Kristina Dietz - The Political Ecology of Agrofuels

This book explores the political ecology of agrofuels as an encompassing socio-spatial transformation process consisting of a series of changing contexts, political reconfigurations, and the restructuring of social and labour relations. It includes conceptual chapters as well as case studies from different world regions (North America, Europe, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia) and levels (local, national, transnational).

The Political Ecology of Agrofuels advances a conceptualization of agrofuels that helps to fill existing research gaps. It covers global food regimes and agrarian politics as well as political arenas such as energy, climate, transport and trade. It reflects on the biophysical materiality of agrofuels, new forms of nature appropriation, struggles, discursive framings, the building of hegemony, shifting geopolitical constellations, socio-spatial configurations of power, the construction of territory, the agency of social movements and the different ways in which agrofuels are politicized at different scales.

This book asks how patterns of mobility, emissions regulation, food and energy production and consumption, and social relations (e.g. labour, class and gender relations) are shaped and re-shaped by the materiality and representations of agrofuels in both the Global South and North. The book provides tools for thinking about the diversity of the conflicts, struggles and spatial, socio-ecological and politico-economic reconfigurations and perpetuations engendered by current production and consumption patterns in the agrofuel sector.

Kristina Dietz is a post doctoral Research Fellow at the International Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America, Berlin, Germany.

Bettina Engels is Deputy Assistant Professor for Development Politics and Politics of Africa at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

Oliver Pye teaches Southeast Asian studies at Bonn University, Germany.

Achim Brunnengrber is Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, Freie Universitt Berlin, Germany.

Editorial Board:

A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi

Trent University

Saturnino M. Borras Jr

Institute of Social Studies

Cristbal Kay (Chair)

Institute of Social Studies

and

Max Spoor

Institute of Social Studies

Routledge and the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, the Netherlands have come together to publish a new book series in rural livelihoods. The series will include themes such as land policies and land rights, water issues, food policy and politics, rural poverty, agrarian transformation, migration, rural-oriented social movements, rural conflict and violence, among others. All books in the series will offer rigorous, empirically grounded, cross-national comparative and inter-regional analyses. The books will be theoretically stimulating, but will also be accessible to policy practitioners and civil society activists.

1 Land, Poverty and Livelihoods in an Era of Globalization

Perspectives from developing and transition countries

Edited by A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Saturnino M. Borras Jr. and Cristbal Kay

2 Peasants and Globalization

Political economy, agrarian transformation and development

Edited by A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Cristbal Kay

3 The Political Economy of Rural Livelihoods in Transition Economies

Land, peasants and rural poverty in transition

Edited by Max Spoor

4 Agrarian Angst and Rural Resistance in Contemporary Southeast Asia

Edited by Dominique Caouette and Sarah Turner

5 Water, Environmental Security and Sustainable Rural Development

Conflict and cooperation in Central Eurasia

Edited by Murat Arsel and Max Spoor

6 Reforming Land and Resource Use in South Africa

Impact on livelihoods

Edited by Paul Hebinck and Charlie Shackleton

7 Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy

Livelihoods in pastoralist communities

John G. McPeak, Peter D. Little and Cheryl R. Doss

8 Public Policy and Agricultural Development

Edited by Ha-Joon Chang

9 Social Conflict, Economic Development and the Extractive Industry

Evidence from South America

Edited by Anthony Bebbington

10 The Ecotourism-Extraction Nexus

Political economies and rural realities of (un)comfortable bedfellows

Edited by Bram Bscher and Veronica Davidov

11 Rural Livelihoods, Regional Economies and Processes of Change

Edited by Deborah Sick

12 Rural Development and the Construction of New Markets

Edited by Paul Hebinck, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg and Sergio Schneider

13 The Political Ecology of Agrofuels

Edited by Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels, Oliver Pye and Achim Brunnengrber

Edited by Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels, Oliver Pye and Achim Brunnengrber

First published 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2015 selection and editorial material, Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels, Oliver Pye and Achim Brunnengrber; individual chapters, the contributors.

The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks orregistered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanationwithout intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

The political ecology of agrofuels / edited by Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels, Oliver Pye and Achim Brunnengrber.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Biomass energyPolitical aspects. 2. Political ecology. I. Dietz, Kristina, 1972

HD9502.5.B542P65 2014

333.9539dc23

2014021425

ISBN: 978-1-138-01315-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-79540-9 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781315795409

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

• Kristina Dietz, Oliver Pye, Bettina Engels and Achim Brunnengrber

• Markus Wissen

• Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels and Oliver Pye

• Ben White, Clara M. Park and Julia

• Achim Brunnengrber

• Philip Mcmichael

• Emmanuel Sulle and Ruth Hall

• Carol Hunsberger