Abstract

Drawing upon critical social theory and fine-grained empirical observations, political ecologists have long argued against hegemonic stories of the environment, development and capitalism. This commitment is held across the wide range of approaches in political ecology. In a world haunted by increasing social inequalities and ecological degradations, there are strong reasons to pursue this critical agenda. In this article however, I coin the concept of "narrative predictability" to offer a critical analysis of a narrative tendency in political ecology towards a plot featuring the State and/or the Corporation as villains, the environment and indigenous peoples as victims, and activists as heroes. My engagement is not a reactionary attack, but rather an application of political ecology's main tool – empirical scrutiny – on itself. Empirically, the article draws upon recent fieldwork among indigenous Shuar people engaged in gold mining in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Theoretically, the article problematizes romanticism and essentialism within resistance studies. A key observation is that there seems to be a neglect of empirical complexity challenging the recurrent plot. What are the implications of avoiding discomforting observations when producing narratives aimed at progressive change? This article argues that political ecology needs to counter its own narrative predictability by strengthening its attentiveness to the heterogeneity and ambiguities of marginalized people in a world of capitalist ruins.

Keywords: political ecology, narratives, mining, resistance, Ecuador, indigenous Shuar, Amazon

How to Cite:

Vangsnes, G., (2025) “The narrative predictability of political ecology: Ethnographic refusals from the Ecuadorian Amazon”, Journal of Political Ecology 32(1): 5757. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5757