Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
This report was controversial (it was banned from
being published for two years by the British
government) because it argued that not only did
international aid not address poverty and
disadvantage in the developing world, but that it
actively contributed to the perpetuation of these
conditions (see Simon, 2007: 699). Blaikie and his
colleagues argued that poverty in Nepal was the
product of the systematic exploitation of marginal
groups by ruling elites and international capitalists.
In this context, the report argued that in the
absence of political and economic reform, inter-
national aid simply provided new opportunities for
ruling elites to exploit the rural poor.
Although the
Nepal in Crisis
report was not
specifically concerned with issues of land degrad-
ation (its primary focus was on the impacts
of road building), during the completion of
the research associated with the report Piers
Blaikie became aware of the devastating levels
of soil erosion in the country. Sensing that the
soil erosion he witnessed may be connected to
the same political and economic power structures
uncovered in the
Nepal in Crisis
study, Blaikie
sought to develop a Marxist analysis of the
processes behind soil erosion. The culmination of
Blaikie's work on soil erosion came in 1985 with
the publication of the influential book
Political
Ecology of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries
(Blaikie, 1985).
In an account of the career of Piers Blaikie, Rigg
(2006: 36) describes the significance of
Political
Ecology of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries
in
the following terms: 'Here was a social scientist
invading the traditional turf of natural science to
argue that a physical process - soil erosion - could
only be understood in terms of political economy'.
Given the discussions so far in this volume about
the value of human perspectives on environmental
change in the Anthropocene, it may seem surpris-
ing to learn that Blaikie's work was seen to be
radical at the time of its publication. In many ways,
Blaikie was a pioneer of the types of analyses that
mix human and physical geography, and enable us
to better understand the nature of the changes we
are experiencing within the Anthropocene.
Box 4.3 Piers Blaikie
Born in Scotland, Piers Blaikie is a development scholar who is associated with the emergence of
political ecology. Blaikie was educated at Cambridge before lecturing at Reading University and the
University of East Anglia. Blaikie's early doctoral work explored patterns of rural life and livelihood
in the Rjasthan and Punjab (northern India). Following research on the impacts of international aid
on development practices in Nepal, Blaikie conducted an extensive analysis of the nature and origins
of land degradation and soil erosion. His most recent work has focused on the spread of HIV/AIDS
in Uganda.
What unites all aspects of Blaikie's extensive work is a desire to connect local issues, such as
poverty, environmental degradation and disease, to broader systems of political economy. On these
terms, Blaikie's work has consistently emphasized that to be successful in the long term, develop-
ment policies must address the broader national and international political and economic systems
that perpetuate underdevelopment and social disadvantage.
Key readings
Blaikie, P. (1985) The Political Ecology of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries, Longman, Harlow
Simon, D. (2007) 'Political ecology and development: Intersection, exploration and challenges arising from the
work of Piers Blaikie', Geoforum 39: 698-707
