Review: (Ribot and Peluso, 2003) A Theory of Access

Key Terms
- Access = the ability to derive benefits from things, including material objects, persons, institutions and symbols; a bundle of powers
- study of access: concerned with understanding the multiplicity of ways people derive benefits from resources, including, but not limited to, property relations; helps us understand why some people or institutions benefit from resources, whether or not they have rights to them
- Property = a bundle of rights;
- Property (Proudhon 1993:13) = not a civil right, based on occupation and sanctioned by law; not a natural right, arising from labor; an effect without a cause (not caused by occupation or labor)
- Property (Locke, MacPherson 1978; Neale 1998:54) = moral claim to rights arising from the mixing of labor with land
- Use = the enjoyment of some kind of benefit or benefit stream (Hunt 1998)

- "bundles of power" (Ghani, 1995:2)
- Ability ~= power = capacity of some actors to affect the practices of and ideas of others  (Weber 1978:53; Lukes 1986:3); power emerges from, but not always attached to, people
- Access control (Rangan 1997:72) = ability to mediate others' access, checking and direction of action
- Access maintenance = expending resources or powers to keep a particular sort of resource access open (e.g. Berry 1993)
- gaining access = general process by which access established
- mechanisms = means, processes and relations
- "means of transfer" problem (Conyers 2000) = when laws impart access to state agencies and leave resource users in the position of having to invest in relations with these agents in order to maintain access (Ribot 1995)

What was/were the main objective(s) of the paper?

- Access includes a wide range of social relationships that constrain or enable benefits from resource use than property relations alone
- enable scholars and others to map dynamic processes and relationships of access to resources, locates property as one set of access relationships among others
-  explore the range of powers—embodied in and exercised through various mechanisms, processes, and social relations—that affect people’s ability to benefit from resources
-  we expect to find that those who

control some forms of access may cooperate or conflict with others—

or do both at different moments or along different dimensions.

What were the important results and conclusions?

- "People and institutions are positioned differently in relation to resources at various historical moments and geographical scales. The strands thus shift and change over time, changing the nature of

power and forms of access to resources."

(DEFINE NATURE OF POWER AND FORMS OF ACCESS TO RESOURCES OVER TIME . How are people and institutions positions in relation to resources at various historical moments and at what geographic scale to they operate?"
Access is dynamic
- technology, capital, markets, knowledge, authority, social identities, and social relations can

shape or influence access

- access analysis serves as a tool for identifying the larger range of policy mechanisms—

beyond property and other forms of rights—that can affect  changes in resource management and use efficiency, equity, and sustainability with consequences for well-being, justice, conflict, and cooperation.

Errors in experimental design, statistical analyses or analytical approaches?

- Access Analysis involves (framework, not necessarily erred):
1) identifying and mapping the flow of the particular benefit of interest
2) identifying the mechanisms by which different actors involved gain control and maintain benefit flow and distribution
3) analysis of power relations underlying mechanisms of access involved in instances where benefits are derived

Assumptions made with models? Reasonable?

- access focuses on ability, rather than rights as in property theory
- grounds analysis of who actually benefits from things and through what processes are they able to do so
-  powers constitute the material, cultural and political-economic strands within the “bundles” and “webs” of powers that configure resource access
- some people and institutions control resources access, while other maintain access through those that have control
- power is inherent in certain kinds of relationships, can emerge from or flow through intended and unintended consequences of effects of social relationships
-  Someone might have rights to benefit from land but may be unable to do so without access to labor or capital. This would be an instance of having property (the right to benefit) without access (the ability to benefit).
-  Legal means, therefore, are not the only rights-based way of gaining, controlling, or maintaining benefits from resources. Violence and theft must also be considered as rights-denied mechanisms of access.
- because of the status and power that wealth affords, those with wealth may also have privileged access to production and exchange, opportunities, forms of knowledge, realms of authority, and so forth

-  Resource values may vary when resources are commodified or when national or international merchants or state agents begin to extract resources, in turn affecting property rights (Appadurai 1986; Watts 1983; Runge et al. 2000).

Main conclusions supported by data? Why or why not?

Good References?

Hunt, R.C. 1998. “Concepts of Property: Introduction of Tradition.” Pp. 3–28 in Property

in Economic Context, edited by Robert C. Hunt and Antonio Gilman. Lanham.

University Press of America, Monographs in Economic Anthropology, No. 14.

Ghani, A. 1995. “Production and Reproduction of Property as a Bundle of Powers:

Afghanistan 1774–1901.” Draft discussion paper in Agrarian Studies Program. New

Haven: Yale University.

Meet stated objectives?

Number of times cited?

Impact on field?

