TY - JOUR

T1 - Land-use change in a telecoupled world

T2 - the relevance and applicability of the telecoupling framework in the case of banana plantation expansion in Laos

AU - Friis, Cecilie

AU - Nielsen, Jonas Østergaard

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Land-use change is increasingly influenced by complex socioeconomic and environmental interactions that transcend spatial, institutional, and temporal scales. These interactions challenge classical place-based land system analysis and require new analytical approaches equipped for tackling processes, flows, and feedbacks over distance. The recently proposed telecoupling framework offers interesting perspectives for bringing place-based and process-oriented research together in the study of land-use change. However, few studies have explored the influence and implications of telecouplings in local land-use changes. One reason for this is that the framework still faces challenges for application in empirical research. Here, we offer a qualitative operationalization of the telecoupling framework to explore its relevance and applicability in a case of local land-use change. Investigating the case of a recent boom in commercial banana cultivation in Luang Namtha Province, Lao PDR, we use a grounded empirical approach starting with the observed land-use change at the village level. We then trace flows and distal processes influencing the conversion to banana cultivation from the perspectives and experiences of the local actors involved. The results identify four prominent material and immaterial telecouplings at various spatial and temporal scales, as well as some potential feedbacks. This complexity points to the need for interdisciplinary research because the processes involved in creating telecoupled land-use change transcend the boundaries of any one discipline. Overall, however, telecoupling presents a strong heuristic lens for examining and describing distal causal relations in land-use change in a manner that does not favor a specific analytical scale or type of interaction.

AB - Land-use change is increasingly influenced by complex socioeconomic and environmental interactions that transcend spatial, institutional, and temporal scales. These interactions challenge classical place-based land system analysis and require new analytical approaches equipped for tackling processes, flows, and feedbacks over distance. The recently proposed telecoupling framework offers interesting perspectives for bringing place-based and process-oriented research together in the study of land-use change. However, few studies have explored the influence and implications of telecouplings in local land-use changes. One reason for this is that the framework still faces challenges for application in empirical research. Here, we offer a qualitative operationalization of the telecoupling framework to explore its relevance and applicability in a case of local land-use change. Investigating the case of a recent boom in commercial banana cultivation in Luang Namtha Province, Lao PDR, we use a grounded empirical approach starting with the observed land-use change at the village level. We then trace flows and distal processes influencing the conversion to banana cultivation from the perspectives and experiences of the local actors involved. The results identify four prominent material and immaterial telecouplings at various spatial and temporal scales, as well as some potential feedbacks. This complexity points to the need for interdisciplinary research because the processes involved in creating telecoupled land-use change transcend the boundaries of any one discipline. Overall, however, telecoupling presents a strong heuristic lens for examining and describing distal causal relations in land-use change in a manner that does not favor a specific analytical scale or type of interaction.

KW - case-study research

KW - Chinese investments

KW - distal flows

KW - feedbacks

KW - land systems

KW - land-use change

KW - Laos

KW - qualitative research

KW - telecoupling

KW - GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORKS

KW - POLITICAL ECOLOGY

KW - CLIMATE-CHANGE

KW - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

KW - SYSTEM SCIENCE

KW - CHALLENGES

KW - GLOBALIZATION

KW - TELECONNECTIONS

KW - VULNERABILITY

KW - LIVELIHOODS

U2 - 10.5751/ES-09480-220430

DO - 10.5751/ES-09480-220430

M3 - Journal article

VL - 22

JO - Ecology and Society

JF - Ecology and Society

SN - 1708-3087

IS - 4

M1 - 30

ER -