When I looked at the syllabus, this week’s topic, Ecological Security and Feminist Environmental Security, drew my attention. I wondered how these two could be absorbed into the environmental security field, particularly the relation between feminism and security.
Pirages analyzes ecological security that is driven by disequilibrium from transformation in human society and changes in nature. His argument of ecosystem change that says humans are not capable of preventing the natural disasters but are able to lessen the damage from potential destruction seems interesting to me since my research topic will cover this concept. I will be focusing on a research about how Japan responses to the nuclear energy release from earthquake occurred in Fukushima in 2011 and their future energy conservation plan. Pirages states that it is best to predict and avoid further damages but sometimes it is impossible for human to know ahead, and the possible way to resolve the disastrous situation is to find the remedy. I will incorporate the idea of remedy with the action that Japanese government and civil organization are taking after the incident. In the article, Pirages affirms that the rapid demographic change in modern era indeed affects politics and socioeconomics. That is, higher needs for resources cause lower stability in markets resulted by unequal distribution. Developed technology facilitates quick spread of pathogens. The migration influences instability and insecurity by increasing both violent and non-violent conflicts. I believe that his argument is convincing with great explanation based on historical context and specific data.
Another interesting argument that Detraz made in the reading is how gender is related to the environment and security. She presents the feminist approach to the environmental conflict, environmental security, and ecological security. Detraz proposes that militarization increases the resource conflict that makes a false perception of women as victims of wars and insecurity. Social status of women affects the resource scarcity. She then asserts that human vulnerabilities must be considered as a priority over other social structures. I understand that the correlation between gender and the environmental and ecological conflict exists and still needs further research. It would have been a stronger argument if she combined the security and environment parts and focus more on non-military and non-violent conflicts.
Personally, I prefer Parenti’s reading as it explains different situations of each region vividly. Part II shows the economic dependency on climate change in Africa, war over cattle caused by frequent droughts. This tendency links to the interstate and intrastate wars and lack of political institution to protect human rights and serious corruption bring the states to chaos. I found it interesting when the author sums up part II by referring the downfall of the African states as “a cycle of modernization and industrialization imagined by the West’s postwar planners—but in violent reverse”. I believe that the westernization, now we call modernization, not necessarily improves cultural, political, and socioeconomic system in every part of the world. It rather leaves confusion and defects in some states.
In part III, serious desertification of Pakistan and its water shocks link to the political instability as in some African countries in previous chapters. According to the reading, governmental indifference worsened the situation, which is driven by lack of rapid response presented by Pirages.
I was able to connect the conceptual thoughts from readings to the real world actions. I found Pirages’ reading helpful to develop my research paper and will integrate his ecological security theory with the situation in Japan.