Political Ecology of Media and Representations of Human-Environment Conflict: Avatar

By Sothun Nop

Introduction

Media plays an important role in substantiating reality in societies because media, especially movies, are designed based on contexts, ideologies, cultures, technologies and issues of those who make them. Avatar, which was produced by James Cameron in 2011, is a contemporary movie reflecting human-environment conflict around the issue of natural resource management. This essay argues that while natural resource consumption may bring societies development through achieving goals of economic growth and advanced technologies, over extraction of natural resources without concerning benefits and cultures of related creatures could result in serious disagreements and environmental catastrophes. This paper will first examine how characters in Avatar represent different parties around global development nexus. Then, the politics of resources management and development will be analyzed. This article will end by discussing the potential consequences of human-environment conflicts around issues of natural resources extraction.

Politics of characterization
Avatar has manifested a battle of the Omaticaya people and the Sky people around the issue of natural resource management. The Omaticaya people is a group of blue monkey who traditionally live in forest and consider those natural resources as their lives. The Sky people is a group of soldiers and scientists who try to encroach Omaticaya people’s territory in order to extract natural resources and develop that place through removing local people and eliminating their culture by replacing new ideologies and technologies. From this aspect, the author aims to reflect a fact of global community in relation to modern development and human-environment conflict. This could be revealed that Omaticaya people represent grassroots communities, indigenous groups or minority people who are still holding traditional believes, hunting, farming, and depending very much on natural resources for daily lives. Whereas, the Sky people symbolize the potential developers, institutions, or colonizers who desire to take control over land or natural resources for development based on neoliberal perspectives. Beside this, there is a team of biologist who work with both Sky and Omaticaya people finding appropriate solutions to avoid conflict between the two groups. In fact, the group of biologist represents civil society organizations, researchers or other non- profit agencies exploring the best alternatives to reduce conflicts around issues of resources management and modern development.

Politics of resources management and development
As having shown in Avatar, the Sky people have tried all the possible ways to remove Omaticaya people from their land and take control over natural resources because they believe that development goals can be achieved through removing local people or imposing new ideologies and modern technologies to transform conventional societies. This can be reflected to contemporary development process, which neoliberal concepts have been introduced around natural resource management and consumption in order to promote high-mass consumption societies (Rostow, 1960). Based on Virtualism perspective that values economic growth, nature and environment should be transformed into capital or commodities for trading, so that it will generate more profits for society development (Miller & Carrier, 1998; West & Brockington, 2006). West and Brockington (2006, p. 609) urged that many protected areas around the world have been converted into abstract models supported by economic policies, which ignore a complexity of people’s daily social activities, practice and lives. Neumann (1995, p. 150), for example, claimed that under the process of development and conservation introduced by European colonizers particularly the British, the societies and nature in Africa have been recast through imposing new policies, systems, politics and ideologies. As a result, African culture, nature, productions and consumptions have been removed, reoriented and reorganized because most development and conservation projects in Africa were designed based on the needs and desires of the colonizers rather than supporting local people to improve living standard and maintain their culture (Neumann, 1995, p. 153&164). The evidence seems to suggest that society transformation based on neoliberal ideologies and natural resource management based on virtualism concepts may not assist local communities to preserve their culture or improve their livelihoods activities because those processes focus more on modernization rather than social and environmental impacts.

Another critical point indicated in Avatar is the problems in the promise of development. To achieve their goals, the Sky people have promised to provide the best education, health care, roads and food to the group of Omaticaya, if they would agree to move from their territory and allow the Sky people to develop that area. This clearly represents a game of development politics that many investors and colonizers have played with local people or indigenous communities. In the case of Africa, for instance, Neumann (1995, p. 164) stated that control over nature means control over people. This colonization that follows capitalism ideologies may result in many problems and inequality since most decision making processes aim to achieve modernizing missions and improve economy rather than concerning nature conservation, accepting culture differences and protecting people’s benefits (McMichael, 2008; Neumann, 1995, p. 164). Also, neoliberal conservation and development, which accelerate land use change and economic multipliers tend to ignore social welfare because capitalism promotes free market and resources privatization that limit capacity of the poor communities from accessing public services. (McMichael, 2008; Miller & Carrier, 1998; Neumann, 1995; West & Brockington, 2006). The argument tends to reveal that neoliberal conservation and development process is unlikely to contribute to natural resource preservation or to address basic needs of local communities because those mechanisms aim to achieve modern development goals rather than eradicating poverty or promoting social justice.

