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Cette thèse analyse les organisations et les relations sociales qui façonnent les usages de l'eau dans la plaine de la Crau. L'approche inductive et multi-échelle explore les interactions entre acteurs humains et non-humains qui participent au gouvernement et aux pratiques de l'eau. Le travail de terrain s'est focalisé sur les dynamiques de modernisation de l’eau en Crau sur les deux derniers siècles et notamment sur celles de gestion intégrée de l’eau. Un travail d’archives historiques et contemporaines permet de situer les continuités et les discontinuités des formes de gouvernement de l'eau. Une enquête par entretiens et l’observation de réunions professionnelles ou publiques nourrit la réflexion sur les jeux d'acteurs actuels. Les généalogies, le fonctionnement des dispositifs de gouvernement ainsi que les arrangements, contournements ou oppositions qu'ils suscitent, sont analysés dans une perspective constructiviste et historique. Il s’agit ainsi d’une contribution à une political ecology du « premier monde », croisant une approche latourienne avec une étude des manières de gouverner foucaldienne.L’eau en Crau est un objet multifacette sujet à une pluralité d’appropriations. L'irrigation gravitaire de 12 000 hectares de prairies de foin de Crau repose sur un réseau de canaux dérivant l'eau de la Durance depuis 1554, alimenté depuis 1972 par l’aménagement hydro-électrique. L’arrosage établit ainsi une frontière entre la Crau sèche des Coussouls et la Crau humide « productive ». La nappe de Crau est rechargée à plus de 70% par les infiltrations dues à ces pratiques d’arrosage. Depuis les années 1970, le développement industriel, l'agriculture intensive et l'urbanisation ont conduit à une exploitation croissante de cette nappe. Elle approvisionne actuellement 270 000 habitants et est considérée comme vulnérable, notamment du fait de son alimentation dépendante de la production de foin. La nappe fait ainsi l'objet de dispositifs de gestion destinés à protéger la ressource par une démarche territoriale.L’étude de l’articulation des savoirs techno-scientifiques spécifiques avec les manières de gouverner l’eau dans le temps long met en lumière un réseau hétérogène d'êtres et d'objets qui ont interagit pour moderniser l’eau. La « modernité » s'entend ici comme un idéal émancipateur fondé sur une augmentation de l'objectivité, de l'efficacité, de la rentabilité et de la formalisation (Latour, 2004). Cette recherche analyse comment les différentes manières de moderniser l’eau transforment la matérialité même de l'eau. L’étude des constructions matérielles, symboliques ou encore normatives qui sous-tendent et territorialisent les dispositifs de modernisation du gouvernement de l’eau est associée à celle des arrangements, des adaptations et des résistances qu'ils produisent en retour. C'est dans cette tension entre les façons de gouverner et les façons de faire que se situe le cœur et l'apport empirique de la thèse.Trois vagues de modernisation de l’eau sont identifiées à partir du cas de la Crau. A la suite de la Révolution Française, la première vague vise à conquérir et «mettre en valeur» la Crau. L’Etat impose ainsi progressivement un règlement des eaux et soutient la mise en culture des Coussouls par des acteurs privés. Dans les années 1950, la deuxième vague est mise en œuvre pour reconstruire la France. Elle porte un discours d’abondance hydraulique. Depuis les années 1990, une troisième vague met l’accent sur la rareté de l’eau et la vulnérabilité de ses usages et appelle à leur gestion intégrée. La vivisection du dispositif de gestion de la nappe de Crau permet d’explorer son fonctionnement dans son versant formel comme ses pratiques informelles. Les discours de crise de l’eau se révèlent partie intégrante de la gestion. Ils sont déployés pour mobiliser des acteurs historiques et des usagers, les enrôlant dans une nouvelle gouvernementalité avec laquelle ils doivent composer. / This thesis analyzes the institutions and the social relations which shape water use in the Crau plain. The inductive and multi-scale approach explores the interactions between human and non-human actors that contribute to water governmance and practices. The fieldwork focused on the dynamics of modernization in water over the last two centuries and particularly on moves toward integrated water management. Archival work drawing on historical and contemporary sources makes it possible to identify the continuities and discontinuities in manners to govern water. Interviews and the observation of meetings, both professional and public, provide insights into the actual interplay among actors. The genealogy and functioning of governing apparatuses, as well as the ways in which they are adapted, circumvented or opposed in turn, are analyzed using a constructivist and historical perspective. This work thus contributes to a political ecology of the first world by bringing together a Latourian approach with a Foucauldian study of governing manners.Water in the Crau is a multifaceted object appropriated in a number of different ways. the gravity-fed irrigation of 12 000 ha of grassland producing hay in the Crau relies