the intersection of political economy and cultural ecology. This volume provides a toolkit of vital concepts and a set of research models and analytic frameworks for researchers at all levels. Pointing to the entangled relationship between humans, politics, economies, and environments at the dawn of the twenty-first century, opening chapters trace rich traditions of thought and practice that inform current approaches to political ecology. The twelve case studies that follow explore sites located around the world as they describe uses of and conflicts over resources including land, water, soil, trees, biodiversity, money, knowledge, and information. Susan Paulson is the director of Latin American studies and an associate professor of anthropology at Miami University. Lisa Gezon is an associate professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the State University of West Georgia.

Humanity's future may rest on how we deal with climate change, environmental problems, and their impacts on society. Terrestrial Transformations: A Political Ecology Approach to Society and Nature recognizes that such problems have social, political, and cultural contexts, and that politics, money, and power have physical impacts on nature and society that cannot be ignored. This book brings together a set of authors whose chapters provide an overview of the political ecology approach, illustrating its theoretical underpinnings, central concepts, methods, and major interests. The chapters in this collection examine the political contexts of a broad range of environmental and social problems, drawing attention to the political and economic forces driving environmental and ecological problems, how societies are transformed as they attempt to cope and adapt to a changing nature, and who pays the price.

Humanity's future may rest on how we deal with climate change, environmental problems, and their impacts on society. Terrestrial Transformations: A Political Ecology Approach to Society and Nature recognizes that such problems have social, political, and cultural contexts, and that politics, money, and power have physical impacts on nature and society that cannot be ignored. This book brings together a set of chapters that provide an overview of the political ecology approach, illustrating its theoretical underpinnings, central concepts, methods, and major interests. The authors examine the political contexts of a broad range of environmental and social problems, drawing attention to the political and economic forces driving environmental and ecological problems, how societies are transformed as they attempt to cope and adapt to a changing nature, and who pays the price.

In her new book, Gezon argues that local events continuously redefine and challenge global processes of land use and land degradation. She challenges analytical distinctions between separate 'local' and 'global' spaces, rather proposing that the global is one aspect of the local, to the extent that people in any given locale must act within the parameters of policies, authorities, and material conditions that have sources outside of the reach of immediate local networks. Her ethnographic study of Antankarana-identifying rice farmers and cattle herders in northern Madagascar weaves together an analysis of remotely sensed images of land cover over time with ethnographies of situated negotiations between human actors. She focuses in particular on the interplay of political authorities-including family-based elders, a regional indigenous authority, and an NGO charged with enforcement of conservation policies-in the context of specific contests over resource access. Gezon takes a micro-political approach in evaluating conflicts that result in a change in control over local resources by global or supra-national policies, capital, or personnel. Her book will be particularly valuable to researchers and students in anthropology, geography, sociology, and environmental studies, and those involved in conservation and resource management.