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  • Science, Society and Power: Environmental Knowledge and Policy in West Africa and the Caribbean
  • William Moseley and Jermé Erika
James Fairhead and Melissa Leach . Science, Society and Power: Environmental Knowledge and Policy in West Africa and the Caribbean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xi + 272 pp. Photographs. Tables. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $70.00. Cloth.

Environmental anthropologists, geographers, and historians are by now familiar with the work of James Fairhead and Melissa Leach and their focus on environmental narratives or orthodoxies. In fact, their groundbreaking work in Guinea (1996) established environmental narratives as a core theme of the interdisciplinary subfield of political ecology. Their latest collaboration seeks to locate the powerful scientific and political interactions that shape environmental knowledge and narratives in the context of a globalized "vortex" of environmental interests. In many ways, the book is an ethnography of the global environment-development business. The authors follow a logical pattern, beginning by outlining the need to study the interplay between science and society in the developing world, as well as the value of taking a comparative ethnographic approach. By next establishing the relevance of tropical forest biodiversity concerns to this topic, the authors arrive at an issue central to their research: In our globalizing society, how are local experiences drawn into the concatenation of transnational corporations, multilateral donors, and international NGOs (all with a stake in policy and research)?

Using Guinea and Trinidad as case studies, Fairhead and Leach begin their exploration of this complex topic. They raise a number of interesting points. They show, for example, how international biodiversity concerns tend to dominate local research agendas, leading to (among other issues) an obsession with counting species and a privileging of "wild" over more managed landscapes, regardless of the actual diversity in each area. This has led to the championing of hunter knowledge over farmer's knowledge, and a tendency to conflate agrobiodiversity with wild plant diversity.

The work flows smoothly, with each succeeding section building upon the preceding sections and with chapter conclusions refocusing the information conveyed toward the authors' goal. This organization breaks down slightly, however, in the inconsistency of the order in which each country is discussed. The authors are careful to establish a base of literature upon which their research builds, highlighting their contributions to fields dealing with both environmental social sciences and with methodology. Noticeably absent from the literature cited, however, are references to political ecology standards such as Blaikie and Brookfield (1987).

In spite of these shortcomings, Fairhead and Leach are clearly experienced researchers who are able to portray the inner workings of Trinidadian environmental policy with as much depth as they portray the Guinean situation, a context in which they have a decade more experience. In particular, [End Page 187] their chapter on media and education serves to reemphasize the ways in which environmental knowledges are reproduced. Similarly, several denominative gems appear throughout the book, such as "international environmental conformity" (11), a reference to the homogenizing influence of the global environmental movement. The academic tone of the book is challenging yet still accessible to a range of students in a variety of fields.

Yet, despite the excellence of their research, the authors' conclusions fall short of those promised in the introductory chapter. For example, throughout the book the choice of Guinea and Trinidad as case studies seems relatively arbitrary, as insights gained from one location are not necessarily tied into analysis of the other. Furthermore, coming to the end of the volume, the reader is left wishing for policy suggestions to create a strong counternarrative to the dominant environmental knowledges filtered through tropical societies. Fairhead and Leach have once again produced a notable work, yet it leaves something to be desired.

William Moseley and Jermé Erika
Macalester College
Saint Paul, Minnesota
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