on a canal network that has derived water from the Durance since 1554, and has been supplied since 1972 by the hydroelectric infrastructure. This has resulted in a frontier between the dry Crau (Coussouls) and the “productive” wet Crau. These irrigation practices account for 70% of the volume of the groundwater table. Since the 1970s, industrial development, intensive agriculture and urban expansion have led to an increasing exploitation of groundwater. This water sustains 270 000 inhabitants and is considered vulnerable, particularly as it is artificially sustained by hay production. The groundwater is subject to management apparatuses that aim to protect the resource through a territorial approach.The long term study of the articulation of specific techno-scientific knowledge and manners to govern water highlight the heterogeneous network of actors and objects that interact to modernize water. “Modernity” is understood as an emancipatory ideal based on increased objectivity, efficacy, profitability and formalism (Latour, 2004). This research analyzes how the different manners to modernize water transform the materiality of water itself. The study of material, symbolic or normative constructions underpinning and territorializing the modernization apparatuses of water governance is complemented by the study of arrangements, adaptations and resistance that they generate in turn. The heart of this study, and its empirical contribution, lie in this tension between governing manners and everyday practices.Three waves of modernization of water have been identified from the grounded perspective of the Crau. Following the French Revolution, the first wave aimed to conquer and to improve the Crau. The state progressively imposed water regulation and supported the cultivation of Coussouls by private actors. In the 1950s, the second wave, implemented as part of a project to reconstruct France, emphasized hydraulic abundance. Since the 1990s, a third wave has highlighted the scarcity of water and the vulnerability o users, and called for integrated management. The vivisection of apparatuses of groundwater management considers its functioning in both its formal aspect and informal practices. Discourses of water crises reveal themselves as an integral part of water management. They are deployed to mobilize historical actors and users, by integrating them in a new governmentality within which they have to work.

La Grande muraille verte est le nom d’un programme régional de lutte contre la désertification au Sahel lancé en 2007 sous l’égide de l’Union africaine et des organisations régionales. Il consiste à favoriser le reboisement des territoires semi-arides le long d’un tracé reliant Dakar à Djibouti et traversant onze États, afin de créer un « bandeau végétal dressé face à l’avancée du désert ». Cette thèse a pour but de proposer une lecture géographique et critique de ce projet insolite, appréhendé ici comme une utopie environnementale. À partir d’enquêtes de terrain principalement menées au Sénégal (région du Ferlo) et enrichies par les apports de la political ecology, elle met en lumière la tension qui existe entre d’un côté, la formulation d’un projet de territoire au nom du développement des zones semi-arides et de la gestion des ressources naturelles et, de l’autre, la promotion d’un instrument d’extraversion politique et économique permettant de capter de nouvelles rentes environnementales : en quoi la territorialisation du projet est-elle subordonnée à une quête de visibilité globale ? La première partie montre comment la Grande muraille verte recycle dans un moment historique favorable des pratiques anciennes en matièr ede lutte contre la désertification. La deuxième partie décrit le déficit d’ancrage territorial de ses aménagements à l’échelle locale. La troisième partie montre que l’appropriation globale du projet est la source principale de sa grande résilience. / The Great Green Wall is a regional initiative to combat desertification in the Sahel. It was launched in2007 under the leadership of the African Union and other regional organisations. The program supports reforestation of drylands from Dakar to Djibouti, and aims to form a line of trees protecting against desert encroachment. In a geographical and critical perspective, it can regarded as a green utopia. This thesis, based essentially on field research carried out in Senegal (Ferlo region) supplemented by political ecology insights sheds light on the existing tension between two approaches to the project : one, the objectives of this local project are to develop drylands and better manage natural resources, and two, it can also be seen as promoting an instrument of political and economic extraversion, producing newrent-seeking opportunities. To what extent can the territorialization process of the local project be impaired by the search for global visibility ? The first part shows how the Great Green Wall, at a historical moment, is reactivating traditional techniques to combat desertification. The second partdescribes the lack of territorial anchorage and its local applications. The third part shows that the project derives its great resilience mainly from global ownership.

