![]()
PART I
Social metabolism: key theories, concepts and methods
![]()
1
AID, SOCIAL METABOLISM AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN THE NICOBAR ISLANDS
Simron Jit Singh and Willi Haas
INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ECOLOGY, VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Introduction: the complex disaster of the Nicobar Islands
Located in the Bay of Bengal, some 1,200 km from the east coast of India, the Nicobar Islands are one of the lesser-known parts of the country (Singh, 2003). This is despite the enormous publicity the archipelago received during the 2004 tsunami when thousands of indigenous Nicobarese, together with their physical artefacts, were wiped out in a matter of minutes. Aid efforts that followed, while essential and valuable in the immediate aftermath, rendered the Nicobarese more vulnerable than what they had been before and after the catastrophe.
The term ‘complex disasters’ was first introduced by Singh and colleagues based on their research on the Nicobar islands in the aftermath of the tsunami of 2004, to characterize a situation where the goals of humanitarian aid and sustainability become incompatible in terms of their system of meaning, goals, structures and approach in a post-disaster context (Singh, 2009). Thus, a ‘complex disaster’ refers to a state that has become more vulnerable than it was prior to the disaster itself, as a consequence of inappropriate human interventions leading to (a) a breakdown of institutional structures and thus a loss of reorganizing capacity, (b) failure of the society to maintain its material and energetic metabolism with its environment, and (c) creation of dependence on higher systems for continuous resource flows for its survival.
Criteria of complex disasters
(a) Breakdown of institutional structures (loss of stabilizing and reorganizing capacity): The vast literature on resilience1 has argued that socio-ecological systems in general retain varying capacities to ‘absorb disturbance and
FIGURE 1.1 Map of the Nicobar Islands off the Indian coast
Source: Ulrich Schueler
reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks’ (Walker et al., 2004). In the context of hazards and disasters, societies are able to overcome the damages brought about by the occurrence of natural hazards, either through maintaining their pre-disaster social fabric, or through accepting marginal or larger change in order to survive (Gaillard, 2006). We take it that the capacity of societies to reorganize themselves and find a new stable state are embedded in their existing institutional structures, such as formal family or political structures, and informal rules and norms that govern societal behaviour. Breakdown of institutions as a consequence of inappropriate interventions may result in the loss of these inherent attributes for restoration and reorganization into a new stable state, thereby increasing the level of distress and vulnerability than what had been just after a disaster. In this sense, the loss is not in physical terms, but in the capacities of society to reorganize itself.
(b) Failure of the society to maintain its metabolism/changes in society–nature interactions: This variable relates to the failure of the society to maintain its metabolism in the way it once did. For example, in the way a society organizes (via their formal and informal institutions) material and energy exchanges with its natural environment necessary for the maintenance and reproduction of a society. This includes the extraction and use of primary resources for food, machines, buildings, infrastructure, heating and many other products, and their return, with more or less delay, in the form of wastes and emissions to their environments. Any society’s existence would be impossible without these biophysical exchanges with nature. The quantity and structure of matter and energy a society draws from its environment largely depends on their mode of subsistence and lifestyle, which in turn is related to technology.
(c) Increasing dependency on higher systems: In recent decades, large parts of the agrarian ‘developing world’ have become increasingly integrated within a global division of labour and the world market. Under the rubric of development, nation-states have devised programmes to expedite this process by introducing a variety of services (education, medical, legal), transport infrastructure, subsidies and fossil-fuel-based technologies in agriculture. While they indeed improve the quality of life to some extent (access to clean water, health care, legal rights, etc.), these interventions require heavy inputs of resources from the outside to sustain them. In other words, these economies–still largely unchanged and quintessentially retaining an agrarian mode of production–are not able to generate an income to pay for the quality of life based on increased resource flows or subsidies from outside. Over time, these societies become dependent on constant supplies, subsidies and services to meet their needs, the failure of which may lead to setbacks and impoverishment. Humanitarian aid, if inappropriately organized, may guide the system into a similar system of dependency and vulnerability.
Years after the traumatic tsunami of 2004, it is time to evaluate the aftermath in relation to what is termed as the worlds’ largest fund-raising exercise. Well-intentioned efforts were exhibited not only by the aid sector, but also governments, corporations, academic institutions and hundreds of thousands of individuals involved themselves in some way or other to bring relief and rehabilitation to the victims. In this chapter, we explore the impacts of humanitarian aid on the Nicobarese society through a lens of social metabolism, which views sustainability is a problem of the interaction between society and nature (Haberl et al., 2004). The precise nature of this interaction is biophysical: it is the continuous throughput of materials and energy on which each socio-economic system depends and which constitutes its relation to the natural environment. We then outline some of the challenges the islands now face with respect to social and ecological sustainability.
