Anja Nygren

Bio: Anja Nygren is an academic researcher from University of Helsinki. The author has contributed to research in topics: Political ecology & Politics. The author has an hindex of 20, co-authored 49 publications receiving 1533 citations. Previous affiliations of Anja Nygren include Philippine Institute for Development Studies & University of Missouri.

Local knowledge in the environment-development discourse: From dichotomies to situated knowledges

Abstract: This article takes a critical look at the various approaches representing local knowledge as a scapegoat for underdevelopment or as a panacea for sustainability, these two representations characterizing the conventional environ-ment–development discourse. The static oppositions of local versus universal knowledge are challenged by establishing more diversified models to analyse the relationships of heterogeneous knowledges. The study emphasizes the complex articulation of knowledge repertoires by drawing on an ethnographic case study among migrant peasants in southeastern Nicaragua. Knowledge production is seen as a process of social negotiation involving multiple actors and complex power relations. The article underlines the issue of situated knowledges as one of the major challenges in developing anthropology as an approach that subjects fixed dichotomies between subject and object, fact and value, and the rational and the practical, to critical reconstruction.

Impacts of Fair Trade certification on coffee farmers, cooperatives, and laborers in Nicaragua

Abstract: This paper analyzes the possibilities and challenges of Fair Trade certification as a movement seeking to improve the well-being of small-scale coffee growers and coffee laborers in the global South. Six months of fieldwork was conducted in 2005–2006 to study the roles of a wide range of farmers, laborers, cooperative administrators, and export companies in Fair Trade coffee production and trade in Nicaragua. The results of our evaluation of the ability of Fair Trade to meet its objectives indicate that Fair Trade’s opportunities to provide a significant price premium for participating farmers largely depend on world coffee prices in mainstream markets. While Fair Trade has promoted premiums for social development for participating producers and strengthened the institutional capacities of the cooperatives involved, its ability to enhance significantly the working conditions of hired coffee laborers remains limited.

Political Ecology Revisited: Integration of Politics and Ecology Does Matter

Abstract: This essay aims to strengthen our comprehension of the dynamic articulation between political and ecological processes within the contexts of human–environmental interactions Utilizing the theoretical approach of political ecology, this study emphasizes the importance of recognizing the active role that nature plays in shaping human–environment relations and the need to see environmental change as the result of social action and ecological dynamics In order to do justice to the constantly shifting relationships between nature and society, political-ecological analyses require an integrated understanding of the interconnections between political struggles over environmental resources, cultural meanings attached to the environment, and the ecological dynamics of environmental change

Contested Lands and Incompatible Images: The Political Ecology of Struggles Over Resources in Nicaragua's Indio-Maíz Reserve

Abstract: This article analyzes the contested struggles over protection and production in the Nicaraguan biological reserve of Indio-Maiz as a local example of broader conflicts over wilderness preservation and local livelihoods in the developing world. The main focus is on conflicting views of different stakeholders concerning the access to and control over natural resources. Special attention is given to the local inhabitants’ struggles for everyday survival and social justice on the fringe of the restricted-use reserve. The study emphasizes that in densely populated rural areas, such as Central America, inclusionary conservation represents the politically most feasible and socially most just form of conservation possible.

Parks and Peoples: The Social Impact of Protected Areas

Abstract: This review examines the social, economic, and political effects of environmental conservation projects as they are manifested in protected areas. We pay special attention to people living in and displaced from protected areas, analyze the worldwide growth of protected areas over the past 20 years, and offer suggestions for future research trajectories in anthropology. We examine protected areas as a way of seeing, understanding, and producing nature (environment) and culture (society) and as a way of attempting to manage and control the relationship between the two. We focus on social, economic, scientific, and political changes in places where there are protected areas and in the urban centers that control these areas. We also examine violence, conflict, power relations, and governmentality as they are connected to the processes of protection. Finally, we examine discourse and its effects and argue that anthropology needs to move beyond the current examinations of language and power to attend to the ways in which protected areas produce space, place, and peoples.