Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Geographical Approach to Socio-ecological Coviability

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change

Abstract

The scientific debate on global ecological change which originates in human activity is dominated by concepts belonging to biological and physical sciences. When these concepts are applied to the social sphere, they distort its analysis. Moreover, a growing number of researchers in social sciences are naturalizing the societies/environments relationships by using these concepts without investigating them. As these approaches seem to me scientifically distorted by a naturalizing ideology, I suggest a geographical approach to socio-ecological coviability, which requires a brief preliminary description of some concepts of the discipline. A geographical analysis supported by other social sciences unveils the naturalizing ideology of social-ecological systems (SES); this concept forms the basis of socio-ecological coviability. The naturalization of social events manifests itself in three common ideas concerned with SES: first, societies may be analyzed as ecosystems; second, SES have a cyclical history; third, their extension and geographic location have scarce importance. Easter Island is a valid example of an ecological and social “collapse,’ so investigating it may help us test the socio-ecological coviability vis-à-vis geo-historical facts. The causes of this collapse do not emanate from the Rapanui SES but from the geographical openings of Easter Island in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thus, this investigation examines the appropriate geographical conditions of socio-ecological coviability in an “era of globalization.”

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    A landscape is both the image and the representation of an environment (Brunet et al. 1992).

  2. 2.

    Those of Australian Aborigines have the durability record of 60,000 years!

  3. 3.

    At the beginning of colonization, the Rapa Nui maintained episodic relations with the island communities of Henderson-Pitcairn-Mangareva group, 2000 km to the west, before becoming completely cut off from the world until the arrival of Europeans in the eighteenth century.

  4. 4.

    The demographic maximum of the island in the early sixteenth century was approximately 10,000 (Kirch 2010), compared to 4000 today.

  5. 5.

    As the historian of environment J. Radkau suggests, “wherever the local population does not have control over its resources and is unable to keep outsiders away, the environment degrades” (2008, 3).

References

  • Acot P (1988) Histoire de l’écologie. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderies JM, Janssen MA, Ostrom E (2004) A framework to analyze the robustness of social-ecological systems from an institutional perspective. Ecol Soc 9(1):18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bahn P, Flenley J (1992) Easter Island, Earth Island. Thames & Hudson, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Berkes F, Colding J, Folke C (2003) Introduction. In: Berkes F, Colding J, Folke C (eds) Navigating socio-ecological systems. Building resilience for complexity and change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Berque A (1990) Médiance. De milieux en paysages. RECLUS, Montpellier

    Google Scholar 

  • Berque A (1996) Être humains sur la terre. Gallimard-Le Débat, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Berque A (2010) Des fondements ontologiques de la crise, et de l’être qui pourrait la dépasser. VertigO 10(1.) http://vertigo.revues.org/9384

  • Bonneuil C, Fressoz J-B (2013) L’évènement anthropocène. Le Seuil, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Braudel F (1979) Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècles, Le temps du Monde. Armand Colin, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Brunet R, Ferras R, Théry H (dir.) (1992) Les mots de la géographie. Dictionnaire critique. GIP RECLUS/La Documentation Française, Montpellier/Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Caillé A, Chanial Ph, Vandenberghe F (2001) Présentation, in Chassez le naturel… Ecologisme, naturalisme et constructivisme, Revue du MAUSS n° 17. La Découverte, Paris, pp 5–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cools A (1973) L’île de Pâques et la Congrégation des Sacrés Cœurs. Documentation, Rome, M.S. 271 788–95 (972)-5

    Google Scholar 

  • Crosby A (1986) Ecological imperialism. The biological expansion of Europe, 900–1900. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Crutzen P (2002) Geology of mankind. Nature 415:23

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Deléage J-P (1991) Histoire de l’écologie. Une science de l’homme et de la nature. La Découverte, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Descola P (2005) Par-delà nature et culture. Gallimard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Diamond J (1997) Guns, germs, and steel. The fates of human societies, (De l’inégalité parmi les sociétés. Essai sur l’homme et l’environnement dans l’histoire, Paris, Gallimard, 2000)

    Google Scholar 

  • Diamond J (2005) Collapse. how societies choose to fail or survive. Penguin Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Diamond J (2007) Easter Island revisited. Science 317:1692–1694

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dollfus O (1994) L’espace Monde. Economica, Paris