Social metabolism and accounting tools
The application of the biological concept of metabolism (‘Stoffwechsel’) to social systems can be traced back to Marx who, influenced by Liebig and Moleschott, talked about the ‘metabolism between man and nature as mediated by the labour process’. Such a biophysical approach to the economy was not unusual at the turn of the nineteenth century but arguably did not form an integrated school of thought until recently (Martinez Alier and Schlupmann, 1987). This biological analogy grew from the observation that biological systems (organisms, but also higher-level systems such as ecosystems) and socio-economic systems (human societies, economies, companies, households, etc.) decisively depend on a continuous throughput of energy and materials in order to maintain their internal structure (Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl, 1993).
Today, a number of standardized methods exist for accounting for energy flow, material flow and land use aspects, provides the basis for empirical analyses of the biophysical structure of economies and for developing strategies towards more sustainable production and consumption patterns. These methods include material and energy flow analysis (MEFA), life cycle analysis (LCA), life cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), and also input-output analysis (IOA) (Weisz, 2006). Other instruments in the social metabolic toolkit include HANPP, EROI and Virtual Water, as well as related concepts such as ecological footprinting, and ecological rucksacks.
The geography, history and culture of the Nicobar Islands
The Nicobar archipelago is rich in biodiversity. It consists of 24 islands spread over an area of 1,841 km2 are protected tropical forests and the remaining are mangroves, undulating grasslands, coconut plantations and settlements. Relatively flat, the highest point is Mt. Thullier on Great Nicobar with an elevation of 642 metres. These islands are not only home to a rich tropical biodiversity with several endemic terrestrial and marine species but 12 of the islands are inhabited by an indigenous community, commonly referred to as the Nicobarese. Mongoloid in origin and having migrated from the Malay–Burma coast over 2,000 years ago, the Nicobarese have remained relatively isolated for a long time. However, owing to their geographical location on an important sea route, these islands were often visited by passing vessels with the aim to replenish food and water supplies in the long and arduous sea voyages of colonial times. Consequently, a small amount of barter trade took place where the Nicobarese exchanged food and coconuts for cloth and iron, and later rice, tobacco, and other consumables from time to time. The British colonized the islands in 1 869 and for the first time regulated trade and set up an administrative system under a colonial state. In 1947, the islands became part of independent India, and since 1956, the islands have been protected and access regulated under the legislation Andaman and Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation (ANPATR).
With a largely subsistence way of life, the (pre-tsunami) Nicobarese lived off hunting, gathering, fishing, coconut production and pig and chicken rearing, with some maintaining horticultural gardens to grow fruits, vegetables and a variety of roots and tubers. Their link to the market was via the production and sale of copra (dried coconut flesh used in the extraction of coconut oil) in exchange for rice, sugar, cloth, fossil fuels, toiletries and other consumables. Thus, coconuts comprise an important source of livelihood, both on a subsistence level (a third of their coconut production is fed to pigs) and as an exchange item in the market in the form of copra.
Living in villages along the coast, their population numbered 26,565 (2001 census). As with most indigenous cultures across the world, the various segments of the socio-ecological system of the Nicobars are inextricably linked with each other. In other words, the socio-cultural and economic arrangements of the Nicobarese play an important role in maintaining and regulating the use of resources and in determining the local definition of affluence.
Affluence and environmental impact
Affluence relates to the average consumption of each person in the population. A common proxy for measuring consumption is through GDP per capita. While GDP per capita measures production, it is often assumed that consumption increases when production increases. GDP per capita has been growing steadily over the last few centuries and according to the formula I = PAT, called the impact equation, is driving up human impacts on the environment. The equation I = PAT was proposed and developed by Ehrlich, Holdren and Commoner in the early 1970s (Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971; Commoner, 1972). It recognizes that the impact of a human population on the environment can be thought of as the product of the population’s size (P), its affluence (A), and the environmental damage inflicted by the technologies used to supply each unit of consumption (T). Sometimes, because of the difficulty in estimating A and T, per capita energy use is employed as a surrogate for their product. Some equate T with impact per unit of economic activity (Dietz and Rosa, 1994), and for others T is a rather fuzzy category covering all sources of variation apart from population and affluence (Fischer-Kowalski and Amann, 2001).
Alternatives to I = PAT
While the I = PAT equation quickly became established as the norm and has been used and cited by many organizations and individual people ever since, recently, various alternative formulations of the equation have been proposed.
Dietz and Rosa (1994) gave a stochastic (probabilistic) reformulation of the impact equation (STIRPAT–Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology) which they claimed facilitates the application of social research statistical tools to studies on I = PAT.
Schulze (2002) proposed modifying the formula to I = PBAT, which calls attention ‘to the many behavioural choices that are immediately available to all individuals’. Schulz points out that affluence and technology do not dictate behavioural decisions. He gives the example of a person who is wealthy and only uses the most efficient devices, and whose environmental impact will still depend on whether or not the person is a profligate consumer.
Willey (2000) noted that consumption is influenced by lifestyle and organization. Improved organization in rich countries could lead to a reduced per capita consumption, but in poor countries, better organization might lead to a huge increase in consumption. So he proposed changing the impact equation to I = PLOT (population, lifestyle, organization, technology).
Another tool that has been used to observe the impact of affluence on the environment is the Environmental Ku...
