Livelihoods through the Lens of Telecoupling

Abstract

While the literature increasingly stresses the influence of globalisation on livelihoods, the ways livelihoods are connected to the world are often more specific than the undifferentiated influence of global processes. In this chapter, I discuss how the telecoupling framework can disentangle the complex fabric of the `global' by adopting a relational view of livelihoods as systems enmeshed in a set of relations with actors and dynamics in multiple places and at multiple scales. I review four types of connections of local livelihoods with distant systems: migration, trade, resource control, and ecosystem externalities. Through multiple examples, I discuss how the telecoupling framework helps us understand these connections. I conclude with a discussion of how this framework enables us to re-emphasise local agency in the context of globalisation.