'Power-shifting the political status quo'

Earlier this month, I attended Powershift - an initiative of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. While I think some parts were great, other parts did not quite work for me... Regardless, I think that it confirmed much of the research I undertook for the Whitlam Institute.

The event, as a result, prompted me to write an Opinion Piece for the University of Western Sydney, regarding young people and democratic engagement...

Read it here...

Cheers, james

Social theory and the environmental challenge: how far have we come?

Benton, T. and Redclift, M. (1994) "Introduction" in Social theory and the global environment, London and New York, Routledge.

 

 

 

I am continuing my revisit of 'older' environmental philosophy texts and have arrived at a collection of essays edited by Ted Benton and Michael Redclift (1994).

 

Reading this some 15 years after it was written, it is amazing at how much we have learnt and how little we have progressed. The aim of Benton and Redclift's essays are to consider the response by the social sciences to the many emerging environmental crises. In essence, they try and confront the ongoing (and often ludicrous) disciplinary boundaries that restrict the social sciences from dealing with environmental challenges, and in so doing offer some advice as to how we might find some solutions. 

 

Here is a bit of an overview intertwined with my own thoughts and spiced by a recent conversation I had with Daniel L Beaver on a road-trip in Tasmania.  Much of what I also say has been developed with conversations and debates with one Amy Tyler…

 

 

Re-awakening of environmental challenges

 

Not unlike today, Benton and Redclift note that there has been a re-awakening of environmental issues caused by a number of crises. The threat of catastrophic global environmental change is at the top of our consciousness and the immediacy implied by the word ‘crisis’ means that the environment (and by extension, environmental problems) can no longer be considered as something that is 'out there'.

 

To understand environmental challenges, Benton and Redclift said we must see them as a multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional challenge.  That is, environmental impacts flow into and affect the economic, social, cultural and political spheres as well as the more tangible impact upon the physical (natural) world. While science may provide us insights into the impacts of environmental degradation and changes, if we want to understand the causes (and by extension, find solutions), "we must investigate how our patterns of social relationships, cultural forms, political practices and economic institutions are all implanted in the production of environmental change."

 

 

Overcoming core assumptions

 

Benton and Redclift suggest that for contemporary society to overcome environmental crises, it is essential that social scientists confront the long categorical opposition between 'nature and culture.'  They suggest that one of the reasons we have shied away from this confrontation is the difficulty social sciences have in discussing the natural or innate aspects of our society without falling into the trap of biological determinism.  However, by keeping our distance, social scientists have allowed the economists to define the innate of our society: which is to say, we are greedy and driven by self-interest.  This is further evidenced by the fact that economists are more advanced than the social sciences when offering solutions for the environmental crisis: for example, the carbon market. 

 

It is true that many of the challenges, concepts and assumptions of 'mainstream' economics are the same as environmental concerns: especially around the issue of scarcity. Rather than looking at complex solutions, however, economics attempts to solve challenges by either attempting to quantify resources through price signals that are either seen as being free (if abundant – such as air) or negotiated if scarce.

 

One of the reasons why economics has been given such prominence is that many of its assumptions have been accepted as 'true', while the rest of the social sciences are forced to reflect and justify their positions: for example, economic theory has established that we are driven by self interest – as I noted above.  This is largely accepted because we argue that biologically we are driven by individual survival.  Social sciences, then, have to justify why we can also be driven by altruism. Many of the positions taken by economists when it comes to human interactions are seen as already being established and socially re-enforced: lying outside economic life.

 

Many would then argue that we are all ultimately individualistic and selfish and what makes for the most effective economy is one that provides a market to channel greed productively.  On the other hand, Kenyan environmentalist and human rights campaigner Wangari Mathai, argues that rather than leaving it to the market or government to make our individual interests 'social,' we can work as individuals with a community consciousness.  That is to say, our individual decisions are made knowing how they will impact on the well being of our community.

 

Another settled assumption, that Benton and Redclift argue we need to confront, is the primacy given to the nation-state - especially as a unit of analysis. Many different areas of global studies confirm that we need to look beyond national boundaries - from dependency theory to environmental challenges – because domestic issues are often regulated by international institutions or happenings in foreign countries. 

 

A third series of assumptions that Benton and Redclift encourage us to confront are the issues of time-space abstractions. Benton and Redclift argue that we must look at environmental challenges both within a time-space analysis as well as beyond it. That is, we must integrate time and space into all sociological analysis, including our relationship with the environmental. Our relationship does change across time and space – and maybe what is natural or innate also does. This would, then, allow us to move beyond any nature/social dualisms, as well as the nation-state as a primary unit of analysis.

 

 

Theoretical divisions

 

Finally, Benton and Redclift argue that if we are dealing with environmental challenges, we must also deal with some long-standing theoretical divisions: and a key one is the split between structural limitations to change and individual agency. We must accept that changes to lifestyle are limited by structures: and these structural limitations are unevenly distributed spatially and across time (linking with the point above). This also represents the fact that 'power relationships' mean opportunities for encouraging agency are unevenly distributed. Consequently, while we may appeal to 'rational actors' to change their behaviours, this is not always possible as many people are locked into patterns of life that are environmentally destructive.

 

Despite this, we need to avoid 'structural determinism' and recognise that structural change has always occurred when savvy individuals fight for it.

 

Another theoretical area of dispute that we need to overcome with respect to environmental challenges is the cultural v. individualist approaches to change. That is, are we more than just a group of individuals living together? Economics, especially in its dominant neo-classical approach, is inherently individualist.  On the other end of the spectrum is anthropology, which argues that a group of individuals leads to the emergence of a society and culture.  This split has a profound impact on environmental research and policy: and we need to consider overcoming any false (and forced) binary.

