The Environmentality of Immersive Projection: The Nature of Scale

How does an artwork express an “environmentality?” Can we redefine immersion, in critical terms, as a form of environmental projection? In taking up such questions from my latest book, Atmospheres of Projection: Environmentality in Art and Screen Media, my text addresses the relation between projection and environmentality in the visual arts in order to question immersivity. Confronted with the phenomenon of environmentalization, we need to re-imagine the ecology of representation. Positing ecology as an environmental relation, I will consider its artistic imagination both historically and theoretically. I propose that we revisit the environmentality of media archaeology to understand how this impulse is furthered in current moving-image projections in the art gallery that call themselves immersive. I will especially address environmentality as it relates to movement and scale, questioning the relation between immersion and magnification. I will advance my argument by presenting the large-scale moving-image installations of the Danish-born, New York artist Jesper Just. Does magnification always, only imply spectatorial immersion? Other forms of experience arise when confronting an ecology of scale in art. What else happens when we scale? Can immersion be understood, more critically, as a form of environmental absorption? In recasting immersion in environmental terms, I propose that we consider absorption as empathic projection with space. In shifting from the human subject’s own immersive identification to this critically aware, enveloping field of empathic projection with the non-human, we can discard the prevalent human-centric position that pervades most immersive discourses. A different ecology of immersivity rises to the surface by relating the empathic “projective imagination” to “atmospheric thinking.

Environmental governance in Bhutan : ecotourism, environmentality and cosmological subjectivities

This thesis explores how environmental conservation and subjectivities are influenced as Bhutan negotiates its increasing integration into the global neoliberal capitalist economy. Until recently, Bhutan sought to isolate itself to a large degree from international integration, instead relying on a strongly state-centred monarchic governance regime to deliver economic development domestically. In so doing Bhutan has developed an international reputation for forward thinking in regards to human well-being as the country contests dominant economic models for development practice through its promotion of its signature Gross National Happiness (GNH) agenda. Now, however, Bhutan is working to negotiate increased involvement in global market forces, causing fissures to emerge in this philosophy and ideology. One of the main forms of global market integration currently pursued by Bhutan is ecotourism, which has been described as a quintessential neoliberal project seeking to harness environmental conservation as a form of income generation (Büscher and Fletcher, 2015). While this promotion seeks to frame ecotourism as an economic strategy to balance environmental and development aspirations, how the sector influences cultural values and assumptions is unaddressed. In this way, ecotourism can be seen to promote particular cultural transformations and forms of subjectivities that challenge the broader goals of the GNH agenda to date. This work explores these dynamics through a poststructuralist political ecology framework. Via this lens, an examination of discourse and power relations at multiple scales is conducted in order to gain critical insight into conservation paradigms operating in the country under the influence of newfound neoliberalization processes. Concepts of governmentality and biopower ground this examination by providing a framework for analysing emerging rationalities of governance. Chapter 5 provides insight into Bhutan’s overarching forms of governance, placing the country within the context of global capitalism and associated discourses. A ‘variegated’ governmentality perspective highlights the coexistence of multiple rationalities that contribute to an emergent ‘Buddhist’ biopower grounded in situated values represented by a Buddhist worldview and the country’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) agenda. Chapter 6 focuses on the national level, honing in on environmental governance in particular. ‘Environmentality’, an adaptation of the governmentality concept, is employed as a conceptual framework for understanding environmental discourses in the country. The cases of ‘Bhutan for Life’, a policy plan for implementing conservation funding, and the ecotourism this plan promotes, are examined to understand how neoliberal discourses interact with a Buddhist worldview, a history of state paternalism, and the Gross National Happiness agenda, all of which constitute competing rationalities contributing to Bhutan’s unique environmental governance approach. Chapter 7 takes us to the community level, examining three ecotourism cases in the country, in order to explore ecotourism discourses present in each. Haa Valley homestay, the Phobjikha Homestay network, and the Phajoding Eco-Camp serve as select sites for this analysis. Drawing on Dwelling theory, the chapter shows that ecotourism conflicts with pre-existing local perceptions and values related to the environment. Divergences related to social and human-environment relations thus develop from enrolment in ecotourism programs, with contestations between the explicit goals of GNH and embedded communitarian values. Finally, Chapter 8 probes environmental subjectivities via a case study of Shokuna herders in the highlands of Haa Dzongkhag (district). Through a landscape ethnoecological approach, an animated cosmological landscape is revealed through the process of storying, highlighting particular perceptions and subjectivities related to a truth environmentality. Foucault’s ‘art of distributions’ (1977) are used as a scaffold for analysing this environmentality showing how subjectivities manifest through belief in a cosmological hierarchy, perceptions of an animated landscape, and a reversal of western technocratic and managerial perspectives. As such, herders within the landscape have developed specific beliefs, behaviours, and resource acquisition patterns attuned with a particular ‘environmental’ subject. These four chapters are interconnected, acting in a nested manner to develop a multiscalar analysis of Bhutan’s engagement with and contestations around environmental discourses. As such, these chapters aim to provide a nuanced analysis of the problematic situation facing the country in which ecotourism, and its associated neoliberal rationale, challenge existing societal norms and values. With the ecotourism sector being appraised as an ideal strategy for the country it is critical to explore contestations that emerge with its adoption in order to provide a realistic assessment that addresses broader cultural impacts. In terms of theoretical contributions, this work: Illustrates the variegated nature of a novel governance constellation in Bhutan and how this manifests in a situated form of biopower embodying non-western (Buddhist) spiritualities; Underscores local specificities that account for discrepancies in the vision and execution of neoliberal conservation but goes beyond this to express other rationalities that also exists within a variegated environmentality framework. I show that indigenous efforts prove critical when re-interpreting conservation strategies and warding off external dynamics, such as foreign agencies and global capitalist actors, that promote possibly dangerous trends putting at risk the goals of the GNH agenda; Addresses the discursive nature of the ecotourism sector through a rarely employed dwelling lens, which is used to interpret indigenous perceptions of the landscape and their relation to it in order to reveal local contestations to neoliberal logic. While neoliberalism and ecotourism promote dualist perspectives in terms of humans and/vs nature, dwelling theory resonates with Buddhist and Bhutanese worldviews in which these divides are less concrete; Contributes to GNH studies by juxtaposing the ideal of GNH with the neoliberal conservation paradigm, revealing opportunities for adapting the country’s ecotourism strategy; Provides an analysis of underexplored truth environmentalities based on cosmological subjectivities. The political ecology of conservation in the country reveals a complex constellation of external and internal forces/actors that promote discourses of sustainability and wellbeing, with a concerted effort to respond to demands of the international community while maintaining a cultural identity grounded in spirituality and the concept of GNH. Driven by a need to facilitate development for a largely impoverished population, and the desire to uphold a reputation for strong environmental protection, Bhutan adopts particular strategies (payment for environmental services (PES), ecotourism, and green tax structures) that align with a neoliberal conservation model. However, this adoption is conducted without a critical eye to underlying rationalities that drive such strategies. As a result, discursive processes promote particular environmental subjectivities and novel perceptions that cultivate new social and human-environment relations putting at risk the broader goals of the GNH agenda

