. Books Received. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 291-293.

Employing the case of theredwood Headwaters forest in rural NorthernCalifornia, this paper investigates the extentto which an anti-corporate progressive alliancebetween labor and the environmental movement ispossible in contemporary global capitalism.Progressive alliances between labor and theenvironmental movement have been historicallydifficult. This has been particularly the casein the timber industry, where companies havebeen able to mobilize workers againstenvironmentalists' designs. The caseillustrates the events that led to the purchaseof the Headwaters Forest by the state ofCalifornia and the Federal Government fromPacific Lumber. This is (...) a subsidiary of Maxxam,a corporation with interests in a variety ofeconomic sectors. The objective was to haltMaxxam's rampant deforestation of old growthredwood. Though conflict between labor andenvironmentalists existed, the casedemonstrates that the labor and theenvironmental movement were united againstMaxxam. They, however, were not completelysuccessful in their struggle as Maxxam greatlybenefited from the state-sponsored landpurchase. Maxxam gained economically, was ableto shape the ideological framework throughwhich the purchasing agreement was achieved,and extended its hegemony over the state. Thisoutcome cast doubts on the possibility thatcurrent forms of environmental protection couldtranscend commodified and reductionistpostures. Simultaneously, the existence of acommon anti-corporate consciousness among largesegments of labor and the environmentalmovement makes the environment a contestedterrain and allows for some optimism about thefuture of the struggle for ecologically soundsocial arrangements. (shrink)

When is the future? Is it to come or is it already here? This question serves as the frame for three further questions: why is utopia a bad concept and in what way is fabulation its superior counterpart? If the object of fabulation is the creation of a people to come, how do we get from the present to the future? And what is a people to come? The answers are that the future is both now and to come, now (...) as the becoming-revolutionary of our present and to come as the goal of our becoming; utopia is a bad concept because it posits a pre-formed blueprint of the future, whereas a genuinely creative future has no predetermined shape and fabulation is the means whereby a creative future may be generated; the movement from the revolutionary present toward a people to come proceeds via the protocol, which provides reference points for an experiment which exceeds our capacities to foresee; a people to come is a collectivity that reconfigures group relations in a polity superior to the present, but it is not a utopian collectivity without differences, conflicts and political issues. Science fiction formulates protocols of the politics of a people to come, and Octavia Butler's science fiction is especially valuable in disclosing the relationship between fabulation and the invention of a people to come. (shrink)

Exposing food violences – hunger,malnutrition, and poisoning from environmentalmismanagement – requires policy action thatconfronts the structured invisibility of theseviolences. Along with the hidden deprivation offood is the physical and political isolation ofcritical knowledge on food violences and needs,and for policy strategies to address them. Iargue that efforts dedicated on behalf of ahuman right to food can benefit from thetheoretical analysis and activist work of theinternational Women's Rights are Human Rights(WRHR) movement. WRHR focuses on women andgirls; the food rights movement operates (...) onbehalf of all people, with an emphasis on thepoor. Both attend to the protection of bodilyintegrity against physical and psychicviolences. Both cope with bodily violences thatare socially privatized and spatiallysegregated from public institutions of relief,that is, they are tacitly omitted from publicdiscourse and purview. Most typically, but notexclusively, these violences unfold in privatehousehold space. Both rights movements mustmobilize political rights to demand economicand social rights and security. I introduce theUnited Nations' early Declaration (1948) andCovenant (1966) language on the human right tofood and review problems of household accessand grassroots engagement that are ``writteninto'' this early documentation. An abbreviatedoverview of the WRHR movement describes how thepublic/private and economic/political rightsdichotomies have been critiqued andre-formulated. A case study set in Polandacross the transition from (more) communist to(more) capitalist political economies attemptsto illuminate the discussion through agrounded example. (shrink)

