Environment and Planning A: Economy and space, 2017
Putting climate neutrality on the urban agenda inevitably requires a re-imagination and delineati... more Putting climate neutrality on the urban agenda inevitably requires a re-imagination and delineation of the boundaries of the city, both at the geographical level, with regard to its inscription in history and concerning the social groups it is composed of. Such an exercise of (re-)imagination or representation is a profoundly political act. It is on the level of this symbolic representation that the (de)politicised nature of sustainability projects must be assessed. LKN2030, a project which aims to make the city of Leuven (Belgium) carbon neutral by 2030, is a case in point. The way it delineates its spatial boundaries, inscribes itself in time and conceives of the main actors representing the city generates profound forms of depoliticisation. Our contention is that these can explain some of the obstacles the project currently faces, whereas it initially triggered a lot of enthusiasm. Though mechanisms of in-and exclusion and agenda-setting inevitably take place in every sustainability project, in LKN2030 these choices tend to be neutralised behind a technical, managerial and scientific discourse. As a result, the project risks to translate potentially interesting dynamics into a consensual project for urban renewal and city marketing, whereby sustainability goals are reframed into marketing objectives and economic opportunities. Drawing on post-foundational political theory, this paper assesses this evolution, but also explores the potential of forms of repoliticisation that are emerging in its wake. 'Rather than seeing the climate challenge only as a burden, Leuven has all interest in considering it as a unique opportunity.'
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 2019
In this paper, we draw on our personal experiences with the perpetuating gender bias in (early-ca... more In this paper, we draw on our personal experiences with the perpetuating gender bias in (early-career) academia, more specifically within geography. We develop two main arguments. First, we argue that everyday academic practices stand in sharp contrast with the critical content geography, as a discipline, aims to study and teach - including its feminist, anti-colonial, and queer understandings. Strikingly, geography as a field does not seem able to apply its academic insights into its internal organisation. Indeed, everyday academic practices within geography reproduce structural gendered inequalities. Consequently, geography reproduces the historical ‘maleness’ of the discipline, both in terms of who embodies it and through the methods and topics it focuses on. Second, we reflect on the strategies we develop to denounce and alter the unjust practices we are confronted with. Yet, these strategies reveal the double bind early career women face, as these very strategies may risk to undermine one’s own precarious position, or to give the skewed impression of reproducing the male, disembodied ideal we are fighting.
Moving beyond the post-political framing of the climate change debate, scholars have tried to sho... more Moving beyond the post-political framing of the climate change debate, scholars have tried to show that scientific practice is based on politically significant forms of social construction. While sympathizing with this attempt, this paper questions their use of the term ‘political’. Drawing on post-foundational political theory (Mouffe, Lefort) and focusing on the example of climate denialism, it argues that the relation between science and the political constitutes a double bind: while upholding an original distinction between science and the political is untenable, representing science in political terms is impossible, because of the specific way the scientific field is symbolically instituted.
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2019
Contemporary discourses on climate change have been analysed as profoundly depoliticised. At the ... more Contemporary discourses on climate change have been analysed as profoundly depoliticised. At the same time, this post-political thesis has been challenged for not taking the multiplicity of voices and actually existing forms of contestation into account. In this paper, I investigate the tension between these two positions and show that the existence of diverging voices and environmental struggles does not disprove the post-political thesis as such. I do this both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. Theoretically, the paper presents a rereading of post-foundational theory and its implications for dealing with climate change. Empirically, the paper is based on activist research in the Transition Towns and Climate Justice Action movements, which have variably been depicted as profoundly political and depoliticised. The paper argues that it is often overlooked that it is on the level of discourse or representation that the diagnosis of post-politics should be made. It is not reality as such which is post-political, but the way reality is portrayed and thereby constructed. On this basis I argue that post-politics is a real problem for grassroots climate movements and that the attempt to overcome it is not only a necessity but also a profound challenge for them.
Projecting win-win situations, new economic opportunities, green growth and innovative partnershi... more Projecting win-win situations, new economic opportunities, green growth and innovative partnerships, the green economy discourse has quickly gained centre stage in international environmental governance and policymaking. Its underlying message is attractive and optimistic: if the market can become the tool for tackling climate change and other major ecological crises, the fight against these crises can also be the royal road to solving the problems of the market. But how ‘green’ is the green economy? And how social or democratic can it be? This book examines how the emergence of this new discourse has fundamentally modified the terms of the environmental debate. Interpreting the rise of green economy discourse as an attempt to re-invent capitalism, it unravels the different dimensions of the green economy and its limits: from pricing carbon to emissions trading, from sustainable consumption to technological innovation. The book uses the innovative concept of post-politics to provide...