Le foncier pastoral dans les savanes soudaniennes d’Afrique de l’Ouest reste un thème peu étudié par rapport au foncier pastoral en zone sahélienne. Pourtant, depuis les années 1970, l’élevage s’y est développe au point de devenir la deuxième source de richesse derrière l’agriculture. L’augmentation de la population rurale entraîne l’accroissement des superficies cultivées et du cheptel. Cela alimente une concurrence spatiale accrue et potentiellement conflictuelle entre agriculture et élevage. A partir du cas de l’Ouest du Burkina Faso, cette thèse pose la question de la place de l’élevage dans les régions sous pression foncière. Les données ont été recueillies principalement à partir d’entretiens et questionnaires, du suivi d’un troupeau transhumant et de l’analyse d’images satellite. La première partie décrit le recul des espaces de parcours et ses conséquences sur les mobilités pastorales. La deuxième partie s’inscrit dans les champs de la political ecology et de la géographie du pouvoir. L’analyse des jeux de pouvoir locaux et des politiques nationales de développement rural montre comment la pression foncière s’accompagne d’une territorialisation des brousses au détriment des parcours pastoraux. Ce processus alimente les inégalités socio-économiques entre éleveurs. Enfin, la troisième partie rassemble les arguments qui plaident en faveur du maintien de la mobilité en zone soudanienne pour montrer que ces pratiques ne peuvent perdurer que si un droit foncier pastoral est inventé. L’analyse du rôle et des stratégies de chaque acteur offre des outils pour mener une politique de concertation sur l’usage partagé des ressources et l’intégration territoriale des activités. / Pastoral land tenure in Sudanian savannas is less studied than pastoral land tenure in Sahelian areas. However, livestock breeding has been growing in Sudanian areas since the 1970s, and is now the second largest sources of wealth after agriculture. Increase in croplands and livestock stems from population growth. This entails a growing and potentially conflicting spatial competition between agriculture and stockbreeding. This PhD dissertation builds on the case of western Burkina Faso to deal with the issue of the role and the spatial organization of stockbreeding in regions under land pressure. Data were mainly collected through interviews with producers and key informants, questionnaires, accompanying along herds during transhumance and remote sensing analysis. The first part describes decrease in pasturelands and its consequences on pastoral mobility. The second part is entered in the search fields of political ecology and geography of power. The analysis of local power relations and national rural development policies shows that land pressure comes along with a territorialisation of bushes to the detriment of pasturelands. This results into a growth of socio-economic inequalities between herders. Finally, the third part gathers arguments in favour of pastoralism in Sudanian areas and demonstrates that this production system will continue only if a pastoral land right is created. The analysis of the role and the strategy of each actor gives tools to conduct a policy of consultation on shared use of resources and territorial integration of activities.

In 2008, El Salvador registered the world's highest mortality rate from kidney failure, with more than 2500 deaths annually in Central America's smallest country. El Salvador is the ground zero of a new form of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) that has become an epidemic among otherwise healthy agricultural workers and rural residents in lowland Central America in the past three decades. While the epidemic is believed to stem from some combination of agro- chemical exposure and/or dehydration, research on the disease remains embroiled in controversy, policy changes few, and medical support for affected individuals challenging. Foucaultian theorizations of 'discursive materiality' provide insights into the ways in which–even as the science remains inconclusive–understandings, discussions, and research on CKD in El Salvador are having material effects on individuals' bodies and health statuses. Based on fieldwork in El Salvador in summer 2014, this thesis uses the lens of Salvadorian CKD to explore the workings of biopower in settings of industrial agricultural production. Focusing on the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador, in particular, the thesis examines the discourses, materialities, and practices through which CKD has "come to matter" as a medical and political phenomenon in relation to the agriculture through which affected Salvadorians make their living. Thinking through the discursive materialities of CKD alongside the production of spaces of health and agriculture, this thesis provides insights for the growing field of the political ecology of health by investigating the wider socio-political and environmental processes that make CKD management such a challenge in a Central America.

