Acceso usuarios
Ismael de la Villa Hervás, Javier Llanos de la Guardia
Durante las últimas décadas el debate académico e intelectual en términos de Antropoceno, Capitaloceno, Plantacionoceno y Cthuluceno ha experimentado un desarrollo y un alcance mayúsculo. Este se ha convertido en crucial de cara afrontar desde posiciones teóricas las policrisis sistémicas más allá de los enfoques convencionales de la Economía Política, las Ciencias Políticas, la Sociología, las Relaciones internacionales y la Antropología. Esta conversación desde distintos prismas ha provisto de marcos teóricos de gran fortaleza epistemológica, pero a la vez adaptables contextualmente, para afrontar de manera crítica los retos emergentes en este plano. No obstante, han sido escasos los desarrollos y propuestas metodológicas concretos que se han formulado a partir de estos de cara a su implementación para estudios de caso particulares. Es justo aquí donde este trabajo busca contribuir con dos objetivos principales. Por un lado, elaborar una metodología cuantitativa que sea útil para analizar las transformaciones en la movilidad y las jerarquías globales desde el prisma de la ecología-mundo capitalista como estructura histórico-espacial que sintetiza de manera trialéctica la acumulación capitalista, la producción de la naturaleza humana y extrahumana y las relaciones de poder. Por otro lado, aplicar esta técnica al periodo que abarca las últimas décadas para analizar cómo se ha expresado en este contexto la grieta metabólica y el imperialismo ecológico en la jerarquía de los Estados. Para poder alcanzarlos este artículo se divide en tres apartados. En la primera abordamos una revisión teórica de los puntos de encuentro y disenso de la economía ecológica y los sistemas-mundo. En el segundo apartado teórico-metodológico llevamos a cabo la misma revisión pero desde el punto de vista de sus desarrollo metodológicos, así como debatimos y detallamos nuestra propuesta de análisis cuantitativo que parte de la base teórica de la ecología-mundo. Y, finalmente, en el tercer apartado vemos los resultados obtenidos sobre una muestra de 110 Estados para los periodos de 1995 y 2020 y los discutimos. Pese a las limitaciones que se explicitan y la necesidad de ahondar en esta línea de trabajo, podemos apreciar cómo esta herramienta se muestra como un potencial complemento para el análisis cualitativo e historiográfico dentro de la historia ambiental.
The broad contemporary academic and intellectual debate on the axes that define the Anthropocene/Capitalocene/Plantationocene/Cthulucene era, its future prospects, and other ontological elements has undergone significant development in recent years. Thanks to this debate, epistemological tools and new frameworks have been generated to understand both current socio-ecological conditions and realities and those that preceded them from much earlier historical periods. This trend has made it possible to broaden the more orthodox horizons of political economics, political science, international relations, so-ciology, and anthropology to address systemic polycrises. However, the limits around which this conver-sation has centered have been fundamentally theoretical, with the aim of consolidating the knowledge bases on which these often antagonistic but also complementary perspectives are built, depending on the elements in question. In contrast, methodological proposals within this line of thinking have been much more limited. It partially makes sense as these heterodoxal and critical perspectives normally do not focus on that and they aim to build up alternative empirical methodologies. However, the lack of depth on this issue and the scarcity of specific tools for a less abstract analysis also partially limit the po-tential of the results of this conversation when it comes to applying them to particular case studies. It is at this point that this work aims to make its contribution but not only. Based primarily on the theoretical framework of the Capitalocene, this article has two main goals. The first one is to develop a methodolog-ical proposal for evaluating the hierarchy and hegemony of states within the capitalist world-ecology. Second, by using this technique, to analyze precisely what the process of mobility within this structure has been over the last few decades, taking into account its relevance given the increase in the contra-dictions of the metabolic rift on a global scale. To achieve these aims, the paper is divided as follows. The first theoretical-methodological part addresses the different streams and contributions within world-systems theory and ecological economics from their beginnings. Although the latter is more gen-eral than the former and covers many more aspects, the reality is that both have found multiple points of convergence throughout their history from an epistemological point of view: the element of contradiction between material flows and monetary flows, unequal exchange as a form of domination that enables ecological imperialism, the permanent search for new cheap natural resources to expand those already present and so on. However, they do not necessarily coincide in their historical view of accumulation cycles and their origin, the more normative definition of the center-periphery structure and how its de-velopment is, the root and role that socio-environmental conflicts can play, etc. Nevertheless, the view of world-ecology as a synthesis of capitalist accumulation, human and extra-human nature production and a set of power relations offers a good theoretical starting point based on many of the contributions of these streams of thought. However, once the differences between the two have been discussed and differentiated, we attempt to highlight the different methodologies that have been proposed and devel-oped by each of them. First, this presentation is made from the perspective of ecological economics. Within this field we highlight three main trends: material flow analysis, unequal ecological exchange and energy dependence. In each of these, we can distinguish both the variables that carry the most weight when being selected and the possible limitations that may be encountered depending on the inferences made. Secondly, we delve into the specific techniques of world-systems school. In this case, we can also find up to three main methods. First, there is the approximation of the per capita income distribution curve against the accumulated population as one of the most basic but useful methods. The second one would be the technique of network analysis and clustering based on multiple independent variables and relationships between states. In both cases they depart from Arrighi’s perspective including only those variables related with international division of labor, capitalist accumulation and uneven exchange, but not those political ones. Finally, we can distinguish the continuum method to produce an ordered hierar-chy of states based on multiple variables that are linked not only to the international division of labor but also to coercive capacity and levels of integration into the global structure. In contrast with the second one here it is not possible to obtain a clear clustering outcome. Assessing all the options available when formulating the methodological proposal, we find the following limitations. On the part of ecological economics, as with the distribution of per capita income versus the accumulated population in the first world-systems proposal, many of them end up reducing their results to inferences based on limited variables to represent the model they propose. Meanwhile, if we take a look at the case of network analysis and clustering by world systems, here we find an obvious limitation in the availability of data regarding information on state to state relations, and we may also find variables that need to be independent and in many cases are not, as in the case of ecological economics versus economics. From here, we opted to implement a model based on the continuum proposal. This allows us to incorporate variables of economic power as previously in former papers (capital intensity, productive capacity, exports, control over global capital), but also to incorporate those socio-ecological variables that we select as an inference from world-ecology perspective (material productivity, material footprint, labor productivity, energy use, dependence on extractivism), and global dependence in the same way (concentration of exports and global financial dependence) with a relative large sample (110 States) and taking the years 1995 and 2020 as a reference for the analysis. With this technique, we can test that the inclusion of socio-ecological variables partially overrepresents the mobility of some states in relation to the results obtained from them in previous studies from the perspective of international relations and political economy. However, although this proposal is still in its early stages, it shows the potential to complement studies and work from the qualitative perspective from the Anthropocene, the Capitalocene and the world-systems gaze by means of incorporating the axis of unequal ecological exchange and the metabolic rift.
