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Against the local trap: scale and the study of environment and development

Box 355740, Gould 410, Department of Urban Design and Planning, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195, USA, mpurcell{at}u.washington.edu

J. Christopher Brown

Department of Geography, University of Kansas, 1475 Jayhawk Blvd., 223, Lawrence KS 66045, USA

This paper argues against what we call ‘the local trap’, in which development researchers and practitioners falsely assume that localized decision-making is inherently more socially just or ecologically sustainable. The local trap constrains research on a range of topics in development research, including productive conservation networks, agro-forestry, community-based natural resource management, common property regimes and community-based collaboration. We use recent research on scale in political and economic geography to argue that scales and scalar arrangements are socially constructed through political struggle; they are never ontologically given. In other words, there is nothing inherent about any scale or scalar arrangement. Therefore, an arrangement in which resources or decisions are controlled locally is no more likely to lead to ecologically sustainable or socially just outcomes than an arrangement in which the regional, national or global scale predominates. Because scales are produced through socio-political struggle, the outcomes of a given scalar arrangement are dependent on the political agenda(s) of those empowered by the arrangement. When we start from the assumption that there is nothing inherent about scale, we cannot assume the political and ecological dynamics of a particular scalar configuration. We must instead make those dynamics the object of critical inquiry. The paper uses a case study of beekeeping in the Brazilian Amazon to illustrate the range of both positive and negative outcomes that can result when decision-making is localized.

Key Words: Amazon • Brazil • decentralization • environment • scale • sustainable development

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