March 27, 2007

Dear Colleague:   

    Magic is knowledge and knowledge is power. Magic is full of esoteric knowledge, backed by test tubes, burners, and bubbling liquids, the end of which is power—that is, the ability to change the world or navigate effectively in it. In the sixteenth century came science, toted with great vigor by Francis Bacon. To him, science and not magic is knowledge and power. In the end, as we all know, science displaced magic, not because its knowledge is more esoteric or because it has fancier test tubes or because it is backed by a more prestigious social network, but because it has triumphed in the one area that truly matters to people—power.

    Ordinary folks understand neither the formularies and practices of magic, nor those of science. What matters to them is the demonstration of effectiveness. Which to favor—magic or science? Before the rise of the bio-sciences in the late twentieth century, ordinary folks are likely to say: "Let's see who can throw things farther, who can make the bigger noise and effect the greater material change, and who can navigate the oceans aided only by the stars?"

    In all three tests, science triumphs over magic. Throw things? As a result of technical innovation, the distance one can throw an object increased from a few hundred feet (spear-thrower) to a quarter-mile (bow-and-arrow), to the reach of cannon balls and bullets, to the reach of intercontinental missiles, and, finally, to a spacecraft 's reach which, at the moment, is a billion miles beyond the orbit of the solar system. As for the noise we can make, progress is from banging a drum to nuclear explosion. And then there is navigation. In the eighteenth century, the captain and his officers kept knowledge of scientific techniques of navigation to themselves and thereby were able to dominate the crew, who couldn't mutiny, knowing that to do so would leave them adrift on a featureless ocean. Suppose one wily crew member said to his mates, "Don't let the bosses fool you with their sextant and all that dancing around the sun! It is just a socially-constructed ritual, something we can do as well. Throw them overboard!" They did. You tell me the rest of the story.

    Magic predates science. But so did something else—wisdom. Wisdom strove for knowledge about reality, but not so much to gain mastery over it as to enable humans to adapt. Ecological science is thus more like ancient wisdom than it is like modern, technology-driven science. The word "community," which frequently crops up in ecology, suggests that one studies it not to control or change it to something better, but rather the opposite, to preserve or restore it. When "human" is added to ecology, as in human ecology, the word "community" is retained, and with such retention, the implied conservative posture of wisdom. Political ecology, on the other hand, is more dynamic. Implied is a need to alter the socio-political structure of a community. Alter to what? Do ecologists say that a mangrove swamp or a tropical rainforest ought to be something ecologically better? No. But political ecologists do say of any existent human community that, yes, it can and ought to be better. Ecology is like old-fashioned wisdom in that it studies what exists and how creatures ought to adjust and adapt. By comparison, political ecology is more power driven, and is in this regard like modern science. On the other hand, the power it interests itself in is not physical power, like the ability to throw things, but rather socio-political power. So what is political ecology? A science, a wisdom, an ideology? All of the above, none of the above?

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu