Browsing by Author "Foster, John"

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    AN ACCUMULATION OF CATASTROPHE: A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WILDFIRE IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES
    (University of Oregon, 2024-03-25) Dockstader, Sue; Foster, John
    This dissertation is an environmental sociological study of wildland fire in what is now the western United States. It examines wildfire management from roughly the 1900s to the present time employing a Marxist historical materialist analysis. The title of this work reflects the accumulated social and environmental effects of capitalism and the interconnected catastrophes of its development. Historically, Indigenous cultural burning shaped western landscapes that provided for human and nonhuman needs, while remaining resilient to environmental disturbances. Capitalist expansion effected a rift in the relationship between humans and fire through dispossession of Native Americans, commodity production, and fire exclusion. This metabolic rift is beset by economic crises, and human displacement enabled the U.S. to mobilize large groups of precarious workers to fight fires which it continues to do today. Rapid and complete fire elimination has left a legacy of unhealthy forests and grasslands that occasionally provide fuel for wildfires that threaten people, structures, and natural resources requiring suppression. This burn-fight-burn cycle, or wildfire paradox, exemplifies what Engels called the “revenge of nature” in which the supposed subjugation of nature exposes humans to unimagined vulnerability. Modern wildfire science evolved in relation to U.S. imperialist military and economic domination that increased global economic activity among Global North countries in the aftermath of World War II. This Great Acceleration increased carbon dioxide emissions responsible for climate change that, in turn has exacerbated wildfire activity as well as propelling human settlement in and near uninhabited, wild areas that spark fires. In recent decades an alliance of polluting industries, utilities, forest owners, and the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector, have been profiting from the continued CO2 emissions that drive wildfires using carbon trading, third party liability arrangements and novel insurance products with disastrous results. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of possible avenues for changing the relationship between humans and wildland fire to avert further catastrophe.
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    Back to Production: Labor-Value Commodity Chains and the Imperialist World Economy
    (University of Oregon, 2017-09-06) Suwandi, Intan; Foster, John
    Despite the complexities and decentralization that characterize global supply chains in today’s world economy, imperialist relations of exchange continue to prevail, due to the fact that the differences between wages of North and South is greater than the difference of their productivities. This dissertation examines the global exploitation of labor that mostly occurs in the global South, as a form of such imperialist relations, particularly under the domination of multinational firms emanating primarily from the core of the system. I start by laying out the theoretical and empirical groundwork for the labor-value commodity chains framework that puts labor, along with the question of control and class, at the center of its formulation. By incorporating a calculation of cross-national variation in unit labor costs in manufacturing—a measurement that combines labor productivity with wage costs in a manner closely related to Marx’s theory of exploitation—the labor-value chains framework is a means to operationalize exploitation within the framework of the labor theory of value. Findings show that the global organization of labor-value chains is a means to extract surplus value through the exploitation of workers in the global South, where not only are wages low, but productivity is also high. I then show the concrete processes of how global North capital, personified in multinational corporations, captures value from the global South by applying systemic rationalization and flexible systems as mechanisms to exert control over their dependent suppliers in labor-value commodity chains. The burden of such mechanisms is borne by the workers —the direct producers of commodities—employed by these dependent suppliers. Case studies of two Indonesian companies that supply to multinationals are presented to illustrate these phenomena at the point of production. This observation further suggests that labor-value commodity chains are a form of unequal exchange and thus reveal the imperialistic characteristics of the world economy. This dissertation includes both previously published and coauthored materials.
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    Ecological Imperialism: A Holistic Analysis of the Guano Trade in Nineteenth-Century Peru
    (University of Oregon, 2022-10-26) Betancourt De la Parra, Mauricio; Foster, John
    Theoretical studies of imperialism, dependency, unequal exchange, and world-systems have commonly overlooked the ecological foundation of cross-national trade and relations. More generally, in the social sciences the influence –or even the very existence– of external nature upon or beyond society has often been neglected, despite constituting the basis of economic flows. In addition, despite their valuable contributions, environmental sociology notions such as unequal ecological exchange remain undertheorized. Seeking to address these issues and drawing on data from archives in Peru, Great Britain, and France, as well as on primary sources available online and on an exhaustive analysis of secondary sources, this work provides a historical, sociological, and theoretical account of ecological imperialism (understood as the expropriation of the ecological wealth of one country by another) by means of examining a case study of the 19th-century guano (bird dung) trade between Peru and Britain. The lens in this study is derived from ecology in the natural sciences and historical materialism in the social sciences, drawing for their interface on Karl Marx’s concept of the metabolic rift, i.e. the loss of soil nutrients that are drained into cities where they are discarded as waste. This work gives a holistic understanding of the siphoning of Peru’s nutrients into Europe and the United States, provides firsthand archival evidence about the atrocious living conditions of the guano diggers in Peru (chiefly Chinese bonded laborers), and emphasizes environmental conditions as much as social relations vis-à-vis center-periphery dynamics. This way, this study shows how the guano trade can enhance our understanding of the ecological, social, and unequal development effects of imperialism, both historically and today; how further analyses of socioecological phenomena can be carried out; and the importance of history for comprehending current socioecological inequalities within and across nations.
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    Energy Justice and Foundations for a Sustainable Sociology of Energy
    (University of Oregon, 2012) Holleman, Hannah; Holleman, Hannah; Foster, John
    This dissertation proposes an approach to energy that transcends the focus on energy as a mere technical economic or engineering problem, is connected to sociological theory as a whole, and takes issues of equality and ecology as theoretical starting points. In doing so, the work presented here puts ecological and environmental sociological theory, and the work of environmental justice scholars, feminist ecologists, and energy scholars, in a context in which they may complement one another to broaden the theoretical basis of the current sociology of energy. This theoretical integration provides an approach to energy focused on energy justice. Understanding energy and society in the terms outlined here makes visible energy injustice, or the interface between social inequalities and ecological depredations accumulating as the social and ecological debts of the modern energy regime. Systems ecology is brought into this framework as a means for understanding unequal exchange, energy injustice more generally, and the requirements for long-term social and ecological reproduction in ecological terms. Energy developments in Ecuador and Cuba are used here as case studies in order to further develop the idea of energy justice and the theory of unequal ecological exchange. The point is to broaden the framework of the contemporary critical sociology of energy, putting energy justice at its heart. This dissertation contains previously published and unpublished co-authored material.
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    Engendering the Metabolic Rift: A Feminist Political Ecology of Agrofuels
    (University of Oregon, 2012) Dockstader, Sue; Dockstader, Sue; Foster, John
    This thesis analyzes the gendered impacts of plant-based alternatives to petroleum, commonly called biofuels. Synthesizing case studies, scientific research and policies papers, this theoretical work adopts the term “agrofuels” coined by the peasant organization La Vía Campesina to reflect the true nature of these commodities – one of dispossession and ecological destruction. This paper documents the falsity of the claim that the fuels are “sustainable” by presenting facts linking them to deforestation, loss and pollution of water sources, destruction of important biodiversity and the knowledge that maintains this diversity, as well as economic exploitation. Most importantly, I verify that the adoption of agrofuel expansion exacerbates gendered patterns of exclusion and, in most cases, worsens women’s positions within the communities targeted for feedstock production with regard to land tenure, household energy maintenance, independent income and physical integrity.
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    Radical Conservation and the Politics of Planning: A Historical Study, 1917-1945
    (University of Oregon, 2017-09-06) Jameson, Cade; Foster, John
    This thesis is a historical, sociological case-study of the movement for public control and land-use planning prior to WWII. The impetus for this movement came from a radicalized faction of the forestry profession. Radicalism in forestry centered around a group of professional foresters who were followers of Gifford Pinchot, the nation's Chief Forester from 1898-1910. Pinchot commenced the movement for public control over cutting on private forestlands in in the nineteen-teens. The emphasis in this case-study is on identifying social factors responsible for giving impetus to a movement for collective environmental planning, and the social and environmental possibilities of this subject. Three specific areas are studied: first radicalism in the forestry profession; second the vision of sustainability that emerged from radical forestry; and finally the relationship between the radical foresters and organized currents of the political Left. Findings: The understanding of the scientific conservation and land-use planning movement that has developed in scholarly literature does not provide an accurate characterization of this movement. The neglected vision of sustainability through public ownership and planning associated with radical forestry might be reconsidered in light of the present environmental problems. Despite the fact there was a radical presence in the forestry profession, norms of professional behavior are significant obstacles to radicalization, hence why Pinchotist conservation is anomalous in environmental history. Even though leading personalities in forestry took up the cause of public control, the institutional environmental movement remained aloof, giving indication that there are barriers to the development of an organized movement for environmental planning. Various radical political currents, however, demonstrated signs of receptivity to the scientific conservation movement.
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    Semisimplicity of Certain Representation Categories
    (University of Oregon, 2013-10-03) Foster, John; Berenstein, Arkady
    We exhibit a correspondence between subcategories of modules over an algebra and sub-bimodules of the dual of that algebra. We then prove that the semisimplicity of certain such categories is equivalent to the existence of a Peter-Weyl decomposition of the corresponding sub-bimodule. Finally, we use this technique to establish the semisimplicity of certain finite-dimensional representations of the quantum double $D(U_q(sl_2))$ for generic $q$.
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    Tourism and Change in Costa Rica: Pura Vida, Power and Place in a Small Beach Community
    (University of Oregon, 2019-01-11) Dominguez, David; Foster, John
    A vast majority of tourism development in Guanacaste has occurred in the northern coastal region along the Pacific coast (Honey, Vargas and Durham 2010). However, recent development is beginning to move south as developers visualize big returns on early investments. As new tourism development continues to expand in the southern region of the Nicoya Peninsula, small communities are being transformed from small fishing and farming communities to communities heavily reliant on tourism. Playa Azul, a small beach town in the southern region of the Nicoya Peninsula, is one such community. This dissertation utilizes ethnographic fieldwork to examine the impacts of tourism on the daily lives of residents of Playa Azul, particularly looking at how local residents cope with perceived changes to the norms and values of the community as tourism development continues to expand in the area. The penetration of foreign capital into the community is having a transformative effect on community relations, particularly challenging community norms and values. It is my contention that as Playa Azul continues to develop as a primary tourist destination and development continues to expand, the rifts within the community between existing community members (Azuleños, foreign Ticos and lifestyle migrants) and newly arriving “business-oriented” members will continue to grow with it. I argue this has led to subtle forms of resistance among community members as they work to maintain the pura vida “vibe” of the town and the values that support a multicultural community based on humility, acceptance and mutual respect.
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    Toward a Political-Economic Sociology of Unemployment: Renewing the Classical Reserve Army Perspective
    (University of Oregon, 2013-10-03) Jonna, R.; Foster, John
    The following study is concerned with the problems posed by contemporary unemployment--especially the U.S. but also globally to some extent. The most immediate problem is the dominance of neoclassical models, which routinely neglect the deeper issues raised by contemporary mass unemployment. To go beyond these inadequacies, the study also assesses the performance of sociological interpretations. One key finding is that sociological analyses also largely fail to provide a compelling theory of unemployment and, moreover, that most perspectives implicitly adopt problematic assumptions from neoclassical economics. This highlights the dual nature of the problems posed by unemployment: on one hand, it is an urgent social issue; and, on the other hand, it exemplifies significant weakness within most sociological paradigms. In order to address the challenges posed by unemployment, the narrative centers on the resolution of three key anomalies of unemployment: 1) persistent unemployment; 2) so-called "jobless recoveries;" and 3) the rise of worker precariousness. The anomalies are taken as evidence of paradigmatic contradictions within neoclassical economics and, to some extent, sociology. The main theoretical contribution of the study is a careful reconstruction of Marx's classical theory of the reserve army of labor (part of "The General Law of Accumulation"), which has inspired all critical sociological perspectives on labor markets to date. The investigation highlights distinctive characteristics of "political-economic sociology," a term that refers to economic sociologists who draw heavily on notions of class and power reminiscent of classical political economy and classical sociology, forming an important bridge with heterodox economic approaches. The theory of the reserve army is in need of "renewal," however, because even political-economic sociologist have failed to carry the analysis forward and build upon the firm foundation provided by Marx. The study's conclusion is that the reserve army framework has enormous potential to strengthen existing work within political-economic sociology.
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    Underdeveloping Appalachia: Toward an Environmental Sociology of Extractive Economies
    (University of Oregon, 2014-09-29) Wishart, William; Foster, John
    This dissertation uses mixed methods to examine the role of the coal industry in the reproduction of Central Appalachia as an internal periphery within the United States and the economic, ecological, and human inequalities this entails. It also analyzes the related political economy and power structure of coal in a national context. Particularly important for analysis of the region's underdevelopment are the class relations involved in unequal ecological exchange and the establishment of successive "modes of extraction." I employ a historical comparative analysis of Appalachia to evaluate Bunker's thesis that resource dependent peripheries often become locked into a "mode of extraction" (with aspects parallel to Marxist concepts of mode of production) triggering economic and ecological path dependencies leading to underdevelopment. This historical comparative analysis establishes the background for a closer examination of the political economy of the modern US coal industry. After sketching the changes in the structure of monopoly and competition in the coal industry I employ network analysis of the directorate interlocks of the top twenty coal firms in the US within the larger energy policy-planning network to examine their connections with key institutions of the policy formation network of think tanks and business groups. My findings show the importance of the capacities of fossil fuel fractions of the capitalist class in formulating energy policy around issues such as the 2009 climate legislation. As a contribution to the growing literature applying the concept of metabolism as link between contemporary and classical theory, I examine the conflict at Coal River Mountain from the vantage points of ecology, political economy, and human development in dialectical rotation. Utilizing Marx's method of successive abstractions, the mountain is presented as a nexus of metabolic rifts in the human relationship to the earth's natural systems and an impediment to genuine human development. Finally, I conclude with some implications of this analysis for building a critical environmental sociology of extractive economies. This dissertation includes previously published materials.