Presentation short abstract

Sovereignty keeps reemerging in relation to the socioecological crisis, mobilized differently by actors from the left and the right under a crisis of neoliberal globalization. What are the potential and limitations of sovereignty as a framing concept for socioecological transformations?

Presentation long abstract

The position of the state as the agent most capable of enacting socioecological transformations has been challenged by many in light of failed progress and backtracking on climate commitments. At the same time, many countries in the North and the South have adopted discourses that highlight the importance of state action on matters like energy and food, with a view to guarantying national security and/or sovereignty.

At other scales, a wealth of recent research has looked at socioecological transformation projects at town and regional level. In many cases these have been framed as initiatives for energy or food sovereignty: in different parts of the globe Indigenous communities enact nested sovereignties (Simpson 2014) through cooperative renewable energy projects, and urban communities tackle food poverty with community agroecology.

Whatever scale we look at, the question of sovereignty keeps reemerging in relation to the socioecological crisis, mobilized by actors from the left and the right in starkly different ways in a geopolitical context that sees neoliberal globalization in crisis. From this, two big questions emerge: What are the potential and limitations of sovereignty as a framing concept for socioecological transformations? And how does scale interact with the idea and enactment of sovereignty? This paper explores the potential and limitations of sovereignty as a liberatory concept, drawing on different case studies and offering a theoretical contribution to this increasingly relevant question in socioecological transformation debates.