Coming to terms with recent insights concerning the (post-) political is a key challenge for tran... more Coming to terms with recent insights concerning the (post-) political is a key challenge for transition management. To start with, transition management understands the relation transition initiatives adopt towards existing regimes not in political, but in market terms. This impacts their internal processes, which are based on a deliberative notion of democracy, assuming the existence of a common good and misrecognizing the constitutive role of conflict. Moreover, transition management embraces a governance approach centring on public–private bodies which, in the name of bottom-up processes and participation, especially gives a voice to a privileged group of business, policy and civil society actors. Insofar as citizens get a place, it is merely in their role as consumers. Finally, as it is based on a market model itself, transition management fails to politicize one of the most fundamental current ‘landscape’ elements. The crucial question is how these features affect transition management's possibilities to contribute to effective and democratic sustainable change.
Grassroots environmental movements have recently started to question the focus on sustainable con... more Grassroots environmental movements have recently started to question the focus on sustainable consumption as a main strategy to tackle climate change. They prefer to address individuals as citizens rather than as consumers, and focus on collective rather than individual change. Two prominent movements in this regard are Transition Towns and Climate Justice Action. While both movements criticise conventional approaches, they put forward entirely different strategies for what has to happen instead. Based on extensive qualitative research, I analyse how these movements manifest themselves in Flanders (Belgium). The focus is on their different accounts of how and why collective practices have to be built, and the place they attribute to 'the political' in this. The analysis reveals the existence of two different forms of ecological citizenship: one communitarian, the other agonistic.
Situating the ‘post-ecologist turn’ within the framework of post-politics, we not only investigat... more Situating the ‘post-ecologist turn’ within the framework of post-politics, we not only investigate why environmental issues are so easily represented in consensual and technocratic terms, but also seek avenues for repoliticisation. We thereby try to avoid the pitfall of a voluntaristic or substantively normative approach to what repoliticisation can mean. By pointing to the subtle polemic on a meta-level which lurks beneath even the most consensual discourse, a potential starting point for repoliticisation is uncovered, which also enables a political rereading of the ‘post-ecologist turn’. Finally, we argue that the same characteristics that make the environmental question liable to depoliticisation can also turn it into a field of politicisation par excellence.
The ‘Green Economy’ is fast becoming the new alpha and omega for many policy makers, corporations... more The ‘Green Economy’ is fast becoming the new alpha and omega for many policy makers, corporations, political actors and NGO’s who want to tackle both the environmental and economic crisis at once. Or would it be better to speak about ‘green capitalism’? Going green is not only important in the fight against environmental destruction, it also makes a country “stronger, healthier, safer, more innovative, competitive and respected”, argues Thomas Friedman, the well-known New York Times columnist. “Is there anything that is more patriotic, capitalist and geostrategic than this?” Indeed, the rationale underlying the nascent project of the Green Economy is that if the market could become the instrument for tackling the environmental crisis, the fight against this crisis could be the royal road to solving the problems of the market. Focusing in particular on the Green Economy’s impact on climate change, this paper analyses the Green Economy as a hegemonic project that tries to retranslate environmental concerns into a new jargon, and to turn environmental conflict into a new motor for economic development.
As a reaction against global problems such as climate change and peak oil, localisation movements... more As a reaction against global problems such as climate change and peak oil, localisation movements gathered renewed momentum during the last decade. Prominent amongst these is Transition Towns, a movement which advocates the development of resilient local communities to deal with these challenges in an adequate way. On the basis of extensive qualitative research of the movement’s rise in Flanders (Belgium), this article studies the way Transition Towns represents the local. It shows that the movement is vulnerable for what has been called the ‘local trap’, and argues that the latter should actually be conceived as a post-political trap. The representation of the local is depoliticised when it conceals the fact that it is always a hegemonic construction which inevitably entails exclusions and the exercise of power. Drawing on post-foundational political theory, this article not only provides a novel interpretation of Transition Towns, but also aims to recast the ongoing localisation debate by showing that post-politics represents a fundamental problem for it. At the same time, however, the political can never be completely abolished, but always comes back with a vengeance. This ambiguity and complexity are central to this article’s analysis of how Transition Towns deals with the local and the political.
