33 research outputs found
Calculating the carbon footprint:implications for governing emissions and gender relations
In this article, we use fresh empirical evidence, and draw on feminist and critical
accounting and organisational theories to contend that carbon calculators can be
interpreted as discriminatory control technologies. They do this by providing a
new and flexible vocabulary for governing expenses, costs and investments at a
distance, avoiding a sense of direct intervention by the government. Thus, given
our stance that the carbon calculator cannot be considered a neutral tool, we
argue that it has the potential to control personal responsibilities regarding both
environmental and familyâbased issues
Differentiated legitimacy, differentiated resilience: beyond the natural in ânatural disastersâ
This paper starts with a flood in southern Malawi. Although apparently a ânaturalâ event, those most affected argued that it was made much worse by the rehabilitation of a nearby irrigation scheme. We use this example to interrogate the current interest in resilience from a perspective informed by political ecology and political economy, arguing that a focus on resilience should not be at the expense of understanding the conditions that shape vulnerability, including the ways in which âcommunitiesâ are differentiated. Complex factors are at play â and the ways in which these combine can result in a âperfect stormâ for some individuals and households. These factors include the effects of history combining with ethnicity, of legitimacy influencing voice, and of the interplay of political dynamics at different levels. In particular, processes of commodification have played an important role in shaping how some may benefit at the cost of catastrophic harm to others
OVERHEATED SECURITY? The Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security
Since the mid-2000s, climate change has become one of the defining security issues in political as well as academic debates and amongst others has repeatedly been discussed in the UN Security Council and countless high level government reports in various countries. Beyond the question whether the characterisation as âsecurity issueâ is backed up by any robust empirical findings, this begs the question whether the âsecuritisationâ of climate change itself has had tangible political consequences. Moreover, within this research area there is still a lively discussion about which security conceptions apply, how to conceptualise (successful) securitisation and whether it is a (politically and normatively) desirable approach to deal with climate change. The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on these issues and particularly to contribute to a more thorough understanding of different forms or âdiscoursesâ of securitisation and their political effects on a theoretical and empirical level. Theoretically, it conceptualises securitisation as resting on different forms of power, which are derived from Michel Foucaultâs governmentality lectures. The main argument is that this framework allows me to better capture the ambiguous and diverse variants of securitisation and the ever-changing concept of security as well as to come to a more thorough understanding of the political consequences and powerful effects of constructing issues in terms of security. Empirically, the thesis looks at three country cases, namely the United States, Germany and Mexico. This comparative angle allows me to go beyond the existing literature on the securitisation of climate change that mostly looks at the global level, and to come to a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of different climate security discourses and their political consequences. Concerning the main results, the thesis finds that climate change has indeed been securitised very differently in the three countries and thus has facilitated diverse political consequences. These range from an incorporation of climate change into the defence sector in the US, the legitimisation of far-reaching climate policies in Germany, to the integration of climate change into several civil protection and agricultural insurance schemes in Mexico. Moreover, resting on different forms of power, the securitisation of climate change has played a key role in constructing specific actors and forms of knowledge as legitimate as well as in shaping certain identities in the face of the dangers of climate change. From a normative perspective, neither of these political consequences is purely good or bad but highly ambiguous and necessitates a careful, contextual assessment
Contesting longstanding conceptualisations of urban green space
Ever since the Victorian era saw the creation of âparks for the people,â health and wellbeing benefits have been considered a primary benefit of urban parks and green spaces. Today, public health remains a policy priority, with illnesses and conditions such as diabetes, obesity and depression a mounting concern, notably in increasingly urbanised environments. Urban green space often is portrayed as a nature-based solution for addressing such health concerns. In this chapter, Meredith Whitten investigates how the health and wellbeing benefits these spaces provide are limited by a narrow perspective of urban green space. Whitten explores how our understandings of urban green space remain rooted in Victorian ideals and calls into question how fit for purpose they are in twenty-first-century cities. Calling on empirical evidence collected in three boroughs in London with changing and increasing demographic populations, she challenges the long-held cultural underpinnings that lead to urban green space being portrayed âas a panacea to urban problems, yet treating it as a âcosmetic afterthoughtââ (Whitten, M, Reconceptualising green space: planning for urban green space in the contemporary city. Doctoral thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, U.K. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/. Accessed 12 Jun 2019, 2019b, p 18)