Environmentalities of coexistence with wolves in the Cantabrian mountains of Spain

A. Marino was supported by a NERC doctoral scholarship and the Royal Geographic Society Frederick Soddy Award. The research contributes to the “María de Maeztu” Programme for Units of Excellence of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CEX2019-000940-M). J.V. López-Bao was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (RYC-2015-18932; CGL2017-87528-R AEI/FEDER EU) and by a GRUPIN research grant IDI/2021/000075 from the Regional Government of Asturias. The other authors were not funded by any agency for their work.[Abstract]: Coexistence between humans and large carnivores is mediated by diverse values and interactions. We focus on four sites in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain with a history of continuous wolf presence to examine how perceptions of coexistence vary across contexts. We conducted semi-structured and informal interviews with livestock farmers (n = 271), hunters (n = 157), and local community members (n = 60) to collect quantitative and qualitative data on people's experiences of coexistence with wolves. We use an environmentality framework to analyse approaches to wolf governance across sites and explore how local resource users perceive, negotiate, and respond to different governance approaches. Our analysis is firstly structured around coexistence subjectivities associated with pastoralist and hunter cultures. These encompass ambivalent and multi-layered relations founded on notions of reciprocity with nature and on resource users' roles as producers and land stewards. Secondly, we explore encounters between local cultures, interests, and environmental regulations in the context of different site-based environmentalities. The framework we adopt enables coexistence to be conceived as a space of competing knowledges and practices, arising from everyday embodied interactions with wolves and the cultural politics through which local communities negotiate different ways of governing, knowing, and relating to nature.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación; CEX2019-000940-MMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad; RYC-2015-18932Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades; CGL2017-87528-RPrincipado de Asturias; IDI/2021/00007

Perceptions of individual lifestyle changes in Norway's sustainability transition

