Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates knowledge practices of civil society actors in the Rhineland’s coal mining region. While criticizing the political mode and concrete implementation of structural transition policies, their participatory approach transgresses institutionalized forms of representation.

Paper long abstract:

The current crisis of political representation is inextricably tied to the ongoing erosion of the narrative of modern progress. Since liberal democratic institutions depend on expectations of “growth” and “improvement”, they are fundamentally challenged by the temporal and spatial implications of the Anthropocene. These “clashes of scale” (T. H. Eriksen) are especially visible in Germany’s Rhineland region, where for a long time the coal industry stood for wealth and stability, but now faces closure – not, however, because of the accustomed “boom-and-bust” cycles of the global capitalist economy, but due to a political decision based on the industry’s material contribution to (visions of) ecological “doom”. This decision was negotiated in a federal government commission where the residents of the area around the coal mines were represented by a member of a local anti-coal initiative. My ethnographic research in this context focuses on a group of various critical civil society actors that assembled around this local commission member. Established around the ideal of participation beyond formal political institutions, this group of actors contests institutionalized knowledge production, which relies on technical solutions to tackle the problems of anthropogenic climate change. Their participatory knowledge practices – including regular discussion circles, educational forest walks, or the development of alternative concepts for the Rhineland’s future – constantly transgress official paths for civic participation in the impending process of “structural change”, while situating the global narrative of ecological crisis in embodied experience and creatively engaging local history for a more “down to earth” (B. Latour) approach.