As societies around the world are challenged to respond to ever growing environmental crises, it has become increasingly important for activists, policy makers, and environmental practitioners to understand the dynamic relationship between environmental movements and the state. In communist Eastern Europe, environmental activism fueled the rise of democratic movements and the overthrow of totalitarianism. Yet, as this study of environmentalism in Slovakia shows, concern for the environment declined during the post-communist period, an ironic victim of its own earlier success.
Through ethnographic interviews and archival materials, Edward Snajdr explains why Slovakia’s ecology movement, so strong under socialism, fell apart so rapidly despite the persistence of serious environmental problems in the region. Synthesizing theory in anthropology and political ecology, he suggests that the fate of environmentalism in Slovakia marks the beginning of a global post-ecological age, where nature is culturally maginalized in new ways.
In addition to its significance for policy makers, this book will be a valuable resource for anthropologists, sociologists, political ecologists, and scholars of East European and post-Soviet studies.
Table of Content
Foreword by K. Sivaramakrishnan
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Communist Environmentality
2. Hatchets versus the Hammer and Sickle
3. ‘Bratislava Aloud’
4. Nation over Nature
5. Argonauts of the Eastern Bloc
6. Returning to the Landscape
7. Conclusion: Slovakia in an Age of Post-Ecology
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Kalyanakrishnan ‘Shivi’ Sivaramakrishnan is Dinakar Singh Professor of India and South Asia Studies, professor of anthropology, professor of forestry and environmental studies, and codirector of the Program in Agrarian Studies, Yale University.
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