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- Convenor:
-
Andrew Crabtree
(Copenhagen Business School)
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- Format:
- Thematic Panel
- Theme:
- Environment and sustainable development
Short Abstract:
This panel session examines two of the multiple and connected current environmental crises namely, climate change and biodiversity loss. Common themes are the roles colonialism and its respective injustices play on people’s, not least indigenous people, ability to live the lives they value. Collective capabilities, solidarity and justification to others are essential when looking forward.
Long Abstract:
Looking forward: Environmental crises origins and solutions.
This panel session examines two of the multiple and connected current environmental crises namely, climate change and biodiversity loss. A common theme in all three papers is the roles colonialism and its respective injustices play on people’s ability to live the lives they value and flourish not just as individuals but also as groups. They also point to the real conflicts that that arise when trying to solve or at least reduce the negative effects of environmental crises whilst recognizing the importance of the consequences for indigenous people and local communities and, indeed, global solidarity and understandings. All papers engage with the capabilities and human development approach in a variety of ways, including environmental crises, collective capabilities, justice, indigenous people.
Su-ming Khoo’s paper Decolonizing social metabolism – connecting capabilities for fair and relational ecologies in times of crisis examines the concept of social metabolism through a collective capabilities lens informed by eco-feminism, decolonialism, shared vulnerability and care. Although valuing Green Marxism and the Vienna School of materials flow, she sees them as over-generalizing, thin and uncritical understandings of ‘society’, that treat ecological crises as undifferentiated ‘societal-level’ problems. Su-ming argues that wider collective capabilities for social and environmental justice may challenge the labels of decoloniality or feminisms (Salem and Icaza 2023;Icaza and Aguilar 2021), observing that a plurality and diversity of paths exist to respond to crises and bring communities towards justice, ecological health, or transformation. The paper is forward looking as argues that we should look to community and activist networks to learn how a theory of social metabolism may gain new, and different life, especially in resistant contexts by incorporating different understandings of cosmopolitics and the proposal for new, relational technologies and capabilities rooted in alternative ecological spaces.
Mathias Frisch’s paper The climate crisis: environmental injustice and a crisis in kin relationships draws inspiration from the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh novel The Nutmeg’s Curse which draws parallels between the climate crisis and the position of indigenous peoples resulting from colonial practices that see “the world as resource; landscapes as factories, nature a cheap.” The paper finds similar thoughts in the work of the philosopher Kyle White, a North American Potawatomi relative, who finds that we have reached a crisis or tipping points in kin relationships of trust, mutual consent, and reciprocity across different societies that cannot be solved by technology alone. At the same time, White points to the problem of having to act with urgency in relation to the climate change issue whilst the problems surrounding kin relationships will take a longer time.
Mathias argues for a way of moving to solve these problems by drawing on the capabilities approach and Lori Keleher’s related integral human development approach. From this perspective of integral human development, colonialism and the climate crisis undermine persons standing in relation of radical solidarity with each other (and with other beings or entities recognized as part of the social network of kin relationships). We need to move forward by recognizing that addressing climate injustices and standing in solidarity with one another does not require equal and equally timed contributions or “sacrifices” from all of us. In fact, our responsibilities in face of the climate crisis are dramatically unequally distributed. This is a longer term project but nonetheless necessary due to the limits of managerial and technological fixes.
Andrew Crabtree’s paper Human Security and Human-Wildlife Conflicts and the Biodiversity Crisis: From “no harm” to justifiability examines the Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) approach to human-wildlife conflict and co-existence. The importance of this approach lies in the tension between biodiversity loss – the IUCN Red List finds that no less than 44,000 species are threatened, and threats to human security - a foraging elephant can destroy a livelihood within hours.
One way of “solving” these issues has been to sperate people and nature. This has a colonial history starting with the establishment of National Parks in the USA and the forcible removal of indigenous, native Americans. Similar examples exist worldwide where indigenous people and local communities are prevented from leading the lives they and their ancestors had valued leading for millennia.