A discursive review of the textual use of âtrappedâ in environmental migration studies: The conceptual birth and troubled teenage years of trapped populations
First mooted in 2011, the concept of Trapped Populations referring to people unable to move from environmentally high-risk areas broadened the study of human responses to environmental change. While a seemingly straightforward concept, the underlying discourses around the reasons for being âtrappedâ, and the language describing the concept have profound influences on the way in which policy and practice approaches the needs of populations at risk from environmental stresses and shocks. In this article, we apply a Critical Discourse Analysis to the academic literature on the subject to reveal some of the assumptions implicit within discussing âtrappedâ populations. The analysis reveals a dominant school of thought that assisted migration, relocation, and resettlement in the face of climate change are potentially effective adaptation strategies along a gradient of migrant agency and governance
Politicising government engagement with corporate social responsibility: âCSRâ as an empty signifier
Governments are widely viewed by academics and practitioners (and society more generally) as the key societal actors who are capable of compelling businesses to practice corporate social responsibility (CSR). Arguably, such government involvement could be seen as a technocratic device for encouraging ethical business behaviour. In this paper, we offer a more politicised interpretation of government engagement with CSR where âCSRâ is not a desired form of business conduct but an element of discourse that governments can deploy in structuring their relationships with other social actors. We build our argument through a historical analysis of government CSR discourse in the Russian Federation. Laclau and Mouffe's (Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics,Verso Books, London, 1985) social theory of hegemony underpins our research. We find that âCSRâ in the Russian governmentâs discourse served to legitimise its power over large businesses. Using this case, we contribute to wider academic debates by providing fresh empirical evidence that allows the development of critical evaluation tools in relation to governmentsâ engagement with âCSRâ. We find that governments are capable of hijacking CSR for their own self-interested gain. We close the paper by reflecting on the merit of exploring the case of the Russian Federation. As a ânon-coreâ, non-western exemplar, it provides a useful âmirrorâ with which to reflect on the more widely used test-bed of Western industrial democracies when scrutinising CSR. Based on our findings, we invite other scholars to adopt a more critical, politicised stance when researching the role of governments in relation to CSR in other parts of the world
Transformational responses to climate change: beyond a systems perspective of social change in mitigation and adaptation
There is a growing imperative for responses to climate change to go beyond incremental adjustments, aiming instead for society-wide transformation. In this context, sociotechnical (ST) transitions and socialâecological (SE) resilience are two prominent normative agendas. Reviewing these literatures reveals how both share a complex-systems epistemology with inherent limitations, often producing managerial governance recommendations and foregrounding material over social drivers of change. Further interdisciplinary dialogue with social theory is essential if these frameworks are to become more theoretically robust and capable of informing effective, let alone transformational, climate change governance. To illustrate this potential, ideas from Deleuze and Guattari's political writing as well as other approaches that utilize the notion social fields (as opposed to sociosystems) are combined to more fully theorize the origins and enactment of social change. First, the logic of systems is replaced with the contingency of assemblages to reveal how pluralism, not elitism, can produce more ambitious and politicized visions of the future. In particular, this view encourages us to see social and ecological tensions as opportunities for thinking and acting differently rather than as mere technical problems to be solved. Secondly, the setting of social fields is introduced to situate and explain the power of ideas and the role of agency in times of uncertainty. The potential of such insights is already visible in some strands of climate change mitigation and adaptation research, but more needs to be done to advance this field and to bring it into dialogue with the mainstream systems based literature