By ratifying the Paris Agreement in 2015, Norway pledged to attempt to keep the global temperature rise to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Through the agreement, Norway has committed to cutting 40% of emissions, compared to 1990s level, by 2030. However, the necessary emission reductions are currently not taking place, therefore, a sustainability transition is needed. This master’s thesis researches how the Norwegian population envisions the sustainability transition to come about, and how they perceive the role of the individual in this transition. Data was gathered from a survey sent out by the Norwegian Citizen Panel and interviews with members of the environmental organisation Spire. The data is analysed by utilising the theoretical framework of multiple environmentalities, which builds upon the concept of governmentality from Foucault. The research contributes to the literature by adapting the framework to a Norwegian context, in the Global North region, where it has not frequently been applied before. The findings in this thesis show that people predominantly rely on the state to initiate a sustainability transition. Individual lifestyle changes are needed but should mostly come through an economy that allows people to consume environmentality friendly. These conclusions are attributed to a Norwegian, and Scandinavian, combination of the sovereign and neoliberal forms of environmentality. The thesis concludes by emphasising the need for rapid action to lower emissions and keep the 1.5°C-target alive.Masteroppgave i geografiGEO350MASV-MEHAMASV-GEOGMASV-PHYGMPGEOG

“Who doesn't like dolphins?!” Neoliberalization, variegated environmentalities, and value alterations in a cross-national comparison of Irrawaddy dolphin conservation

Critical assessments of the conservation-capitalism relationship based on Foucault's concept of governmentality have generated notions of environmental governance as forms of ‘green’ governmentality or ‘environmentality.’ This paper contributes to the environmentalities literature by demonstrating the utility of a variegated environmentalities approach in understanding how the process of neoliberalization unfolds in different conservation contexts to influence different subjectivities. In this cross-national comparison, I examine the value shifts associated with conservation projects from the perspectives and experiences of the people most affected by these projects. Using Fletcher's (2010) environmentalities typology, I compare two approaches to Irrawaddy dolphin conservation: one in Myanmar focused on community enrichment and preservation of traditional human-dolphin relationships; the other in Cambodia focused on individual monetary wealth and neoliberal economic development. I argue that the dominant governing rationalities in each country influenced the execution of neoliberal environmentality and the ways in which it articulated with other types of environmentality. I then show how these unique articulations led to starkly different subjectivities by reinforcing socioecological values in Myanmar while restructuring them in Cambodia to align with neoliberal rationalities. I do this by contrasting findings in the two projects to trace the alteration of values in Cambodia from dolphins to other socioecological relations. I conclude by suggesting that dominant governing rationalities that foreground community and reciprocity in socioecological relations may serve to temper neoliberalism and thus provide a path toward alternative socioecologies and sustainabilities.</p

Volunteer Environmental Stewardship and Affective Labour in Philadelphia

Recent research has critically evaluated the rapid growth of volunteer urban environmental stewardship. Framings of this phenomenon have largely focused upon environmentality and/or neoliberal environments, unfortunately often presenting a totalising picture of the state and/or market utilising power from above to create environmental subjects with limited agency available to local citizens. Based upon qualitative research with volunteer urban environmental stewards in Philadelphia, affective labour is proposed as an alternative explanation for participation. Stewards volunteered their time and labour due to the intense emotional attachments they formed with their neighbourhoods, neighbours, and nonhuman others in relationships of affective labour. Volunteer urban environmental stewardship as affective labour provides room for agency on the part of individuals and groups involved in volunteer urban environmental reproduction and opens up new ways of relating to and being with human and nonhuman others.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142807/1/Foster AE Paper final.pdfDescription of Foster AE Paper final.pdf : "Main article

What explains the uneven take-up of ISO 14001 at the global level?: a panel-data analysis

Since its release in the mid-1990s, close to 37 000 facilities have been certified to ISO 14001, the international voluntary standard for environmental management systems. Yet, despite claims that the standard can be readily adapted to very different corporate and geographic settings, its take-up has been highly geographically variable. This paper contributes to a growing body of work concerned with explaining the uneven diffusion of ISO 14001 at the global level. Drawing from the existing theoretical and empirical literature we develop a series of hypotheses about how various economic, market, and regulatory factors influence the national count of ISO 14001 certifications. These hypotheses are then tested using econometric estimation techniques with data for a panel of 142 developed and developing countries. We find that per capita ISO 14001 counts are positively correlated with income per capita, stock of foreign direct investment, exports of goods and services to Europe and Japan, and pressure from civil society. Conversely, productivity and levels of state intervention are negatively correlated. The paper finishes by offering a number of recommendations to policymakers concerned with accelerating the diffusion of voluntary environmental standards