Good Economies of Carbon Offsetting: The cyclical dynamics of valuation and critique in voluntary carbon markets

Voluntary carbon markets are based on the idea that the carbon credits sold in markets are both the same, or climatically equivalent to one another, and different, reflecting how, when, where, and by whom they have been produced. This article examines how market actors deal with this tension and value units that are both commensurate and differentiated. Based on existing literature, interviews, and document analysis, I identify and present three instantiations of a good economy of carbon offsetting from the 2000s onwards. Each phase shows how valuation processes iterate between commensuration and differentiation. This is achieved through the development of elaborate sets of complementary valuation practices and tools, such as methodologies for valuing co-benefits, impact scores and overcompensation factors for securing climate impacts, and carbon removal crediting methodologies. While critique is central to driving the move from one good economy to another, this article also shows how the valuation practices of voluntary carbon markets appear locked into repetitive cycles of critique and reform, with recurrent disputes emerging over what to weigh and value and how. This poses new questions concerning how to critique such markets and their valuation practices

Bio-Efficiency: On the valorisation of innovation in the bioeconomy

This article discusses a concept that institutions from the OECD to the EU increasingly employ in their response to the ecological crisis: The bioeconomy, wherein materials for economic activity would be bio-based and renewable. As a present-day project, the bioeconomy translates the critique of (fossil) carbon into patterns of (material) resource use and (economic) resource allocation, not least through a new valorisation of innovation in the form of public– private partnerships. Yet where literature on the bioeconomy scrutinizes innovation, the concrete link between funders and funded has seldom been subject to focused analytical inquiry. This link is essential to the structure of the bioeconomy project. To broach the arrangements by which efforts to conjure a (bio-)economy underwrite specific patterns of value distribution, this article asks: Which discursive and conceptual resources are deployed to define the worth by which projects are construed as worthy of funding? Drawing on online ethnographic observation at funding events as well as on document analysis, we show how these arrangements are structured by a valorisation of efficiency. We propose to call this bio-efficiency, and relate it to a construal of the world as scarce

Om viljan att veta (eller inte) : – en essä om fattigdom, moderskap och motstånd

Under flera års tid besökte jag regelbundet de platser som de mest utsatta människorna i det svenska samhället förpassas till när de inte lyckas ta sig in på en alltmer svåråtkomlig, segmenterad och segregerad bostadsmarknad. Det var campingplatser, härbärgen, vandrarhem, hotell, mögliga villor med en familj i varje rum, inneboende i slitna lägenheter i miljonprogramsområden som hyrs ut svart till ockerhyror. I industriområden, gamla serviceboenden, ombyggda kontorslokaler och baracker lever människor under förhållanden som de flesta etablerade svenskar inte ens kan föreställa sig. Människor med svår missbruksproblematik, psykiska sjukdomar, föräldrar, ofta ensamstående mammor, och barn delar ibland samma korridorer, kök och badrum

Litteraturtips

Skönlitteraturen kompletterar ofta vetenskap och forskning med sitt ”innifrån” berättande. Redaktionen för detta specialnummer tipsar om ett urval skönlitterära verk mm, poesi, filmer och musik som komplement till de vetenskapliga texterna på tema fattigdom

Making Good Economies with Bad Economic Instruments: A brief history of wind power’s changing economies

This article examines how notions of the good are entangled with instruments of valuation in the case of wind power in Denmark. Analytically, we develop what we tentatively call a comparative actantial approach to the study of policy instruments. Empirically, we inspect three support schemes introduced between 1979 and 1999 by the Danish state to foster the development of wind power. The comparative inspection shows wind power's notable shifts in what we call its actantial status: the same character appears as a very different kind of agent in the very different good economies for wind power portrayed by the instruments. The article contributes to two different but related literatures: it contributes to recent intersection between science and technology studies and economic geography inspecting the variable ontologies of energy resources, and it contributes to the discussion in this theme issue about instruments of valuation and the good economy

Individual determinants of extended working lives: A systematic review of the literature

The extension of working lives (EWL) appears as a long-term transforma­tion driven by the increase in longevity and the expansion of institutional incentives to postpone retirement. However, the increase in average re­tirement ages is being less intense and more heterogeneous than prom­ised by pension reforms. The mismatch between structural and individual changes reinforces the interest of a precise knowledge of the influence of individual determinants on EWL. Based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses methodology (Page et al. 2021), this article provides a systematic review of literature with the objective of conceptualizing variants of EWL and systematizing empirical evidence of the influence of individual determinants on EWL. This review can be of benefit both for detecting the areas on which future research should focus and for guiding the discussions on potential pension system reforms while considering the heterogeneity of individuals’ profiles

The possibility of mutual recognition: What we can learn from the tragedy of Achilles