This paper emphasizes the importance of living with nature, and examines IUCN’s guidelines for human-nature conflict and co-existence examining its first principles: Do no harm starting with its formulation in the works of John Stuart Mil. Andrew argues that it is too stringent as harms are inevitable. Instead, the principle should be replaced by a justifiability principle based on critical contractualism emphasising legitimate freedoms. This supports the advancement of both human and animal security. The paper ends by discussing how both historical and present injustices relating to capability loss are to be addressed. The paper is made concrete through examples taken from the Serengeti and the re-introduction of wolves in Europe.
Accepted papers:
Paper short abstract:
This paper concerns the philosophical principles underlying human security, biodiversity loss and human-wildlife conflicts. It argues for a justifiability principle. The value of which is shown via examples of the colonial removal of indigenous people form the Serengeti plains, and wolves in Europe.
Paper long abstract:
The 1994 Human Development Report introduced the concept of human security which was understood as protecting “the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment”. Wildlife can be a threat to human security (IUCN, 2024), for example, a foraging elephant can destroy a livelihood within a matter of a hours. At the same time, over 44,000 species are threatened with extinction (IUCN, 2024). The main direct drivers of biodiversity loss - climate change, invasive species, pollution, natural resource use and exploitation and land use change – increase human-wildlife conflicts and are thus problematic for both human and animal security.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 2023) has produced Guidelines aimed at establishing principles for human-wildlife conflicts. Though practical, they involve underlying philosophical assumptions and, more explicitly, issues surrounding justice. This paper examines the first principle – do no harm – starting with John Stuart Mill’s ([1859]1975) formulation. It will be argued that this principle is too stringent. Instead, it should be replaced by a justifiability principle, founded on a critical contractualism and legitimate freedoms (Crabtree, 2016), which is more in keeping with the other foundational principles.
The discussion examines two cases - the Serengeti National Park, established by colonial powers and included the forced removal of indigenous people and the loss of their lands Preventing them from leading the lives they and their ancestors had valued leading for millennia (Shetler, 2007). Raising the issue of reparations. The second concerns wolves - a protected species in Europe - their presence can induce fear, livelihood loss and even lives (Linnell, et al. 2021). It will be argued that the justifiability principle allows for greater sensitivity to context allowing for greater human and animal security.
Crabtree, A. (2016). Sustainable development: Does the capability approach have anything to offer? Outlining a legitimate freedom approach. In The capability approach and sustainability (pp. 39-56). Routledge.
IUCN (2023). SSC guidelines on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence. First edition. Gland, Switzerland
Linnell, J. D. C., Kovtun, E. & Rouart, I. 2021. Wolf attacks on humans: an update for 2002–2020. NINA Report 1944 Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.
Mill J.S. (1895) reprinted in Utilitarianism ed. Mary Warnock, (1975) Collins, Glasgow.
Shetler, J. B. (2007). Imagining Serengeti: A history of landscape memory in Tanzania from earliest times to the present. Ohio University Press.
Paper short abstract:
This paper rethinks the concept of social metabolism, reaching towards connected and collective understandings of capabilities in times of multiple and connected planetary crises, drawing on ecofeminist and decolonial thought and theories of shared vulnerability and care.
Paper long abstract:
This paper rethinks the concept of social metabolism, reaching towards connected and collective understandings of capabilities in times of multiple and connected planetary crises, drawing on ecofeminist and decolonial thought and theories of shared vulnerability and care. It moves towards a more transdisciplinary and integral reading of social metabolism that engages social ecology through collective capabilities emerging from resistant and grassroots struggles. The paper’s rethinking of social metabolism is a central theoretical element of a larger work on ‘vital sociology’, re-theorizing social metabolism to encompass collective concerns with social reproduction, vital provisioning, and relational ethics.