Several scholars have criticized the predominant post-political representations of our current er... more Several scholars have criticized the predominant post-political representations of our current era, particularly with regard to climate change. However, what happens when a movement explicitly aims at repoliticizing the present in an attempt to open a space for change? Combining scholar activism with theoretical insights from post-foundational political theorists, such as Jacques Rancière, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, this paper studies the paradoxical nature of the attempt to repoliticize climate change by Climate Justice Action (CJA), a grassroots movement that was set up before the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009. Comparing different repoliticization strategies, the paper shows how CJA exhibits core features of a Rancièrian political act, which makes visible what was previously invisible by starting from the postulate of equality. However, lacking an elaborate perspective on alternatives, both Rancière and CJA appear to be stuck in the present. Drawing on Mouffe and Laclau’s discourse theory, the paper subsequently analyzes the nodal points of CJA’s discourse that could function as inscription points for alternatives. Yet, these points appear to primarily intensify a we/them distinction. The result is a paradox: to create a space for imagining alternative futures, one must first fight post-political representations of the present. However, when politicization becomes an end in itself, the outreach of the movement, and therefore its capacity to repoliticize and stimulate the imagination of alternative futures, is constrained.
Individual behaviour change is fast becoming a kind of ‘holy grail’ to tackle climate change, in ... more Individual behaviour change is fast becoming a kind of ‘holy grail’ to tackle climate change, in environmental policy, the environmental movement and academic literature. This is contested by those who claim that social structures are the main problem and who advocate collective social action. The objective of the research presented in this paper is to better understand why environmentally concerned citizens choose one of these two types of engagement. Our focus is on the role of experiences of and/or convictions about power in shaping this choice. Within the framework of an explorative qualitative study, we engaged in in-depth interviews with twelve young environmentally concerned citizens. On this basis, five main findings are elaborated. Firstly, powerlessness is shown to be a crucial experience, whatever the respondents’ engagement. Secondly, ‘strategy scepticism’ seems to be a more important obstacle for engagement than ‘climate scepticism’. Thirdly, many respondents express significant resistance towards being ‘conditioned’ by awareness raising campaigns. Fourthly, a ‘gap’ is observed between respondents’ analysis and their strategy proposals. Finally, we underscore another important gap between concrete and abstract levels in respondents’ discourses. All these findings disclose paradoxical aspects of the role of power in shaping concerned citizens’ engaged choices.
Environment and Planning A: Economy and space, 2017
Putting climate neutrality on the urban agenda inevitably requires a re-imagination and delineati... more Putting climate neutrality on the urban agenda inevitably requires a re-imagination and delineation of the boundaries of the city, both at the geographical level, with regard to its inscription in history and concerning the social groups it is composed of. Such an exercise of (re-)imagination or representation is a profoundly political act. It is on the level of this symbolic representation that the (de)politicised nature of sustainability projects must be assessed. LKN2030, a project which aims to make the city of Leuven (Belgium) carbon neutral by 2030, is a case in point. The way it delineates its spatial boundaries, inscribes itself in time and conceives of the main actors representing the city generates profound forms of depoliticisation. Our contention is that these can explain some of the obstacles the project currently faces, whereas it initially triggered a lot of enthusiasm. Though mechanisms of in-and exclusion and agenda-setting inevitably take place in every sustainability project, in LKN2030 these choices tend to be neutralised behind a technical, managerial and scientific discourse. As a result, the project risks to translate potentially interesting dynamics into a consensual project for urban renewal and city marketing, whereby sustainability goals are reframed into marketing objectives and economic opportunities. Drawing on post-foundational political theory, this paper assesses this evolution, but also explores the potential of forms of repoliticisation that are emerging in its wake. 'Rather than seeing the climate challenge only as a burden, Leuven has all interest in considering it as a unique opportunity.'
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 2019
In this paper, we draw on our personal experiences with the perpetuating gender bias in (early-ca... more In this paper, we draw on our personal experiences with the perpetuating gender bias in (early-career) academia, more specifically within geography. We develop two main arguments. First, we argue that everyday academic practices stand in sharp contrast with the critical content geography, as a discipline, aims to study and teach - including its feminist, anti-colonial, and queer understandings. Strikingly, geography as a field does not seem able to apply its academic insights into its internal organisation. Indeed, everyday academic practices within geography reproduce structural gendered inequalities. Consequently, geography reproduces the historical ‘maleness’ of the discipline, both in terms of who embodies it and through the methods and topics it focuses on. Second, we reflect on the strategies we develop to denounce and alter the unjust practices we are confronted with. Yet, these strategies reveal the double bind early career women face, as these very strategies may risk to undermine one’s own precarious position, or to give the skewed impression of reproducing the male, disembodied ideal we are fighting.
