Geographical knowledge and policy: the positive contribution of discourse studies

The 'discursive turn' has been blamed for a lack of engagement between geographers and policymakers. This paper argues that such a view is fundamentally flawed. It ignores the positive contribution that discourse analysis has made to policy studies and the particular role that geographers have played in developing such analyses. It is based on a misconceived view of the policy process and how knowledge can contribute to policy outcomes. A closer attention to policy discourses reveals exactly how knowledge is constructed within the policy process and can help identify how policy may be improved through discursive means.     

Representations of the future in English language blogs on climate change

This paper investigates how the notion of future is represented in a large corpus of English-language blogs related to climate change, with an overarching interest in exploring to what extent the perspectives of gloom-and-doom versus more positive perspectives of a sustainable society are represented. We address the following questions: (1) How are representations of the future expressed linguistically in public debates related to climate change? (2) What meanings do the representations convey? Our principal contribution is a set of nine meaning categories that characterize different representations of the future: the categories were derived by following a corpus-assisted discourse analysis approach. Within these categories, the large presence of characterisations related to sustainability, as well as frequent positive value-laden characterisations, are noteworthy. Representations reflect various perspectives of a future for humanity, for nature, and for countries as well as for economies. Further, we have found that when climate change is viewed as a threat, it is in relation to nature, humans and security, while it is seen as an opportunity for growth in business and industry. The results provide knowledge on how people conceive the possible impacts of global climate and environmental change within two broad perspectives of a “gloom-and-doom” versus a “bright” future. This may contribute to an improved basis for political decision making on measures in order to avoid dangerous consequences as well as to encourage engagement in the shift toward a low-carbon future.     

A discursive cartography of nationally determined contributions to the Paris climate agreement

The 2015 Paris Agreement was adopted in a geopolitical context that is very different from the post-Cold War era when the Climate Convention was negotiated. This new global climate deal responds to a more fragmented and multipolar world signified by the rise of major economies in the South. This paper examines the geopolitical landscape in which the Paris Agreement is enacted and implemented. We conduct a discursive analysis of the Nationally Determined Contributions submitted by parties to the Paris Agreement. We ask what policy discourses emerge in these national climate plans, which states cluster around them and how they compare to UNFCCC annex, geographical location, income group, and negotiation coalitions. Our findings suggest that liberal environmentalism retains a strong hold over the political imagination in the post-Paris landscape. However, we see points of diffraction and tensions that might give rise to conflict. While liberal environmentalism is only challenged in Nationally Determined Contributions from the global South, we conclude that conventional geopolitical patterns only partly explain the formation of discourse coalitions. In the Paris Agreement’s implementation stage discursive struggles are likely to become increasingly prominent. Discourse analysis facilitates understanding of disagreements on the Paris rulebook and the global stocktake.     

COMMODIFYING THE ATMOSPHERE: ‘PENNIES FROM HEAVEN’*?

The atmosphere may be the most valuable resource on Earth and is worth orders of magnitude more to society than it costs as a hazard. However, the atmosphere, and information about the atmosphere, are increasingly being transformed from being considered as part of a global commons to being conceived of as a global commodity to be bought and sold. There are three basic types of atmospheric commodity: firstly, the material atmosphere itself; secondly, the physical properties of the atmosphere; and thirdly, data or information or predictions about the atmosphere. The global expenditure on national meteorological and climatological services and research has now been surpassed by the value of new economic instruments such as weather derivatives and climate emissions trading. Atmospheric scientists, climatologists and physical geographers need to be critically aware of what the consequences, both positive and negative, of these developments for science and society might be. This is particularly the case as climate change is increasingly providing new discourses for companies and governments to exploit as the atmosphere becomes a tradable green resource. This paper attempts to construct an initial critical framework of analysis drawing from broader literatures on the commodification of nature.     