In recent years, feelings such as melancholia, paranoia, despair and political depression have been deemed distinctive political moods, also within critical theories. This, the author argues, is the affective landscape for understanding and situating new materialist endeavours. As much as new materialist approaches have been praised and even celebrated lately, they have also provoked highly controversial reactions and evoked questions, such as: Why a new materialism, why at this historical moment? And what is so attractive about this material turn? In (...) this article, the author argues that new materialist approaches seek to oppose the contemporary affective condition of political depression, despair and hopelessness by desiring and mobilizing to achieve a different political future, one that ultimately relates to care and commonality as well as to modes and modalities of political agency. However, while new materialist approaches doubtlessly provide engaged and powerful inventions and interventions within contemporary struggles for agency, the author also demonstrates the risk of depoliticization inherent in this longing for something different, which can ultimately even compromise opening up possibilities for agency. This article, thus, aims to discuss new materialist concerns within the context of contemporary political and theoretical landscapes in order to better decipher the new materialist signals of our times, but also to critically push further the possibilities for political agency within feminist theory, at times even against all odds. (shrink)

Daniel Bensaïd was a Marxist philosopher and author of an extensive body of works about political strategy. His writings combine a diversity of singular influences, such as Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Che Guevara on the one hand, and Benjamin, Péguy and Blanqui on the other. In his work, religious heresies, Marranos, moles and emblematic figures of the resistance to oppression such as Joan of Arc meet with the classic figures of Marxism. The non-linear concept of time and messianic reason support (...) a strategic reading of history and an understanding of political commitment, following Goldmann’s interpretation of Pascal’s Wager as a wager of uncertain outcome. (shrink)

The protracted history of consuming carbon-based energy sources in Iran culminated in 1908 with the momentous discovery of the inaugural oil field in Masjed Soleyman. This newfound carbon-based source not only brought a lot of revenues to Iran but also, brought forth a multitude of materialities like pipelines, roads, bridges, refinery factories, tankers, and rigs into Iran. This new materiality exerted a profound influence on the perception and imagination of Iranians, particularly Iranian artists. Consequently, carbon permeated diverse manifestations within Iranian (...) artworks assuming various artistic approaches; in other words, carbon was inevitably introduced into aesthetics. Serendipitously, the ascension of Reza Shah Pahlavi to power in Iran almost coincided with the discovery of oil. Reza Shah and his successor, Mohammadreza Shah, sought to position themselves as a novel international force governing a "developed" nation for which they needed to lubricate the production-consumption cycle in Iran. To achieve this objective, they championed extensive governmental propagandas that celebrated carbon-based consumerism, and with that, they introduced aesthetics into carbon. Drawing inspiration from Walter Benjamin's notions “politicizing aesthetic” and “aestheticizing politics” and insisting that in Iran, oil/carbon is politics, this paper aims to historicize the process of carbonization of aesthetics in Iranian art realm on the one hand, and aestheticization of carbon in governmental propaganda on the other hand. This paper focuses on visual ideologies in visual artworks, including architecture, painting, and sculpture in the artwork realm and postal stamps, postcards, and paper moneys, on the other hand. (shrink)

Discourse on benefit provision has long been a point of contention within political rhetoric. Although research has demonstrated the damaging impact that welfare cuts have had on people with disabilities, there has been a focus on the material impact of the deprivation such cuts have caused. In the context of welfare, mental health has received little attention in the research literature, often contextualised within the wider remit of disability, with little regard for the nuances of distress. There is a need (...) to consider this in the context of discourse, exploring issues of subjectivity, identity, power relationships and economic concerns. The first empirical study discursively explored how newspapers represent and position mental illness in regard to claiming benefits, neoliberal practices and the capitalist political economy. In ’Shame, Tragedy and the Neoliberal Ideal’. the social and political function of shame as a response to neoliberalism was explored. ‘Class and Classlessness’ explored how discourses of shame were deployed in regard to class and their implications for identity, citizenship and selfhood. The second empirical study discursively explored how mental health service-users who claim benefits negotiate identities and construct accounts of accessing the benefits system. A discourse of malign surveillance in the benefits system was explored, considering issues of deviance and social control. A discourse of ‘Consumerism and Alienation: A Breakdown in Society’ was also explored, where participants positioned themselves as ‘distanced’ and ‘outside’ of ‘human’. The data from both empirical studies were analysed using an innovative discursive method that was developed to engage with the ideas of both Foucault and Marx. The legitimisation of taken-for-granted assumptions regarding those with mental health difficulties who claim benefits was interrogated in a critically geared manner, whilst opening up spaces for empowerment, resistance, and social change. The thesis produces new knowledge regarding the interdiscursive relationship between disability and distress in the context of the welfare system, whilst exploring the potential of innovative and nuanced discursive methods. (shrink)

