Not Just Participation: The Rise of the Eco-Precariat in the Green Economy

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Benjamin NeimarkChristina Hicks

Abstract

Despite recent attention to "frontier" green economies and the governance of emerging ecosystem services, the specific division of labour in these economies has been little studied. As many such initiatives are in the global South, labour's marginality potentially contributes to the existing precariousness of those who are more often identified as "participants". This article examines the roles and vulnerabilities of these actors: the carbon counters, species identifiers, GIS mappers, tree planters and others operating in the shadows. We draw on current understandings of labour and precarity to examine the geographical contours of an apparent and emerging "eco-precariat": a socio-economically diverse group of labourers that address the volatile demands of an ever-expanding environmental service-based economy. We illustrate our analysis drawing on examples from a Blue Carbon project in Kenya, ecosystem services project in the Philippines, and REDD+ scheme in Cambodia. We use these examples to theorise the nature of labour in these frontier economies and put forward a framework for analysing the eco-precariat. We highlight the need to understand the precarity and marginalisation potentially created by this green division of labou...Continue Reading

References

Jun 2, 2011·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Sassan S SaatchiAlexandra Morel
Jan 29, 2016·Nature·Jeff Tollefson

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Citations

Nov 3, 2020·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Kimberley Peters

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