Green Marxism and the Vienna School of materials flow analysis are two leading strands of thinking about social metabolism. I try to think with and beyond these two extant interpretations of the oikeios because they are over-universalizing and insufficiently account for unequal, colonial forms of environmentalism. In contrast, a decolonial emancipatory understanding draws on currents of anti-colonial and decolonial ecology and solidarity (Khader 2019; UNDP 2022;). A re-theorisation tries to overcome over-generalizing, thin and uncritical understandings of ‘society’, that treat ecological crises as undifferentiated ‘societal-level’ problems. This over-generalization of ‘society’ is unsatisfactorily answered by solutions to crises that rely on individual therapeutic learning, not redistribution or reparation for unjust harms, given that no country currently meets the basic needs of its residents at a level of resource use that can be sustainably extended to all people globally (Fanning et al 2020).
Wider collective capabilities for social and environmental justice may challenge the labels of decoloniality or feminisms (Salem and Icaza 2023), observing that a plurality and diversity of paths exist to respond to crises and bring communities towards justice, ecological health, or transformation. A revised conception of social metabolism therefore looks to community and activist networks to learn how a theory of social metabolism may gain new, and different life, especially in resistant contexts, by incorporating different understandings of cosmopolitics and the proposal for new, relational technologies and capabilities rooted in alternative ecological spaces.
Key sources:
Foster, JB (2000) Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press
Khader, SJ (2019) Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Salem,S; Icaza, R (2023) “A world in which many worlds can fit:” On Knowledge Production and Multiplicity, Kohl Journal: A Journal for Body and Gender Research 9,1,
UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2022. 2022 Special Report on Human Security. New York.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the climate and indigenous people's crises from an integral human development approach and argues for a radical solidarity in resolving these crises.
Paper long abstract:
In The Nutmeg’s Curse the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh convincingly shows that injustices against indigenous peoples are intimately connected to the climate crisis: both injustices are the direct result of centuries of colonialism and a capitalism. Similarly, the native-American philosopher Kyle White argues that we have reached a crisis or tipping points in kin relationships of trust, mutual consent, and reciprocity across different societies, which are due to “the operations and impacts of colonialism, industrialization, and capitalism” (Whyte 2020, 5) resulting in an apparently irresolvable tension: The climate crisis requires urgent action. But treating this crisis purely as managerial technological problem threatens to perpetuate colonial injustices. Whilst restoring trust and building kin relationships across societies requires considerable time.
I examine these dual crises from the perspective of the capabilities approach and the related integral human development approach (Keleher 2018). According to Nussbaum’s version of a capabilities approach, being able to engage in various forms of social relations is required by human dignity. Colonialism and the climate crisis interfere with human flourishing by interfering with reciprocal social relations within indigenous societies including trust, mutual consent and reciprocity. In integral human development terms, colonialism and the climate crisis undermine persons standing in relation of radical solidarity with each other. But is it “too late for indigenous climate justice” (Whyte) because restoring kinship relationships requires time which the climate crisis does not grant us?
A partial answer to Whyte’s worry lies in recognizing that addressing climate injustices and standing in solidarity does not require equal sacrifices. Our responsibilities are dramatically unequally distributed, which allows for differential responses. We should ask for urgent “sacrifices” from the highest emitters. Simultaneously, we should address the injustices resulting from denying the capability of engaging in rich kin relationships of trust and reciprocity. If solving both the climate crisis and the relational crisis requires going beyond managerial and technological solutions, a sustained and long-term solution to the climate crisis will require urgent action on the relational crisis, which will require relationships of radical solidarity across different societies.
Ghosh, Amitav. 2022. The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Keleher, Lori. 2018. “Integral Human Development.” In Routledge Handbook of Development Ethics, edited by Jay Drydyk and Lori Keleher, 29–34. London: Routledge.
Whyte, Kyle. 2020. “Too Late for Indigenous Climate Justice: Ecological and Relational Tipping Points.” WIREs Climate Change 11 (1)