Sacred cows and thumping drums: claiming territory as 'zones of tradition' in British India

Theories that explain the origins of communal violence in South Asia often point to the discursive creation of the perception of distinct and adversarial Hindu and Muslim identity categories at the beginning of the twentieth century. This paper argues that these theories overemphasize imagined social differences without adequately considering how these boundaries were territorialized in everyday life through performative place-making practices. In order to fill this gap, 'zones of tradition', areas where religious or cultural practices are reified into official tradition, are suggested as one way of conceptualizing how group-making discourses are linked to places. As examples, the cow protection movement that campaigned to institute local bans on the slaughter of cattle and conflicts over Hindu processions playing music as they passed in front of mosques are considered. As these practices were contested, it is argued that zones of tradition were established across British India symbolically and tangibly dividing the territory before it was officially partitioned.     

后人文主义视角下的中国地缘政治话语研究

援引后人文主义地理学作为批判地缘政治学的一个延续,以《人民日报》纸媒和官方微博为例,采用NVivo分析和对比分析的方法探讨了“美国反恐”这个当代热点地缘政治话题在两个不同媒体空间被呈现的形式。基于后人文主义思潮对物质的关注,讨论了“人”及其地缘环境认知是否受“物质”(在文中具化为网络技术)影响而动摇其在理解“人地关系”过程中的支配地位。研究发现：一方面网络技术多线参与和呈指数型信息传播的特征使得网络空间出现了多元化的声音并最终呈现出多元和复杂的网络地缘政治景观;另一方面,网络技术迫使当代媒体追求“快”和“新”从而摒弃了传统媒体所强调的权威、真实和逻辑性,取而代之的是情绪化的话语表述,呼应了后人文主义地理学对人以外的要素的关注,讨论了网络技术作为一种物质要素对“人地关系”认知的影响。研究证实,受网络技术及其带来的信息革命的影响,它在一定程度上确实能够对具有主体性的人的地缘认识产生影响。     

Participatory Water Basin Councils in Peru and Brazil: Expert discourses as means and barriers to inclusion

In the last twenty years, participatory forums have been increasingly used to manage water basins around the world. The implementation of participatory forums has sought to prevent and overcome conflicts by bringing together a multiplicity of stakeholders in joint efforts to deliberate, achieve mutually agreed upon decisions, and distribute limited water resources. Different literature streams have evaluated the benefits and challenges of participatory forums in practice, such as the difficulties some forums have had when confronting existing power structures. Separately, research on water governance has paid particular attention to the ways in which expert discourses are used by traditionally powerful actors to exclude less powerful others. This paper draws from the literatures on participation and discourses in environmental governance to empirically investigate how expert discourses may empower or disempower certain actors in four basin councils – two in Peru and two in Brazil. Through qualitative thematic analysis of 116 interviews and observation notes, we specifically investigate the extent to which expert discourses in these basin councils help empower previously excluded actors. Our findings indicate stakeholder interests that are not, or cannot, be expressed within the frame of expert discourses are often marginalized. This suggests participation has made it possible for some previously excluded actors to have a voice, yet their potential influence is seemingly confined to a restricted space beyond which their voices will have little effect.     

Shifting approaches to slums in Chennai: Political coalitions,policy discourses and practices

Slums pose a persistent challenge for fast growing urban areas in the global South, despite several decades of policy intervention. While Chennai has adopted several strategies ranging from upgrading to reconstruction, the city has been unable to deliver its target of ‘clearing’ slum settlements. Through an analysis of four enumeration reports and a look at the evolving political contexts and subsequent practices, we illustrate the evolution of slum policy approaches in Chennai since the 1970s. The analysis shows slum practices in Chennai continue to be characterized by an underlying continuity, with relocation as the dominant mode of operation since the nineties. However, approaches to slums have also evolved from paternalistic socialism with in‐situ development in the seventies, to approaches characterized by affordability and cost recovery in the eighties, to the aesthetics of global cities in the nineties, to the technology driven, to slum‐free ‘smart city’ discourse currently in vogue.