China has seen tremendous economic growth in the past three decades, and in the order of eight to ten per cent since 2000. This development has come with ever increasing energy consumption, and thus emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). This trend has been an important topic in the international climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; China is under constant pressure from other large economies to contribute to reversing the GHG emissions trend in order to avoid dangerous climate change. At the same time, the Chinese government has pursued an environmental and energy security agenda focussed at increasing the energy efficiency of its economy and the supply of energy from renewable sources. Alongside, a domestic climate change discourse has developed, and changed over time. This thesis examines elements of the country-specific political ecology in the area of greenhouse gas mitigation in China, looking closely at what climate change means in China, and discussing how this influences the development and institutionalisation of mitigation mechanisms. I take a political ecology approach to scrutinize the nature and evolution of a climate change discourse in China, and the influences and implications of existing governance structures and institutions that affect greenhouse gas mitigation in the country. Adopting mixed empirical methods comprising semi-structured interviewing, media and numerical data analyses, and participant observation in research processes close to the government, data was collected between 2008 and 2011. In five academic papers with distinctive angles, I show the importance of engaging deeply with the formative, distinctly Chinese political, economic and ecological environment when discussing mitigation in China. The Chinese climate change discourse has changed significantly in recent years, for example resulting in different discursively acceptable ways for the country to engage in mitigation. These meanings of climate change in China have developed through specific interactions of the political and academic spheres, based on Chinese understandings of nature and history (and China’s place in it), as well as with limited involvement of the media compared to western developed country cases. The notion of historical responsibility is a major component of what climate change means in China; in this thesis I therefore illuminate the numerical and conceptual ramifications of this part of the discourse, noting that the re-active nature of this frame, with China positioned against the developed countries, has not lend itself to support new mitigation action. Low carbon economy is another newer and now very important element of the discourse, a frame that locates China in an active, entrepreneurial subject position. My study on two cases – mitigation in the Beijing transportation sector and the introduction of seven local emission trading systems through a approach of governance through pilots – shows how this part of the discourse allows for the development of new mitigation approaches when they follow established institutions and governance mechanisms in a path-dependent manner. This thesis contributes to the research of global environmental change by advancing theoretical and practical ways of engaging with climate change in general, and mitigation in particular in China. It stresses the importance of considering the country-specific political ecology when formulating global climate change policy.

The carbon footprint metaphor has achieved a ubiquitous presence in Anglo-North American public contexts since the turn of the millennium, yet this metaphor remains under-examined as a crucial mediator of political responses to climate change. While the assumption is that this metaphor orients people toward mitigation efforts that address this urgent crisis, close attention to its many figurations suggests a complex range of possible orientations. Using a discursive analysis of instances of this metaphor in popular and public texts, and mobilizing an interdisciplinary array of literatures including theories of metaphor, political theories of affect, and cultural politics of climate change, this dissertation asks: “what are the promises and risks of the carbon footprint metaphor?” Given the histories that have shaped the appearance of climate change as a public matter of concern to be governed, the carbon footprint metaphor in many instances risks marketized approaches, such as offsets which allow business-as-usual trajectories of worsening carbon emissions. Yet, certain other instances of this metaphor promise to disturb such approaches. The promising disturbances to marketized and instrumental approaches through this metaphor emerge as a result of larger-than-human actors who come to challenge given accounts of the footprint. In these instances, the carbon footprint metaphor suggests that dominant anthropocentric responses to climate change are inherently flawed because they miss out on wider political ecologies. Here, the metaphor itself as a suspension to the representational logic of (human) language offers a key political opening to actors not yet accounted for. For those seriously interested in tackling the climate change issue, critical attention to the risky and promising attachments of carbon footprint metaphors marks a key intervention. / Graduate / agirvan@uvic.ca

Natural capital is a way of conceptualizing the linkages between economics and the environment. The concepts foundations can be traced back to the environmental movement of the 1970s and the works of influential economists at that time. Natural capital has come to have an elevated position in environmental conservation approaches in the United Kingdom. The UK government's advisory body, the Natural Capital Committee, is the first of its kind in the world to be established. The concept of natural capital points to those aspects of the environment that directly or indirectly are of value to people. Such aspects include the functions and services of ecosystems, species, and habitats, as well as atmospheric protection and clean air and rivers. Natural capital is also a central concept in the capital approach to sustainable development and the ecological economics field. However, natural capital has not been accepted into environmental conservation approaches in the UK without criticism. Considering natural capital's history then, and its current popularity in environmental conservation, this thesis is interested in addressing the key question: what is natural capital? To be able to account for natural capital's origins, definitions, development, and issues and debates about it, the method used for this thesis is wholly comprised of a literature-review. Throughout the review, reference is made to key scholarly works where natural capital is defined, developed, and used as a central concept. With regard to literature about natural capital, much of it is comes from scholars strongly associated with ecological economics. In addition, natural capital is analysed from three different perspectives. The first perspective is conceptual-historical, the second is a sustainable-development perspective, and the third a political-ecology perspective. From a conceptual-historical perspective, natural capital can be understood as a concept which has developed out of a body of thought of environmentally-aware economists who argue that economics must better take account of ecological systems and their complexity. From a sustainable development perspective, natural capital is a central concept underpinning a capital-based approach to sustainable development. Natural capital also features centrally in debates about how to give an operational meaning to 'sustainability' based around the traditional economic concept of capital. The key debate in this regard concerns weak versus strong sustainability. From a political-ecology perspective, the natural capital approach to environmental conservation is, in ideological terms, of a neo-liberal nature. Natural capital and economic valuation in environmental conservation arguably facilitate the 'monetization' and 'economization' of the environment. Natural capital is opposed for ideological and ethical reasons. Another view would present natural capital as a key part of the economists pragmatic attempts to improve the way economies are managed through better linking economics and the environment. By conveying the economic value of the environment we may be able to put it in a better standing in the priority policy-lists and economic-development agendas of governments and international development agencies. In the United Kingdom there continues to be an ongoing debate about natural capital's place in environmental conservation. This thesis is intended to be a contribution to that debate.