Potential consequences of human-environment conflict
Avatar has shown a mass killing event during large-scale armed conflict between the Sky people and the Omticaya group when the Sky people were trying to invade Omaticaya people’s territory with disregard their culture, values and rights. This is a representation of severe clash in current societies when rights of grassroots communities are violated. West and Brockington (2006, pp. 613-614) argued that natural resource management and conservation based on virtualism can be a fuel for social conflict because the process creates displacement and tension when benefit of local communities are not considered. For instance, Keith (2008, p. 211) emphasized that natural resources management and biodiversity conservation of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR) in the Garhwal Himalayas of India lead to serious conflict between local people and the global conservation efforts because traditional economic, culture and subsistence opportunities of local communities has been threatened. While local communities seek to protect biodiversity through livelihoods, the policies that follow virtualism or the Western perception aim to limit those activities. West and Brockington (2006, p. 613) stated that top-down approach that fail to appreciate and work closely with local communities can also lead to conflict because local people are excluded from decision making process. Camaroon (2011) suggest that if you want to share the world with people, you need to understand them otherwise they will fight for survival. This seems to prove that understanding local people’s culture, working with them and maintaining their traditional economic activities are the key tool to promote effectiveness of natural resource management, inclusive development and minimize human environment conflict.

Last but not least, the serious argument around natural resource management and development in Avatar is a clear representation of human-environment conflict leading to environmental degradation. Nightingale (2003, p. 525) claimed that human–environment disputes which resulted from shifting, dialectical relationships between social and power relations, cultural beliefs and practices, and ecological processes have created social and environmental change in Nepal. This changes has associated with uneven development that generate gain of economic growth at the expense of environmental and social factors. Onwuka (2005, p. 655), for example, urged that the extraction of oil and gas in Nigeria has resulted in severe environmental problems such as damaging the fertility of the soil, destroying wildlife and breeding ground for marine fishes due to the toxicity of oil and gas. Consequently, livelihoods activities and culture of local communities including indigenous groups have been threatened because their income sources have been destroyed through unsustainable natural resource extraction process. Downey, Bonds, and Clark (2010, p. 417) also indicated that under the picture of development, large scale of resources extraction practiced by industrial societies has fostered environmental degradation and ecological imbalance due to poor enforcement of environmental protection policies. This seems to reveal that human-environment conflict around the issues of natural resource management not only bring about detrimental affects on economic and culture of local communities, but also lead to environmental catastrophes and ecosystem imbalance that can become a new challenge for contemporary world.

Conclusion
In conclusion, Avatar is one of the movies reflecting the reality of current world issues in regards with natural resource management and development. Avatar not only provides a lot of information for reconsideration, but also gives an alert for investors or governments, who involve in natural resource extraction without understanding and concerning benefits and culture of local communities. Although resource extraction can push societies to be more advanced, but utilizing resources without recognizing the violation on other creature’s lives may lead to many devastations in both social and environment aspects. In order to achieve a long-term goal of sustainable development, the three important elements including social, environmental and economic factors need to be balanced. In the mean time, collaboration between all relevant stakeholders especially local communities need to be enhanced because this can be an effective tool to provide spaces for grassroots communities to participate in decisions making process that may impact their lives. Also, accepting culture differences can also be a key tool to create a peaceful world because providing respect to people means giving them freedom and options. Therefore, the issues of inequality and injustice can be eradicated when the rights and dignities of grassroots and indigenous communities are regarded.

 

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