AAG, CHICAGO, 7-11 March 2006
Paper session: NEOLIBERALISM, NATURE AND GOVERNANCE
Panel organisers:
Scott Prudham, University of Toronto
James McCarthy, Pennsylvania State University
Paper session organisers:
Noel Castree, University of Manchester
Jessica Budds, University of Oxford
Session outline:
Critical geographers are producing an expanding body of literature that
seeks to analyse the relationship between ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘nature’.
This is reflected, for example, in the recent publication of special
issues of two journals: Geoforum 35(3), 2004, and Capitalism, Nature,
Society 16(1), 2005. It has added to previously published literature on
the non-human world and ‘privatisation’, ‘markets’, and ‘commodification’,
but can be distinguished by its mobilisation of predominantly
institutional political economy approaches, in particular based the work
of Ted Benton, Karl Polanyi, David Harvey, James O’Connor and Neil Smith.
However, less attention has been paid to the rigorous definition of
neoliberalism as a phenomenon, the objects of analysis in terms
of ‘nature’, and the evaluation of socioecological
outcomes. ‘Neoliberalism’ or ‘neoliberalisation’ (as a spatial process)
has been variously characterised in terms of the application of economic
and market principles to the production of nature for material necessities
and luxuries (such as privatisation and deregulation/reregulation), and as
an explicitly environmental project, given its application to natural
resources regulation. Neoliberalism is thus defined as a coherent
phenomenon, although existing literature outlines the following different
logics:
1. applying economic and market principles for better environmental
management and conservation (e.g. fishing permits);
2. opening up previously non-capitalised resources to market forces
for economic development and degrading resources or environments for
profit (e.g. mining, deforestation);
3. transferring responsibilities to the private sector and/or civil
society, or adopting a ‘minimal state’ framework whereby the state assumes
a facilitating and regulatory role (e.g. water services).
These strategies are all relevant to understanding how nature is
neoliberalised, but fail to explain why this mode of governance of nature
has emerged, at either the local or global level. This is important,
because these logics suggest a paradox between conservation and its two
antitheses of destroying existing and creating new biophysical resources.
Furthermore, much work has positioned neoliberalism as a form of
capitalism, but based on the understanding of capitalism as a primarily
economic system, and perhaps neglecting its social, political, spatial and
discursive dimensions.
The relationship between neoliberalism and nature has largely been
explored by way of diverse empirical case studies focusing on different
resources and locations. Many case studies focus on different strategies
of neoliberalism and employ rather different theoretical ideas. This
leads to a disjointed theoretical account of how and why nature is
neoliberalised and with what outcomes, and thus risks producing a body of
research that remains united in name (‘neoliberalism and nature’) but
fragmented in practice.
The aim of this session is to engender a more coherent critical geographic
interrogation of nature’s governance under neoliberal regimes. It seeks
to focus on the inherent complexities and differences in the promotion of
the ‘neutral’ market (as opposed to the ‘political’ state) to govern
access to, and use of, nature, thus renegotiating the boundaries between
the state, the market and civil society. This implies confronting and
addressing the tension between treating neoliberalism as a generic
phenomenon, while simultaneously identifying common rationales that
explain why specific neoliberal policies have been pursued in relation to
nature.
This session seeks to elaborate on the following aspects:
* a firmer conceptualisation of ‘neoliberalism’, especially in relation
to capitalism;
* the links between Marxian, institutionalist and alternative
theoretical perspectives to explain the neoliberalisation of nature, such
as Foucault’s governmentality and Latour’s actor-network theory;
* a more directed focus on the underlying objectives of neoliberalism,
and the reasons why different natures are ‘neoliberalised’;
* a more explicit examination of how different natures are commodified
and neoliberalised;
* exploring how different processes of neoliberalisation shape the
governance of nature (e.g. replacement of common property rights with
private property rights), but also how nature shapes the forms that
neoliberal strategies take (e.g. popular resistance to privatisation);
* analyses of the complexities and contradictions of the
neoliberalisation of different natures within different contexts and
scales;
* the socioecological outcomes of nature’s neoliberalisation, and how
these should these be measured and evaluated (quantitatively and
qualitatively), in order to facilitate comparison between empirical cases
of different natures.
Offers of papers on any aspect covered by this session and informal
enquiries are most welcome to:
Noel Castree
School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester
[log in to unmask]
Jessica Budds
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
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