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer S (2005) Island at the end of the world. Reaktion Books, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Folke C (2006) Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses. Glob Environ Chang 16:253–267

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Folke C et al (2002) Resilience and sustainable development: building adaptive capacity in a world of transformations, ICSU Series on science for sustainable development, vol 3. International Council for Science, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster BJ, Clark B, York R (2010) The ecological drift. Capitalism’s war on the earth. Monthly Review Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuentes M (ed) (2013) Rapa Nui y la compañía explotadora. Rapa Nui Press, Santiago

    Google Scholar 

  • Godelier M (1984) L’idéel et le matériel. Fayard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Gotts N (2007) Resilience, panarchy, and world-systems analysis. Ecol Soc 12(1):24. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art24/

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grenier C (2002a) Océaniques ou Américaines? Analyse comparative du rattachement aux Amériques des Galapagos et de l’île de Pâques. Mappemonde 66:38–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Grenier C (2002b) How tourism reduces geodiversity and how it could be different: the Galapagos archipelago and Easter Island cases. In: di Castri F, Balaji V (eds) Tourism, biodiversity and information. Backhuys, Leiden, pp 233–255

    Google Scholar 

  • Grenier C (2003) Gardeer l’espace: la notion de géodiversité et la conservation du patrimoine littoral, Océanis, fascicule 28–1/2: Environnement, politiques publiques et dynamique des activités littorales, pp 233–251

    Google Scholar 

  • Grenier C (2005) La patrimonialisation comme mode d’adaptation géographique. Galápagos et île de Pâques. In: Cormier-Salem M-C, Juhé-Beaulaton D, Boutrais J, Roussel B (eds) (dir) Patrimoines naturels aux suds, Territoires, identités et stratégies locales. IRD Editions, Paris, pp 475–513

    Google Scholar 

  • Grenier C (2008) La gestion de parcs nationaux mondialisés dans des régions à forte géodiversité. Corcovado (Costa Rica), Galapagos (Equateur), Rapa Nui (Chili). In: Héritier S. et Laslaz L., dir., Les parcs nationaux dans le monde. Ellipses, Paris, pp 123–142

    Google Scholar 

  • Grenier C (2014) Géodiversité et mondialisation. Les fondements géographiques de la diversité terrestre et de son érosion, volume scientifique d’Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches, Université de La Rochelle

    Google Scholar 

  • Holling CS (2001) Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems 4:390–405

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hornborg A, McNeill J, Martinez-Alier J (eds) (2007) Rethinking environmental history: world–system history and global environmental change. AltaMira Press, Lanham

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes JD (2009) An environmental history of the world. Routledge, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hunt T (2006) Rethinking the fall of: new evidence points to an alternative explanation for a civilization’s collapse. Am Sci 94:412–419

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hunt T (2007) Rethinking Easter Island’s ecological catastrophe. J Archaeol Sci 34:485–502

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hunt T, Lipo C (2007) Chronology, deforestation and “collapse”: evidence vs. faith in Rapa Nui prehistory. Rapa Nui J 21(2):85–97

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt T, Lipo C (2011) The statues that walked. Unraveling the mystery of Easter Island. Free Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Judkins G, Smith M, Keys E (2008) Determinism within human–environment research and the rediscovery of environmental causation. Geogr J 174(1):17–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirch P (2000) On the road of the winds. An archeological history of the Pacific Islands before European contact. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirch P (2010) Peopling of the Pacific: a holistic anthropological perspective. Annu Rev Anthropol 39:131–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lacoste Y (2003) De la géopolitique aux paysages. Dictionnaire de la géographie. Armand Colin, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Berre M (1992) Territoires. In: Bailly A, Ferras R, Pumain D, dir., 1992, Encyclopédie de Géographie. Economica, Paris, pp 617–638

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévi-Strauss C (1952) Race et histoire. Albin Michel et UNESCO (2001), Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévy J, Lussault M dir., (2003) Dictionnaire de la géographie et de l’espace des sociétés. Belin, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu J et al (2007a) Complexity of coupled human and natural systems. Science 317:1513–1516

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Liu J et al (2007b) Coupled human and natural systems. Ambio 36(8):639–649

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone D (1992) The geographical tradition. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Loti P (1899) L’île de Pâques. Journal d’un aspirant de La Flore, St Cyr sur Loire, Pirot Editeur (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Maffi L (2001) On the interdependance of biological and cultural diversity. In: Maffi L (ed) On biocultural diversity. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, pp 1–50