Moving beyond the post-political framing of the climate change debate, scholars have tried to sho... more Moving beyond the post-political framing of the climate change debate, scholars have tried to show that scientific practice is based on politically significant forms of social construction. While sympathizing with this attempt, this paper questions their use of the term ‘political’. Drawing on post-foundational political theory (Mouffe, Lefort) and focusing on the example of climate denialism, it argues that the relation between science and the political constitutes a double bind: while upholding an original distinction between science and the political is untenable, representing science in political terms is impossible, because of the specific way the scientific field is symbolically instituted.
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2019
Contemporary discourses on climate change have been analysed as profoundly depoliticised. At the ... more Contemporary discourses on climate change have been analysed as profoundly depoliticised. At the same time, this post-political thesis has been challenged for not taking the multiplicity of voices and actually existing forms of contestation into account. In this paper, I investigate the tension between these two positions and show that the existence of diverging voices and environmental struggles does not disprove the post-political thesis as such. I do this both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. Theoretically, the paper presents a rereading of post-foundational theory and its implications for dealing with climate change. Empirically, the paper is based on activist research in the Transition Towns and Climate Justice Action movements, which have variably been depicted as profoundly political and depoliticised. The paper argues that it is often overlooked that it is on the level of discourse or representation that the diagnosis of post-politics should be made. It is not reality as such which is post-political, but the way reality is portrayed and thereby constructed. On this basis I argue that post-politics is a real problem for grassroots climate movements and that the attempt to overcome it is not only a necessity but also a profound challenge for them.
Projecting win-win situations, new economic opportunities, green growth and innovative partnershi... more Projecting win-win situations, new economic opportunities, green growth and innovative partnerships, the green economy discourse has quickly gained centre stage in international environmental governance and policymaking. Its underlying message is attractive and optimistic: if the market can become the tool for tackling climate change and other major ecological crises, the fight against these crises can also be the royal road to solving the problems of the market. But how ‘green’ is the green economy? And how social or democratic can it be? This book examines how the emergence of this new discourse has fundamentally modified the terms of the environmental debate. Interpreting the rise of green economy discourse as an attempt to re-invent capitalism, it unravels the different dimensions of the green economy and its limits: from pricing carbon to emissions trading, from sustainable consumption to technological innovation. The book uses the innovative concept of post-politics to provide...
Coming to terms with recent insights concerning the (post-) political is a key challenge for tran... more Coming to terms with recent insights concerning the (post-) political is a key challenge for transition management. To start with, transition management understands the relation transition initiatives adopt towards existing regimes not in political, but in market terms. This impacts their internal processes, which are based on a deliberative notion of democracy, assuming the existence of a common good and misrecognizing the constitutive role of conflict. Moreover, transition management embraces a governance approach centring on public–private bodies which, in the name of bottom-up processes and participation, especially gives a voice to a privileged group of business, policy and civil society actors. Insofar as citizens get a place, it is merely in their role as consumers. Finally, as it is based on a market model itself, transition management fails to politicize one of the most fundamental current ‘landscape’ elements. The crucial question is how these features affect transition management's possibilities to contribute to effective and democratic sustainable change.
Grassroots environmental movements have recently started to question the focus on sustainable con... more Grassroots environmental movements have recently started to question the focus on sustainable consumption as a main strategy to tackle climate change. They prefer to address individuals as citizens rather than as consumers, and focus on collective rather than individual change. Two prominent movements in this regard are Transition Towns and Climate Justice Action. While both movements criticise conventional approaches, they put forward entirely different strategies for what has to happen instead. Based on extensive qualitative research, I analyse how these movements manifest themselves in Flanders (Belgium). The focus is on their different accounts of how and why collective practices have to be built, and the place they attribute to 'the political' in this. The analysis reveals the existence of two different forms of ecological citizenship: one communitarian, the other agonistic.
Situating the ‘post-ecologist turn’ within the framework of post-politics, we not only investigat... more Situating the ‘post-ecologist turn’ within the framework of post-politics, we not only investigate why environmental issues are so easily represented in consensual and technocratic terms, but also seek avenues for repoliticisation. We thereby try to avoid the pitfall of a voluntaristic or substantively normative approach to what repoliticisation can mean. By pointing to the subtle polemic on a meta-level which lurks beneath even the most consensual discourse, a potential starting point for repoliticisation is uncovered, which also enables a political rereading of the ‘post-ecologist turn’. Finally, we argue that the same characteristics that make the environmental question liable to depoliticisation can also turn it into a field of politicisation par excellence.
