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- Convenor:
-
Jessica Hope
(University of St Andrews)
Send message to Convenor
- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Acting on Climate change and the environment
- Location:
- Christodoulou Meeting Rooms East, Room 15
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 19 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In this panel, we explore how newly institutionalizing 'Global Development' initiatives discipline, rework, or are reworked by, civil society demands for revising Development in response to environmental degradation and/or climate change in both the global North and South.
Long Abstract:
Global leaders, global development agendas and global agreements signal a shift towards a seemingly revised politics of how Development sits across (and works between) North and South, as well as the extent to which Development responds to the urgency of climate change. Civil society, however, has long been engaged in changing dominant, hegemonic logics and practices of Development in response to destructive socio-environmental impacts. In this panel, we explore how newly institutionalizing 'Global Development' initiatives discipline, rework, or are reworked by, civil society demands for revising Development in response to environmental degradation and/or climate change in both the global North and South.
We ask:
• How are socio-environmental conflicts between civil society and states and/or the private sector being impacted by newly branded Global Development practices?
• How do new practices of Global Development institutionalise, discipline or exclude environmental activism?
• What forms of civil society are being strengthened or weakened?
• What forms of environmental activism are acknowledged by, or incorporated into, practices of Global Development?
• How else are excluded groups strengthening and institutionalising their ideas and politics?
• How is activism changing in the face of global agendas and increasingly urgent problems?
Papers will be shared prior to the conference. Each speaker will have 15 minutes to present and 8 minutes allocated to discuss each paper. In the final 20 minutes we will discuss:
• For whom is this research useful and how can it be best shared to assist civil society agendas?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 19 June, 2019, -Miroslav Palanský (Charles University) Petr Janský (Charles University)
Paper short abstract:
We investigate the role of tax havens in blocking development by enabling multinational companies to shift their tax base out of developing countries. We focus specifically on extractive industries and the energy sector.
Paper long abstract:
Recent years have seen dramatic decreases in the profits that multinationals report an pay tax on in developing countries, and especially so in extractive industries. We analyze this heterogeneity in reported profits of multinationals owned from tax havens and other multinationals to estimate how much corporate profit is shifted. We combine this data with information on financial secrecy, effective tax rates, foreign direct investment and other data. We discuss which policy responses would adequately address these injustices and contribute toward a more inclusive and sustainable development.
Samuel Udogbo (Maynooth University, Ireland)
Paper short abstract:
Despite the widespread criticism of Shell and the Nigerian government on the Ogoni situation, there is no end in sight to ferocious oil exploration and exploitation. Hence, the relationship between the corrupt system and the marginalised Ogoni society continues to be a major topic of debate amongst scholars.
Paper long abstract:
This paper gives a critical report on the outcome of my fieldwork research; the Ogoni quest for autonomy rather than submit to the increasing delusionary discourse on development in Ogoniland. The paper examines the approach of the Movement of the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP); a socio-cultural movement established to challenge the oppressive structures in Ogoniland. The research adopted the Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology with semi-structured, focus groups interviews and participant observations as methods for data collection. It shows how participants or marginal groups played active role in making informed decision through the research process for the primary purpose of imparting social change. It looks at the response of the Ogoni youth on the current socio-economic and political injustices in Ogoni land; strategies that leads to constructive social action; and how to build capacity for self-determination, socio-economic and political development. It is accurate that mainstream social movements pay more attention to the global north issues with little attention to the struggles occurring in the global south. However, the experience of African social movements differs; it is complex and often times contradictory. The paper will suggest practical implications that speak to scholars engaged in applied research with change-development initiatives.
Jessica Hope (University of St Andrews)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I examine the initial take-up of the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bolivia, a site of both intensifying extractivism and Development alternatives, to offer an understanding of how powerful, extractivist Development logics are being maintained and reworked.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I examine the initial take-up and implementation of the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bolivia, a site of both intensifying extractivism and Development alternatives. Drawing on recent fieldwork, I argue that that uneven power dynamics between the state, the market and civil society are a structuring force of the SDGs, in ways that support the hegemony of extractive-led development and prevent a more complicated reading of growth-led Development in the global South. Drawing on the work of Delanda (2006), I identify a spatiality of sustainable development by analysing the institutions, discursive alignments and dynamics of power and exclusion that underpin the implementation, practice and constitution of the SDGs. From the work of Delueze and Guattari (2010), I include the infrastructure of Bolivia's extractive-led development model (the roads, bridges and energy mega projects) to argue that these extractivist infrastructures co-constitute the materiality of sustainable development. In doing so, I argue that Agenda 2030 is being constituted in ways that ring fence it from the contentious politics of extractivism, whilst simultaneously aligning sustainable development to extractive-led Development. As global momentum to combat climate change and environmental crisis is rising, I offer an understanding of how powerful, extractivist Development logics are being maintained and reworked.
Suparana Katyaini Margit van Wessel (Wageningen University) Sarbeswar Sahoo (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)
Paper short abstract:
Disasters pose unprecedented risks to the vulnerable communities, whose voices are excluded and underrepresented in policies. We aim to understand 'how diverse civil society organizations shape their role of representing the vulnerable while being embedded in multiple relations in India?'
Paper long abstract:
Scientific evidences of climate change and unsustainable development have increased the episodes of disasters. Disasters pose unprecedented risks to the vulnerable communities, whose voices are excluded and underrepresented in policies. The composition of these vulnerable communities in India is diverse and complex which makes 'leaving no one behind' in disaster risk reduction a challenging goal. Diverse forms of civil society play a vital role in enabling participation of the sections of the communities facing exclusion, and underrepresentation in order to give 'visibility to their voices' and advancing inclusiveness of policies and practice. With this background, the research aims to understand 'how do diverse civil society organizations shape their role of representing the vulnerable to disaster risk, while being embedded in multiple relations in India?' Here the diversity of civil society is typified in different ways such as formal or informal; international, national, or grassroots; welfarist reformist, or reactionary. Narratives of civil society gave insight of their motivations, struggles, challenges and lived experiences of representing the vulnerable through policy advocacy on disaster risk reduction. The research argues that CSOs are working in different capacities to act as translator of issues; vehicles of association of groups, which are socially (dalits), economically (women, landless farmers), and physically excluded; and creators of resources and space for expression of the groups facing exclusion and marginalization. Therefore CSOs play an important role in reducing disaster risk not only for the present generation but also for future generations.