 

Benton and Redclift argue that, whatever approach we take, we must accept that human social structures bind together not just individuals, but also (non-human) animals, physical objects spatial areas and so on. Human structures have effects everywhere, not just with humans.

 

To express the need for action to deal with environmental crisis, we need to overcome the gap between those technocratic perspectives and ones that emphasise the role of popular culture and lay knowledge. This is most evident when dealing with risk, where there is a gap between the official 'risk' numbers (such as a 1 in 1 million chance of something happening), and the socio-cultural preferences that 'lay' people assign to such risks (and here they quote Mary Douglas).

 

The environmental debate in its current contemporary form rests upon different knowledge claims such as scientific v. non-scientific. That is, what is tested and proven and what is still being speculated on.  For example, a friend says that climate change is not necessarily real because it is not scientifically proven.  On the other hand, if we wait until it is definitively and scientifically proven, it will be too late because it will have happened. 

 

We must also acknowledge that if we only accept scientific knowledge then this will also change the communication path. Scientific knowledge does not take into account the cultural or social aspects that cause specific actions or events to occur.  While science may 'prove' that cars produce CO2 and that CO2 contributes to climate change, they do not look at social or cultural factors that encourage society to keep on purchasing cars even when the majority of society 'knows' that they are causing environmental damage.  Moreover, the factors that encourage automobile purchases are culturally appropriate; in one city they may be structural (bad public transport) in another it might be a sign of wealth.

 

The final point that Benton and Redclift raise relates to the increasing sense of individualism.  This is occurring in the material world, but also how the social sciences characterise the present condition of social life as 'postmodern': meaning that there is an academic focus away from explaining social behaviour through large scale social historical processes to micro-sociological events that make meaning subjective of individual life and culture. Are we then doomed to push for individual action in order to confront environmental crises?  If we all become vegetarian will the world be saved?  Or is there a way to reignite collectivism where we can learn to eat appropriate meats for our environment and change our diet to one or two meat meals a week? Moreover, how we analyse the relationship between society and the environment has important implications for how we treat issues of justice and equality. 

 

 

Role of social sciences

 

Finally, Benton and Redclift move onto arguing that no one discipline can provide the insights into why we face environmental crises: we must take an interdisciplinary approach. Environmental problems and solutions transcend disciplines: we cannot solve environmental problems with just physical sciences but we need to include understandings of economics, politics, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology and so on. Environmental crises demand that we breakdown disciplinary boundaries.

 

This is important, because we often see the issue of linearity when it comes to policy design with respect to the environmental issues that works in the following way: scientific research, impact assessments and then policy responses. This totally ignores the fact that most of the causes behind environmental crises today are human-centered. Benton and Redclift argue that we will fail unless we accept that global environmental issues must consider the cultural dimensions: this leads us to consider globalisation as a cultural process linked to changes in the environment (both linked to environmental change, but distinguishable in its own right).

 

The strength of globalisation studies is that we must accept the interconnectedness that globalisation represents: and what is more interconnected than environmental issues? Redclift and Benton argue that this interconnectedness happens on four key levels: spatial, technological, material and representational.

 

Part of understanding the global nature of the challenge also takes us to another foundational assumption: the process of development. The ordering of the global agenda is something that is dominated by the industrial North: development, for example, is still considered and measured by the number of goods and these are instigated and driven by the North. This has consequences everywhere.

 

This power and spatial difference has meant that we have seen, and continue to see, growing differences between global environmental groups and the demands (and needs) of development that are raised by the populations of poorer countries. Even when Benton and Redclift were writing some 15 years ago, there was an acknowledgment by the North that we needed to shift our understanding of development. The debate, however, has not progressed a great deal: we are seeing a split in the way forward between the greening of industry to limit impacts (or Dobson's environmentalism which I covered in a different blog) and a dramatic restructuring in our demands and aspirations - a cultural shift which is described by Dobson as ecologigsm.

 

Benton and Redclift note that development concerns in the South are radically different to those of the North. (But with the rise of the middle classes in China, Brazil and India, I would think that this has now seen a merging of some of the material asprations). Rather, we get people on the margins across the world – both in the North and South - who never figure in our 'images of the environment'. It is important to remember that the majority of the world's population lies outside this image (and discourse).  What makes these margins different is the type of responses they can expect from respective governments.  In Australia, our government might be able to help out farmers faced by drought while in Colombia the farmers are left to fend for themselves. 

 

To respond to the environment we need to bridge many gaps and accept that scientific knowledge is a cultural artifact. Consequently, policy should not be distinguished from social and cultural contexts. Culture and knowledge are not merely determined by science, but serve to fashion science and policy themselves. We must understand all these dimensions to understand the demands that environmental challenges make on social theory and the interventions we need to take. 

 

 

Cheers, james

 

How to respond to 'ute-gate': time for political donation reform...

Hi everyone, 

Like anyone else interested in politics, I have been following the whole silly 'ute-gate' affair: firstly with amusement, then with disbelief. Watching Treasurer Wayne Swan call an Opposition backbencher a 'moron' in Parliament last week, I was struck by the growing resemblance between the behaviour of politicians during question time and a pre-match interview of the World Wrestling Federation.

I write the following article for the Centre for Policy which can be accessed here and relates how we can use the affair to achieve some real reform around political donations...

Cheers, james