Alternative food networks (AFNs) are the focus of an ‘explosive growth’ of research in Europe (Goodman 2004), and the term covers a wide range of activities, from food banks, community gardens, and farmers’ markets, to community supported or organic agriculture. However, there is an impasse in differing positions over whether AFNs represent an exclusionary place-based ‘quality turn’ (Ilbery and Kneafsey 2000), or whether they contribute to inclusive local communities, sustainability and food security (Tregear 2011, Kirwan and Maye 2013). This research aimed to clarify these debates, through exploration of UK allotments as a benchmark for AFNs, using the case of Plymouth, SW England. A political ecology perspective of social-ecological systems (Ostrom 2008) was used to investigate the activities, relations and governance involved in allotments and AFNs, organised through the concepts of multidimensional capital assets (Bebbington 1999). This research demonstrates how activities on allotments involve human, social, cultural, natural and political capital assets, encompassing both basic food security and a quality turn towards ‘good food’ (Sage 2003). Taking the long view, it is seen that the relative importance of the different asset dimensions are contingent on wider socio-political settings. Relations on allotments illustrate the building of social capital, which extends to wider communities of interest, practice and place (Harrington et al. 2008), and which involves values of social justice that can be explained as diverse or care economies (Gibson-Graham 2008, Dowler et al. 2010). However, the politics and governance of allotments are largely influenced by neoliberal policies that favour oligopolistic and transnational food systems and restrict urban land allocations for place-based food initiatives. Present-day urban population densities are at levels far higher than envisaged for the original garden cities. Nevertheless, alliances at neighbourhood, city, regional, national and transnational scales are coalescing around the values represented in the original setting up of the UK allotment system: of self-reliance, human-scale settlements and the restorative value of the natural environment. Any realization of the potential contribution of allotments and AFNs to the sustainability and resilience of food supplies for urban populations (Armitage et al. 2008, Folke et al. 2010) ultimately depends on multilevel responses to a large range of challenges. Finally, the thesis contends that, in the present day, evidence is building up around the potential of allotments and many other AFN activities, or place-based food systems, to meet multiple policy objectives through aligned values.

This dissertation explores the relationship between land tenure and livelihoods in pre-Saharan Morocco as an ethical struggle over subsistence rights and the definition of community. Research in an oasis valley of southern Morocco indicated how changing land use practices framed contestations over community, political authority, and social hierarchies. The dissertation specifically examines the extension of settlement and cultivation from the oasis into the arid steppe. The research methodology contextualizes household decision-making around land use and livelihood strategies within the framework of land tenure regimes and other regional, national, and global processes. Households with the resources and prestige to navigate customary tenure regimes in their favor used these institutions to facilitate land acquisition and investments in commercial agricultural production. Rather than push for capitalist land markets, they invoked a discourse of communalism in support of customary regimes. In contrast, marginalized families without access to land mobilized to divide collective lands and secure individual freehold tenure. This complicates a prominent critique in agrarian studies that privatization signals the immersion of peripheral lands into neoliberal tenure regimes. The research shows that in southern Morocco, resistance to communal tenure regimes favoring elites was rooted in a discourse of subsistence rights and ethical claims to membership in a just community rather than a simple acquiescence to the power of neoliberal property relations. The dissertation therefore explores the shifting fault lines of social differentiation and the political and cultural embeddedness of land in processes of "repeasantization," the resurgence of rural peasantries in the context of the growing industrialization of global food production. The research draws on cultural anthropology, geography, and political economy to explore an understudied issue in the anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: the economic and environmental dimensions of agrarian livelihoods and rural social dynamics from a critical theoretical perspective.