Political ecology emerged half a century ago and was introduced in German speaking countries twenty years later. The article evaluates perspectives (views, arguments, positions) of the first generation of research and compares them with second generation research. It is argued that old and new approaches are to be blamed for their ambivalence towards policy. With a focus on emancipatory perspectives, a repositioning is suggested on radical geography roots.

Current efforts to formalize the Anthropocene as a new geologic epoch provoke deliberations concerning the re/unification of human and physical geography. The end of traditional (dualist) human-environmental thinking is noted, a vital pluralism of alternative approaches including gaia-politics welcomed, and, following Bruno Latour and others, the hegemony of a geoscientists’ (geocratic) narrative rejected for reasons provided by political ecology.