One of the challenges that liberal neutrality faces in diverse societies is how to maintain neutrality towards conception of the good life, when establishment of a particular conception of the good and exclusion of other conceptions is inevitable, as in the case of language regulation. A possible solution is to justify this establishment by appealing to universal reasons, thus refraining from endorsing the intrinsic value of the established conception. This paper argues that such a solution is limited, as it does (...) not cover all inevitable-establishment domains. This is because there is a distinction within inevitable-establishment domains: domains in which rival options can coexist, such as language policy, and domains in which options are mutually exclusive, such as land-use policy. The paper argues that language policy is a coexistence domain, since it allows for a degree of personal agency, and it can refrain from making value judgments about the language that is endorsed by the state. Spatial organization and land-use policy, on the other hand, must rest on value judgments about the good life and cannot accommodate neutral justifications. The distinction has important implications for the scope of neutrality: neutrality turns out to be applicable in coexistence domains, and inapplicable in mutually-exclusive domains. Ultimately, it may be the case that neutrality may not be applicable even in language policy, since language policy exhibits characteristics of a mutually-exclusive domain. (shrink)

This study is an intervention in postcolonial theorising through a critique of technologies of representation. It examines the effects of technologically-mediated representation in a postcolonial condition that the Philippines has exemplified. New media technologies are mechanisms of representations that embody the logic of spectrality presented in Jacques Derrida’s later work. Spectrality, which brings doubts, ephemerality, and instability to dominant discourses and modes of representation, provides a chance for change.Spectres are effects of technologically-mediated representation that articulate the infinite demand for justice (...) under conditions of enduring inequality. As quasi-transcendental elements of deconstruction, spectres are not reducible to either human or technical intervention; they express the relation of humans to technologies, in which representation is central to the mediation of political authority. This technological representation is the condition of what Derrida calls “iteration,” or the transformation of hegemonic authority through the very repetition of its fundamental terms of identification. The examination of emancipatory new media technologies in a postcolonial condition is inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, in his deconstructive reading of Marx’s spectres. However, the writings of Habermas and Adorno have offered an implicit appraisal of the ontology of spectres. Habermas’s theory of the public sphere and Adorno’s negative dialectics are discourses that unwittingly solicit spectres. The account of the postcolonial condition in the Philippines works through the questions of universality, subalternity, and the right to theory that are raised by the project of Western critical theory. (shrink)

The phenomenon of the proliferation of holiday homes, particularly in remote and isolated areas, has provoked widespread concern regarding the fate of the indigenous rural community. The central concern of this thesis is to investigate how the rural community is adapting to the presence of the outsider as both a temporary and permanent resident, by examining the interaction between local and outsider resident in order to get a sense of the dynamics involved in the restructuring of the rural community. The (...) study approached this central problematic, by looking at how rural space is being socially constructed as a result of this interaction, and how rural space is determining the dynamic involved in this interaction. The two rural villages which were chosen for this study, are located in regions of unique cultural and historical interest: Dunfarraig in the Burren region in the west of Ireland, and Gireux in the Cathar region in the south of France. Despite their empirical similarities, these villages have demonstrated quite different responses to the presence of the outsider, which has become apparent through a comparative analysis of the way in which concepts such as ‘community membership’ are played out in either context. The central findings of this research, has been to show how the landscapes of Dunfarraig and Gireux are being symbolically constructed as ‘suburban’ through the social practices of its residents, taking an abstract or social form in the French context, and a material form in the Irish context. Further, how these practices are appealing to a vocabulary of ‘suburbia’, located in the suburban imaginary of residents. These findings of ‘suburbia’ are premised on the theory that residents are constructing a view of the physical landscape for private consumption in the Irish context, and a view of the social landscape, for private consumption in the French context. However, the thesis ultimately defends the rural character of these two villages, maintaining that this interpretation of the ‘suburban imaginary’ is one way of understanding the complexity of these social practices. (shrink)