I first began seriously thinking about the term “mutual recognition” after reading bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress when I was a doctoral student in 2007. Since then, it has been central to my pedagogical practice at the City University of New York where I teach beginning and pre-service teachers as well as doctoral candidates. The writings of hooks, alongside those of Paulo Freire and Lisa Delpit, and with a tradition that extends back as far as Socrates, embrace dialogical engagement to guide students to know themselves and each other. With that awareness, as Freire writes, they have the potential to “intervene in their reality” and “emerge from submersion.” Mutual recognition also, vitally, requires teachers, who are in a position of official power in the classroom, and who often come from radically different backgrounds and life experiences than their students, to purge themselves of their beliefs and biases, at least temporarily, so that they can guide their students and themselves in this process of acknowledgment and empathy. This is very difficult to do well. Though much has been written about mutual recognition within educational scholarship, my recent reading of Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad, and the current state of the world which the Iliad well reflects though it was composed over 3000 years ago, impressed upon me the urgency of practicing mutual recognition in the wider world that we share

Why Zoom Hurts: A Cultural Sociological Approach

During the Covid-19 pandemic, videoconferencing rapidly shifted from being a time-liberating support tool to becoming a health concern. This article explores the phenomenon of Zoom fatigue from the perspective of a sample of first-wave blog posts, editorials and chronicles reporting on a drastic digital transition. Besides highlighted complaints over headaches and tiredness, the commentaries convey experiences of failed social relations, a double-burdened work life and a disrupted sense of self. Exploring these accounts, the article broadens the scope of inquiry beyond a media-psychological analysis of a human(body)-technology-problem. We approach Zoom fatigue not primarily in terms of the digital affordances of videoconferencing on the human brain, but as a cultural phenomenon tied to shifts and disruptions beyond the interface design, related to both the unique circumstances of the pandemic and to ongoing transformations in the organization of work life in digitized societies

Fattigdomsfällan : – överskuldsättning som socialt problem

The Poverty Trap - Over-indebtedness as a Social Problem Despite the escalation of debt problems in society, over-indebtedness receives limited attention in Swedish social work. This is probably due to the fact that over-indebtedness is seen as a private economic matter rather than a social problem. The article addresses perspectives concerning the financialisation of everyday life and the credit and consumer society and draws on examples from interviews with young adults living with high levels of debt. The analysis is based on three arguments and aims to show that over-indebtedness must be understood as a social problem. The first argument establishes that over-indebtedness is a phenomenon of social origin. The second argument is based on the fact that over-indebtedness arises from social problems, and the third argument is based on the fact that over-indebtedness leads to social problems. In particular, over-indebtedness creates a distinctive form of poverty

Anpassade VR-miljöers potential att stötta elevers lärande i studiehandledning på modersmålet

Virtuell verklighet (VR) har kommit att bli en alltmer tillgänglig resurs för skolor och en växande grupp lärare implementerar teknologin i sin undervisning. VR är ett exempel på en resurs som erbjuder intressanta potentialer för elevers kunskapsutveckling. Genom VR kan ämnesinnehåll och kunskaper göras tillgängliga på nya sätt då tekniken gör det möjligt att uppleva platser och innehåll i en 3D-miljö som går bortom klassrummet. I ULF-projektet Virtuella lärmiljöer som stöd för elevers kunskapsutveckling i studiehandledning på modersmålet (VRiS) arbetar två studiehandledare på modersmålet, en IKT-pedagog, en VR-konsult och tre forskare tillsammans med att utveckla teoretisk och praktisk förståelse för elevers kunskapsutveckling i studiehandledning på modersmålet genom anpassade VR-miljöer. Studiehandledning på modersmålet är ett stöd som finns i svenska skolor för att stötta flerspråkiga elever att nå kunskapskraven i de olika skolämnena. Det har visat sig att studiehandledning inte alltid ger det förväntade stöd som eleverna är i behov av och att den i flera fall inte anpassas till elevers individuella behov. Syftet med projektet är att utveckla en didaktiskt anpassad studiehandledning med anpassade VR-miljöer för att främja elevers kunskapsutveckling. Med hjälp av iterativa och design-baserade metoder (DBR) undersöks följande fråga: Hur kan studiehandledningen utformas och användas för att främja elevers lärande genom anpassade VR-miljöer? Projektets resultat visar att studiehandledarna använder anpassade VR-miljöer som en resurs för att stötta elevernas förståelse av ämnesspecifika begrepp i främst NO-undervisningen. De planerar och organiserar sin undervisning i VR med fokus på att visualisera och materialisera begrepp och innehåll för eleverna genom att anpassa existerande VR-miljöer eller skapa egna miljöer med 3D-modeller och objekt som eleverna kan interagera med