a single integrated and depoliticized ‘nexus’ of technical imperatives. What makes
them seem this way, is the expedient shaping of knowledge (as well as action), by
powerful interests. What ecological and social justice challenges actually require,
is not controlled ‘transitions’ driven by incumbent structures, but vibrant agonistic
political mobilizations towards more open-ended ‘transformation’. Far from
democratic struggle being an ‘enemy of Nature’, then, they may be each other’s
deepest hopes.
Nexus, necessity and nudge
A starting point lies in a growing body of science warning that the world is faced
with a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental threats. Even if not as existential as
sometimes implied for the Earth as a whole, there are grave implications for many
populations, livelihoods and societies. The resulting ‘nexus’ of new vulnerabilities
interacts with multiple prevailing forms of insecurity and injustice. As in these longestablished but socially remediable patterns, it is typically the least privileged people
who remain the most vulnerable.
These new scientifically framed threats are currently attracting unprecedentedly
intense attention in global governance. In many ways, this exceeds the consideration
afforded to older, more directly politically comprehensible vulnerabilities. The result
is unusual high-level willingness to contemplate ‘radical transformation’ in global
practices, institutions and infrastructures for the provision of food, water and energy.
If the rhetorics are taken at face value, possibilities are opening up for potentially
‘revolutionary’ kinds and scales of change.
Such is the intensity of these developments, that leverage is potentially emerging
not just for serious technical, organizational and discursive change, but for even
more substantive political dislocations. Yet exactly how this leverage plays out, is
open to modulation. The changes that occur may act in progressive ways, challenging concentrations of privilege and power. Or they may act more regressively,
to entrench some of these incumbent patterns. Crucial here, is that it often remains
rather non-specific and ambiguous what exactly will constitute these widely
mooted ‘green transformations’ or ‘transitions to sustainability’.
For instance, pressures for transformation towards zero carbon energy practices
may instead be redirected towards driving a global transition to climate
geoengineering. Visions inspired by distributed renewable resources may yield
instead a low-carbon transition based around centralized nuclear energy. Likewise,
imperatives for transformations towards ecologically sensitive forms of agriculture
respecting the diverse knowledges of farmers as open source innovators in different
settings may instead be harnessed towards transitions to ‘sustainable intensification’
strategies promoting ‘monoculture’ transgenic crops that maximize rents on
intellectual property and global value chains.
Choices between contending institutional and infrastructural pathways like
these – each variously claimed to be ‘green’ – are profoundly political. Yet these
choices are typically discussed in much existing ‘nexus’ or ‘green transition’
Emancipating transformations 55
them seem this way, is the expedient shaping of knowledge (as well as action), by
powerful interests. What ecological and social justice challenges actually require,
is not controlled ‘transitions’ driven by incumbent structures, but vibrant agonistic
political mobilizations towards more open-ended ‘transformation’. Far from
democratic struggle being an ‘enemy of Nature’, then, they may be each other’s
deepest hopes.
Nexus, necessity and nudge
A starting point lies in a growing body of science warning that the world is faced
with a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental threats. Even if not as existential as
sometimes implied for the Earth as a whole, there are grave implications for many
populations, livelihoods and societies. The resulting ‘nexus’ of new vulnerabilities
interacts with multiple prevailing forms of insecurity and injustice. As in these longestablished but socially remediable patterns, it is typically the least privileged people
who remain the most vulnerable.
These new scientifically framed threats are currently attracting unprecedentedly
intense attention in global governance. In many ways, this exceeds the consideration
afforded to older, more directly politically comprehensible vulnerabilities. The result
is unusual high-level willingness to contemplate ‘radical transformation’ in global
practices, institutions and infrastructures for the provision of food, water and energy.
If the rhetorics are taken at face value, possibilities are opening up for potentially
‘revolutionary’ kinds and scales of change.
Such is the intensity of these developments, that leverage is potentially emerging
not just for serious technical, organizational and discursive change, but for even
more substantive political dislocations. Yet exactly how this leverage plays out, is
open to modulation. The changes that occur may act in progressive ways, challenging concentrations of privilege and power. Or they may act more regressively,
to entrench some of these incumbent patterns. Crucial here, is that it often remains
rather non-specific and ambiguous what exactly will constitute these widely
mooted ‘green transformations’ or ‘transitions to sustainability’.
For instance, pressures for transformation towards zero carbon energy practices
may instead be redirected towards driving a global transition to climate
geoengineering. Visions inspired by distributed renewable resources may yield
instead a low-carbon transition based around centralized nuclear energy. Likewise,
imperatives for transformations towards ecologically sensitive forms of agriculture
respecting the diverse knowledges of farmers as open source innovators in different
settings may instead be harnessed towards transitions to ‘sustainable intensification’
strategies promoting ‘monoculture’ transgenic crops that maximize rents on
intellectual property and global value chains.
Choices between contending institutional and infrastructural pathways like
these – each variously claimed to be ‘green’ – are profoundly political. Yet these
choices are typically discussed in much existing ‘nexus’ or ‘green transition’
Emancipating transformations 55