    Google Scholar 

  • Marsh G (1864) Man and nature. University of Washington Press, Seattle

    Google Scholar 

  • McCall G (1994) Rapanui. Tradition and survival on Easter Island. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeil JR (2000) Something new under the sun. An environmental history of the twenthieth-century world. Norton & Company, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Métraux A (1940) Ethnology of Easter Island, vol 160. Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin, Honolulu

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray WE (2006) Geographies of globalization. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Olson D et al (2001) Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on earth. Bioscience 51(11):933–938

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olson P, Folke C, Berkes F (2004) Adaptive comanagement for building resilience in social–ecological systems. Environ Manag 34(1):75–90

    Google Scholar 

  • Orliac C (1998) Données nouvelles sur la composition de la flore de l’île de Pâques. Journal de la Société des océanistes 107(2):135–143

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Passet R (2010) Les grandes représentations du monde et de l’économie. Les Liens qui Libèrent, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Peiser B (2005) From Genocide to Ecocide: the Rape of Rapa Nui. Energy Environ 16(3–4):513–539

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ponting C (1991) A green history of the world (Le viol de la Terre, Paris, NiL, 2000)

    Google Scholar 

  • Porteous D (1981) The modernization of Easter Island, Western geographical series vol. 19. University of Victoria, Victoria

    Google Scholar 

  • Radkau J (2008) Nature and power. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Ratzel F (1897) Géographie politique. Fayard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Reclus E (1905) L’Homme et la Terre, Introduction et choix de textes par B. Giblin. La Découverte, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Rist G (1996) Le développement. Histoire d’une croyance occidentale. Presses de Sciences Po, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Rockström J et al (2009) Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecol Soc 14(2):32. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Routledge K (1919) The mystery of Easter Island. Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  • Sahlins M (1976) The use and abuse of biology. An anthropological critique of sociobiology (Critique de la sociobiologie, Paris, Gallimard, 1976)

    Google Scholar 

  • Spengler O (1921) Le déclin de l’Occident. Gallimard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Steffen W, Crutzen P, McNeill J (2007) The anthropocene: are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature? Ambio 36(8):614–621

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Vargas P, Cristino C (2006) 1000 años en Rapa Nui. Arquelogogía del asentamiento. Editorial Universitaria, Santiago de Chile

    Google Scholar 

  • Vidal de la Blache P (1899) Leçon d’ouverture du cours de géographie. Annales de Géographie 8(38):98–109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker J, Cooper M (2011) Genealogies of resilience: from systems ecology to the political economy of crisis adaptation. Security Dialogue 42(2):143–160

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wallerstein I (1974) The modern world-system 1, capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. University of California Press, Berkeley, (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallerstein I (1983) Historical capitalism (Le capitalisme historique. La Découverte, Paris, 2002)

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallerstein I (2004) World-systems analysis. an introduction (Comprendre le monde. Introduction à l’analyse des systèmes-monde. La Découverte, Paris, 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Welzer H (2009) Les guerres du climat. Gallimard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Young O, Berkhout F, Gallopin G, Janssen M, Ostrom E, van der Leeuw S (2006) The globalization of socio-ecological systems: an agenda for scientific research. Glob Environ Chang 16:304–316

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nantes University, UMR CNRS 6554 LETG-Géolittomer, Nantes, France

    Christophe Grenier

Authors
  1. Christophe Grenier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christophe Grenier .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Olivier Barrière

  2. Center for Research on Environment, Human Security and Governance (CERES), Ibn Zohr University of Agadir, Agadir, Morocco

    Mohamed Behnassi

  3. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Gilbert David

  4. IRSTEA National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture, Montpellier, France

    Vincent Douzal

  5. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Mireille Fargette

  6. University of Montpellier, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Thérèse Libourel

  7. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Maud Loireau

  8. University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Laurence Pascal

  9. The Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

    Catherine Prost

  10. The Federal University of Pará, Belém, Brazil

    Voyner Ravena-Cañete

  11. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Frédérique Seyler

  12. CNRS – The French National Center for Scientific Research, Paris, France

    Serge Morand

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Grenier, C. (2019). A Geographical Approach to Socio-ecological Coviability. In: Barrière, O., et al. Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78497-7_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation