Politische Ökologie und Politics of Scale – Vermittlungszusammenhänge zwischen Raum, Natur und Gesellschaft

Abstract. Political ecology approaches examine how the relation between society and nature has historically and geographically evolved through material and discursive practices. This grounds a perspective which explore the social production of nature as a physical foundation of society. This article develops a conceptual framework to integrate the dimension of scale into political ecology. This allows political ecology approaches to understand social processes and the transformation of nature in the context of the production of scale. Against the background of palm oil production in Indonesia this article argues that combing political ecology and scale enhances our understanding of the way in which access to and control over natural resources change over time.