Opinion

- access to capital shapes who benefits from the resources of Ha‘ena which are rivalrous and to a certain extent non-excludable

Review: (Campbell et al., 2009) Beyond Baselines: Rethinking Priorities for Ocean Conservation

Campbell, L.M., N.J. Gray, E.L. Hazen and J.M. Shackeroff. 2009. Beyond baselines: rethinking priorities for ocean conservation. Ecology and Society 14(1): 14 Key Terms - SBS = refers to both concept and work it has inspired in marine historical ecology - marine historical ecology = a field of study that uses historical data sets and ecological modeling to describe what marine ecosystems might have looked like in the past - distinct from historical ecology due to marine historical ecology : natural sciences :: historical ecology : social sciences - “Stealth policy advocacy” (Lackey 2007) = policy preferences are implicit in the science instead of debated outside of it (should be avoided) What was/were the main objective(s) of the paper? - prove that impact of SBS on ocean mngmt will be limited by underlying and interrelated problematic assumptions about ecology and human-environment relations and prescriptions that these assumptions support - consider conceptual and operational merit of SBS and some problematic assumptions - assumptions relate to ecology and human-environment relations - suggesting ways to overcome limitations and capitalize on merits of SBS, toward goal of improved ocean management What were the important results and conclusions? - promote expanded discussion of SBS that engages broader range of social scientists, ecologists and resource users - explicitly recognize value judgments inherent in deciding what past ecosystems looked like and whether or not and how we might reconstruct them - Potential for interdisciplinary work is strong and unrealized for SBS o Enhance analysis of both problems and potential solutions, avoid divide between marine and terrestrial a.k.a. social science and natural science o Resilience and complex system theories: humans and nature are coupled and coevoloving in social-ecological systems (SES) (Berkes et al 2003, Folke 2004, 2006 Walker et al. 2006) • Rather than asking people to participate in SBS-defined vision of conservation, think how social-ecological systems work and structure participation in related and appropriate ways • Resilience asks how to strengthen capacity of ecosystems to support social and economic development and sustain desirable pathways and ecosystem states in the face of continuous change (Folke et al. 2002, Gunderson and Holling 2002) • Governance is a part of SES rather than external institutional structure imposed on ecological system o Resource users themselves • Who has the experience to warrant inclusion? - Expand SBS & related work in marine historical ecology to include resilience and SES theory + engage with resource users will do 2 things: 1. improve understanding of marine SES as existed in various times in the past 2. facilitate a more direct recognition of the value judgments inherent in deciding both what past states are most desirable (and to whom) and if, how and why we might try to recreate these in the future - *”… marine historical ecology is not the “natural” authority for determining the direction of ocean policy,” - have a place at the table, but one set considered among many Errors in experimental design, statistical analyses or analytical approaches? - consequences of conceptual separation of nature and culture in Western society (Cronon 1995, Castree and Braun 2001) - SBS calls to abandon sustainability as a management goal and instead work to reestablish historic baselines by reducing fleets, target species, establish MPAs; problematic because … 1. Without detailed understanding of consequences prescriptions may have negative results without looking at complexity of benefits and costs 2. Focus on economic gains assumes neoclassical profit-maximization driven by rational choice, ironically heavily looked to for modeling despite calls for interdisciplinary research 3. Natural baselines are not self evident and involve value judgment, must include all stakeholders 4. Ignores the role of fishers and other resources users in formation, uptake, monitoring and enforcement of policy change a. Overlooks co-management b. Opportunity to nurture diversity of uses and knowledge systems c. Participation occurs in a political vacuum with no consideration of power at work in participatory activities d. Breakdown TEK into simple choices of presence/absence and place & time Assumptions made with the data, calculations, models? Reasonable? - concept used for environmental advocacy outside of academia - interdisciplinary research hampered by epistemological one that distinguish between social and natural sciences and definition of what is data and science - 3 ecological assumptions that underlie SBS 1) a natural baseline exists and can be identified and agreed upon, ecologists make judgments about where to set baselines, suggesting there is noting “natural” or self-evident about hem (p.3) 2) once agreed upon baselines can be described accurately, problematic because … a) existing data about valuable & accessible species, not ecosystems b) good data is in context of contemporary understanding, can always be updated c) mass balance models rely on accuracy and completeness of inputs & simply processes thus still estimates rather than uncertainties 3) once described, baselines can be restored, “there and back again” ecology - Berkes and Folke (1998:12) argue “complex, non-linear, multi-equilibrium and self-organizing … permeated by uncertainty and discontinuities” - Holling et al (1998:354) argue “linear, equilibrium-centered view of nature no longer fits the evidence” - Resilience Theory (Holling 1973, Scheffer and Carpenter 2003, Folke et la. 2004) argues an ecosystem can occupy multiple stable states and can undergo dramatic regime shifts due to both anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic forcers - climate plays an important role, anchovy vs. sardine (Pinnegar and Engelhard 2008) or unidirectional, single, stable state (Carscadden et al. 2002) - Pitcher (2005) “ecosystems do not rewind” - human-environment relations - Frank et al (2005) Canadian East Coast cod fishery 1992 fishing moratorium, possibly no recovery due to changes in physical environmental (temp and stratification) - humans are outside of nature, i.e. defining baselines as “pre-human intervention” - consequences: 1) if humans are “naturally” outside of marine nature, enter ecological equation as problem and overlooks role of non-antrhopogenic variability in marine ecosystems - also suggests humans behave the same way, overlooking individuals, groups & institutions degrade AND restore oceans 2) ecological baselines become only ones of interest, assuming human-free baseline is correct - call for few fishers, smaller fleets, economic benefit through more productive fisheries without giving context to fishers nationality, gender, community, society or culture Main conclusions supported by data? Why or why not? References? Meet stated objectives? Number of times cited? Impact on field? Opinion