The ‘Green Economy’ is fast becoming the new alpha and omega for many policy makers, corporations... more The ‘Green Economy’ is fast becoming the new alpha and omega for many policy makers, corporations, political actors and NGO’s who want to tackle both the environmental and economic crisis at once. Or would it be better to speak about ‘green capitalism’? Going green is not only important in the fight against environmental destruction, it also makes a country “stronger, healthier, safer, more innovative, competitive and respected”, argues Thomas Friedman, the well-known New York Times columnist. “Is there anything that is more patriotic, capitalist and geostrategic than this?” Indeed, the rationale underlying the nascent project of the Green Economy is that if the market could become the instrument for tackling the environmental crisis, the fight against this crisis could be the royal road to solving the problems of the market. Focusing in particular on the Green Economy’s impact on climate change, this paper analyses the Green Economy as a hegemonic project that tries to retranslate environmental concerns into a new jargon, and to turn environmental conflict into a new motor for economic development.
As a reaction against global problems such as climate change and peak oil, localisation movements... more As a reaction against global problems such as climate change and peak oil, localisation movements gathered renewed momentum during the last decade. Prominent amongst these is Transition Towns, a movement which advocates the development of resilient local communities to deal with these challenges in an adequate way. On the basis of extensive qualitative research of the movement’s rise in Flanders (Belgium), this article studies the way Transition Towns represents the local. It shows that the movement is vulnerable for what has been called the ‘local trap’, and argues that the latter should actually be conceived as a post-political trap. The representation of the local is depoliticised when it conceals the fact that it is always a hegemonic construction which inevitably entails exclusions and the exercise of power. Drawing on post-foundational political theory, this article not only provides a novel interpretation of Transition Towns, but also aims to recast the ongoing localisation debate by showing that post-politics represents a fundamental problem for it. At the same time, however, the political can never be completely abolished, but always comes back with a vengeance. This ambiguity and complexity are central to this article’s analysis of how Transition Towns deals with the local and the political.
Several scholars have criticized the predominant post-political representations of our current er... more Several scholars have criticized the predominant post-political representations of our current era, particularly with regard to climate change. However, what happens when a movement explicitly aims at repoliticizing the present in an attempt to open a space for change? Combining scholar activism with theoretical insights from post-foundational political theorists, such as Jacques Rancière, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, this paper studies the paradoxical nature of the attempt to repoliticize climate change by Climate Justice Action (CJA), a grassroots movement that was set up before the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009. Comparing different repoliticization strategies, the paper shows how CJA exhibits core features of a Rancièrian political act, which makes visible what was previously invisible by starting from the postulate of equality. However, lacking an elaborate perspective on alternatives, both Rancière and CJA appear to be stuck in the present. Drawing on Mouffe and Laclau’s discourse theory, the paper subsequently analyzes the nodal points of CJA’s discourse that could function as inscription points for alternatives. Yet, these points appear to primarily intensify a we/them distinction. The result is a paradox: to create a space for imagining alternative futures, one must first fight post-political representations of the present. However, when politicization becomes an end in itself, the outreach of the movement, and therefore its capacity to repoliticize and stimulate the imagination of alternative futures, is constrained.
Individual behaviour change is fast becoming a kind of ‘holy grail’ to tackle climate change, in ... more Individual behaviour change is fast becoming a kind of ‘holy grail’ to tackle climate change, in environmental policy, the environmental movement and academic literature. This is contested by those who claim that social structures are the main problem and who advocate collective social action. The objective of the research presented in this paper is to better understand why environmentally concerned citizens choose one of these two types of engagement. Our focus is on the role of experiences of and/or convictions about power in shaping this choice. Within the framework of an explorative qualitative study, we engaged in in-depth interviews with twelve young environmentally concerned citizens. On this basis, five main findings are elaborated. Firstly, powerlessness is shown to be a crucial experience, whatever the respondents’ engagement. Secondly, ‘strategy scepticism’ seems to be a more important obstacle for engagement than ‘climate scepticism’. Thirdly, many respondents express significant resistance towards being ‘conditioned’ by awareness raising campaigns. Fourthly, a ‘gap’ is observed between respondents’ analysis and their strategy proposals. Finally, we underscore another important gap between concrete and abstract levels in respondents’ discourses. All these findings disclose paradoxical aspects of the role of power in shaping concerned citizens’ engaged choices.
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Papers by Anneleen Kenis
liable to depoliticisation can also turn it into a field of politicisation par excellence.
liable to depoliticisation can also turn it into a field of politicisation par excellence.