Paper short abstract:

Neoliberal solutions to sustainability challenges often have negative side effects that are dismissed (or analyzed) as an unintended consequence, while others see them as unfortunately but necessary, which this paper examines through the lens of intentionality and its relation to indexicality.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropologists (and geographers) often treat the negative impacts of market-driven sustainable development schemes as unintended consequences of otherwise well-intentioned plans. This paper builds on previous work that ethnographically problematizes this assumption (Archer 2022), examining the trope of the “unintended consequence” through the lens of linguistic anthropology. Specifically, and drawing on an analysis of interviews and documents relating to corporate decarbonisation efforts, it brings together theories of intentionality and indexicality to explore the formation and maintenance of semiotic communities that actively embrace neoliberal solutions to socio-ecological problems, even as they recognize the social and environmental costs of these approaches. Examples of these costs include toxic pollution and labor abuses associated with the the excavation of new mines in sensitive (political) ecologies, driven by increasing demand for minerals like lithium and manganese in response to the development of new "renewable" energy projects. These costs are variously described as both unintended consequences and necessary evils, sometimes by the same people, which has interesting consequences for theories of intention and intentionality. As such, the paper bridges conceptual and empirical concerns with intentionality across several spatial and temporal levels: the individual, the group, the organization, and so on.