Lectures & Seminars Anthropology &
Sustainability
Week 1 Introduction: Anthropology and Sustainability
Lecture 6/2/23
No one meaning of sustainability
Fault lines= misunderstandings, spaces where different conceptions negotiate,
crash, or develop
Working with the multiplicity is much more effective, because that is how the world
works
Plan
● What is sustainability?
● Origins & institutionalization of sustainability
● Fault lines of sustainability
● Anthropological perspective
WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY?
The blind men and the elephant= blind men are touching the body of the elephant.
What they can describe is only what they can touch, because they can;’t see the
whole. Someone who touches the tail says it's a rope, the back a brush.
Experts on plastic waste, experts on industrial agriculture, but do we have a
conversation across? Does sustainability unify or bring together? often, it is not the
case.
,Reminder: How do projects of sustainability affect people in ordinary life in different
parts of the world?
Anthropological ideas travel, are translated and mistranslated. Be aware of different
actors that have different voices and powers, who has the authority to speak/be an
expert? Related to how knowledge about sustainability is produced.
Anthropology: studying everyday linking to bigger schemes
Not:
What is sustainability?
But:
What do we really talk about when we talk about sustainability?
Rather than give a firm definition, we talk about sustainability in terms of different
knowledge, actors and scales.
,2 Dominant discourses into which all ideas about sustainability can be attached to
1.
Sustainability as..
● Sustainability - sustaining the status quo over time
- short term
- technological fixes
- weak sustainability → doublethink
What is the status quo?
- The ideologies of progress and development/capitalism (growth/profit)
Sustainable mining
Clean energy (electric cars)
Technological solutions (fixes)
- cannot be universalised
- displacing problems (e.g recycling)
→ poor countries become dumping ground for our pollution
2.
Sustainability as..
● Sustainability - the capacity to pass on a liveable earth to future generations
- long-term
→ intergenerational responsibility
- systemic change (degrowth. decarbonisation)
, - ‘strong’ sustainability
Can you have a democratic systemic change or is it top-down imposed?
ORIGINS & INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF SUSTAINABILITY
Post WWII
From 1950s → accelerated change= overheating (T.H Eriksen)
Sustainability
Week 1 Introduction: Anthropology and Sustainability
Lecture 6/2/23
No one meaning of sustainability
Fault lines= misunderstandings, spaces where different conceptions negotiate,
crash, or develop
Working with the multiplicity is much more effective, because that is how the world
works
Plan
● What is sustainability?
● Origins & institutionalization of sustainability
● Fault lines of sustainability
● Anthropological perspective
WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY?
The blind men and the elephant= blind men are touching the body of the elephant.
What they can describe is only what they can touch, because they can;’t see the
whole. Someone who touches the tail says it's a rope, the back a brush.
Experts on plastic waste, experts on industrial agriculture, but do we have a
conversation across? Does sustainability unify or bring together? often, it is not the
case.
,Reminder: How do projects of sustainability affect people in ordinary life in different
parts of the world?
Anthropological ideas travel, are translated and mistranslated. Be aware of different
actors that have different voices and powers, who has the authority to speak/be an
expert? Related to how knowledge about sustainability is produced.
Anthropology: studying everyday linking to bigger schemes
Not:
What is sustainability?
But:
What do we really talk about when we talk about sustainability?
Rather than give a firm definition, we talk about sustainability in terms of different
knowledge, actors and scales.
,2 Dominant discourses into which all ideas about sustainability can be attached to
1.
Sustainability as..
● Sustainability - sustaining the status quo over time
- short term
- technological fixes
- weak sustainability → doublethink
What is the status quo?
- The ideologies of progress and development/capitalism (growth/profit)
Sustainable mining
Clean energy (electric cars)
Technological solutions (fixes)
- cannot be universalised
- displacing problems (e.g recycling)
→ poor countries become dumping ground for our pollution
2.
Sustainability as..
● Sustainability - the capacity to pass on a liveable earth to future generations
- long-term
→ intergenerational responsibility
- systemic change (degrowth. decarbonisation)
, - ‘strong’ sustainability
Can you have a democratic systemic change or is it top-down imposed?
ORIGINS & INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF SUSTAINABILITY
Post WWII
From 1950s → accelerated change= overheating (T.H Eriksen)
