Tag Archive for: environment

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1258 | 693 | What do people choose? Economic growth or environment protection: Evidence from World Values Survey Wave-7 | Vinod Kumar and Harshita Chari

The links between the economy and the environment are manifold: the environment provides resources and acts as a sink for emissions and waste from the economy. Humans are gradually understanding the impact of economic decisions on the planet’s sustainability and quality. The environmental impact of economic growth includes increased consumption of non-renewable resources, higher levels of pollution, global warming, and potential loss of environmental habitats. However, on the other side, it is not necessary that all forms of economic growth cause damage to the environment. The environmental change that can be brought is on the shoulders of the human race, making it all the more critical that we understand the perception that the population has on prioritizing between the environment and the economic growth. The study is based on the World Values Survey (WVS) Wave-7 (2019-21) was conducted in 59 countries with a minimum sample size of 1200 from each country. In the survey, two statements were put forward to people to discuss the environment and economic growth, and they were asked which of them was closer to their point of view. The study tries to assess the difference in the population’s perceptions towards the economy and environment by their socio-demographic characteristics and the level of development of the countries. A higher chance of protecting the environment is seen among the respondents from developed countries, with better education, more wealth and post materialistic values.

Vinod Kumar and Harshita Chari
Vinod Kumar, PhD Research Scholar, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai & Harshita Chari, PhD Research Scholar, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune

 
ID Abstract: 693

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1231 | | Commodification of the environment for tourism purposes and through tourism: dispossession, resistance and alternative scenarios | Angela Hof (1); Nora Müller (2); Fernando Sabaté-Bel (3); Alejandro Armas-Díaz (4)

Rapid commodification of the human-environment relationship and the accompanying touristification, displacement, and dispossession have generated considerable outrage and protests in various spatial contexts in the recent past, creating increasing political pressure for action. Media attention, however, has only reflected in geographic tourism research and political ecology with a delay.
We are witnessing times of multiple crises -first the global financial crisis of 2008 and now overlapping crises such as pandemics, wars, and climate change- that have generated a profusion of accounts of the social and economic benefits and advantages of nature. The discursive framing of the commodification of the environment and nature has turned a cause into a presumed solution. This is in contrast to the fact that the disruptive speed of the dynamics in e.g. nature conservation and tourism result in displacement and dispossession and resistances show that this raises urgent social questions. The scientific community has responded with catch-up discourses, and the field has since diversified without resolving key research questions. The overlapping current crises could represent another turning point and bring about an intensified commodification of the environment and nature, especially by revitalizing economic growth through tourism. This explicitly addresses both material and immaterial aspects of the human-environment relationship.
The session will take up this theoretical problem and socio-spatial processes and implications and discuss the following questions at the intersection of geographic tourism research and political ecology:
– To what extent do previous approaches to displacement and dispossession help to critically grasp and reflect on the multi-layered facets of the commodification of the environment for and through tourism?
– What perspectives and tools frame and shape the process of commodification?
– What approaches and tools support alternative pathways to environmental and natural commodification?
– What methods help operationalize commodification empirically?
– What role does tourism play in the commodification of the environment and nature?
-What can we learn from protests against the commodification of the environment for and by tourism in theoretical terms, what new views of social justice do they express, and how do these find their way into new policy ideas for managing tourism?
We invite contributions that address the issues of the commodification of the environment and nature outlined above from theoretical, conceptual, or empirical perspectives. Contributions from different regions and perspectives and especially related to tourism research and political ecology are welcome We plan a 90 minutes session with four presentations (15 minutes each) followed with Q&A and a final discussion.

Angela Hof (1); Nora Müller (2); Fernando Sabaté-Bel (3); Alejandro Armas-Díaz (4)
(1) Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg (Austria), (2) Universitat de les Illes Balears (Spain), (3) Universidad de La Laguna (Spain), (4) Universität Leipzig (Germany)

 
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