Analyzing Environmental Conflicts

Known as the 'Blue Revolution', the global expansion of aquaculture has raised a number of important questions regarding the impact of economic development on both environment and society. To understand the debates surrounding the impact of aquaculture expansion, a case study of environmental conflict in the Gulf of Fonseca, southern Honduras is utilized. Covering the period between 1973 and 2006, the case study draws on an extensive literature review, over 100 open-ended and semi-structured interviews, newspaper archival research, and a collection of relevant documents from the actors involved in the conflict.The research employed a poststructuralist political ecology framework, combining two approaches in the analysis of environmental conflict: actor-network approaches and discourse analysis. The combination of these approaches, in the context of event history and events ecology, assisted with unraveling the complex relationship between society, environment, and development in conflict scenarios. I conclude that environmental conflict is both a struggle related to access and control over a physical geographic space, and a struggle over the control of discursive space - the realm where knowledge about the environment is socially produced. In this regard, I argue that natural resource managers need to move beyond purely biophysical explanations of environmental change to incorporate social scientific methods in order to analyze the role of knowledge, power, and politics in environmental conflict.