Land Change Science, Political Ecology, and Sustainability Synergies and divergences

Recent claims regarding convergence and divergence between land change science and political ecology as approaches to the study of human-environment relationships and sustainability science areexamined and analyzed inthis innovative volume.Comprised of11 commissioned chapters as well as introductory and concluding/synthesischapters, it advances the two fields by proposing new conceptual and methodological approaches toward integrating land change science and political ecology. The book also identifies areas of fundamental difference and disagreement between fields. These theoretical contributions will help a generation of young researchers refine their research approaches and will advance a debate among established scholars in geography, land-use studies, and sustainability sciencethat has been developingsince the early 2000s. At an empirical level, case studies focusing on sustainable development are included from Africa, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia. The specific topics addressed include tropical deforestation, swidden agriculture, mangrove forests, gender, and household issues.

Foreword Andrew Millington 1. Notes for Avoiding a Missed Opportunity in Sustainability Science: Integrating Land Change Science and Political Ecology Christian Brannstrom and Jacqueline M. Vadjunec 2. The Ghost of von Thünen Lives: A Political Ecology of the Disappearance of the Amazonian Forest Robert Walker and Peter Richards 3. Forest Transitions in Southeast Asia: Synergies and Shortcomings in Land Change Science and Political Ecology Guillaume Lestrelin, Jean-Christophe Castella and Jefferson Fox 4. Politicizing Land Use Change in Highland Madagascar: Struggles with Air Photo Analyses and Conservation Agendas Christian A. Kull 5. Producing Biodiversity in Tanzania’s Mangrove Forests? A Combined Political Ecology and Ecological Resilience Approach to "Sustainably Utilized Landscapes" Betsy A. Beymer-Farris 6. Gender, the Household, and Land Change in Southeastern Mexico Claudia Radel, Birgit Schmook, and Crisol Méndez 7. Border Integrations: The Fusion of Political Ecology and Land Change Science to Inform and Contest Transboundary Integration in Amazonia David S. Salisbury, Mariano Castro Sánchez Moreno, Luís Dávalos Torres, Robert Guimaraes Vásquez, José Saito Diaz, Pedro Tipula Tipula, Andrés Treneman Young, Carlos Arana Courrejolles, Martin Arana Cardó and the Grupo de Monitoreo de Megaproyectos Región Ucayali 8. Political Ecology and Land Change Science in the Study of Infrastructure Impacts: The Case of the Southwestern Amazon Stephen G. Perz, Jane Southworth, Grenville Barnes, Youliang Qiu, Yibin Xia, Jing Sun, Karla Rocha 9. Deforestation and the World-as-Representation: The Maya Forest of Southern Belize Joel Wainwright, Shiguo Jiang, and Desheng Liu 10. Shifting Spaces and Hidden Landscapes in Rural South Africa Brian King 11. Political Ecology, Land Change Science and the Political Economy of Nature Brent McCusker 12. The Intersection of Independent Lies: Land Change Science and Political Ecology Rinku Roy Chowdhury 13. Two-Way Traffic across a Porous Border Paul Robbins and B. L. Turner II

Christian Brannstrom is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Texas A&M University, USA. Jacqueline M. Vadjunec isAssociate Professor in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University, USA.