IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envval/v33y2024i1p71-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

World-making technology entangled with coloniality, race and gender: Ecomodernist and degrowth perspectives

Author

Listed:
  • Susan Paulson

Abstract

Impelled by the intertwined expansion of capitalist institutions and fossil-fueled industry, human activity has made devastating impacts on ecosystems and earth systems. The colonial, class, racial, and gender systems that coevolved with these historical processes have long been critiqued for engineering exploitation and inequality. Yet the technologies with which these systems interact are widely portrayed as neutral and nonpartisan. This paper interrogates the purported independence of technology on two fronts. First, it uses a political ecology lens to illuminate some ways in which the generation and application of technology have been historically entangled with colonial, racial, and gender systems. Second, it considers how those entanglements have been variously obscured, acknowledged, depoliticized, and/or politicized in two realms of thought and practice: ecomodernism and degrowth. Conclusions call for bringing creative innovation of ecomodernism together with degrowth commitment to just social–ecological transformation.

Suggested Citation

  • Susan Paulson, 2024. "World-making technology entangled with coloniality, race and gender: Ecomodernist and degrowth perspectives," Environmental Values, , vol. 33(1), pages 71-89, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envval:v:33:y:2024:i:1:p:71-89
    DOI: 10.1177/09632719231209741
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09632719231209741
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09632719231209741?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Keary, 2016. "The New Prometheans: Technological Optimism in Climate Change Mitigation Modelling," Environmental Values, , vol. 25(1), pages 7-28, February.
    2. Viviana Asara & Emanuele Profumi & Giorgos Kallis, 2013. "Degrowth, Democracy and Autonomy," Environmental Values, , vol. 22(2), pages 217-239, April.
    3. Alonso-Fernández, Pablo & Regueiro-Ferreira, Rosa María, 2022. "Extractivism, ecologically unequal exchange and environmental impact in South America: A study using Material Flow Analysis (1990–2017)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    4. Hickel, Jason, 2021. "The anti-colonial politics of degrowth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110918, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Jason Hickel & Giorgos Kallis, 2020. "Is Green Growth Possible?," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 469-486, June.
    6. David Schlosberg & Karin Bäckstrand & Jonathan Pickering, 2019. "Reconciling Ecological and Democratic Values: Recent Perspectives on Ecological Democracy1," Environmental Values, , vol. 28(1), pages 1-8, February.
    7. Cindy Isenhour, 2016. "Unearthing human progress? Ecomodernism and contrasting definitions of technological progress in the Anthropocene," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 315-328, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seth Schindler & J Miguel Kanai & Javier Diaz Bay, 2023. "Deindustrialisation and the politics of subordinate degrowth: The case of Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(7), pages 1212-1230, May.
    2. Tironi, Martín & Rivera Lisboa, Diego Ignacio, 2023. "Artificial intelligence in the new forms of environmental governance in the Chilean State: Towards an eco-algorithmic governance," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Steffen Dalsgaard, 2022. "Can IT Resolve the Climate Crisis? Sketching the Role of an Anthropology of Digital Technology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-17, May.
    4. Gray, Ian & Barral, Stephanie, 2021. "A (rapid) climate audit of economic sociology," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 22(3), pages 4-9.
    5. Castro, Damaris & Bleys, Brent, 2023. "Do people think they have enough? A subjective income sufficiency assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    6. Huwe, Vera & Steitz, Janek & Sigl-Glöckner, Philippa, 2022. "Kommunale Klimaschutzinvestitionen und deren Finanzierung: Eine Fallstudienanalyse," Papers 277902, Dezernat Zukunft - Institute for Macrofinance, Berlin.
    7. Crettez, Bertrand & Hayek, Naila & Zaccour, Georges, 2023. "When is frugality optimal?," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 65-75.
    8. Maiti, Moinak, 2022. "Does development in venture capital investments influence green growth?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    9. Savin, Ivan & Drews, Stefan & van den Bergh, Jeroen, 2021. "Free associations of citizens and scientists with economic and green growth: A computational-linguistics analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    10. Thomas SJ Smith, 2023. "Mapping complexity in deglobalisation: A typology of economic localisms from ‘hyper-localism’ to ‘strategic autonomy’," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 38(3), pages 242-263, May.
    11. Yahya, Farzan & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2023. "Disentangling the asymmetric effect of financialization on the green output gap," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    12. Marco Capasso, 2021. "Degrowth or Green Growth: A Reflection on the Recent Public Discourse in Norway," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-15, January.
    13. García-García, Pablo & Buendía, Luis & Carpintero, Óscar, 2022. "Welfare regimes as enablers of just energy transitions: Revisiting and testing the hypothesis of synergy for Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    14. Tallgauer, Maximilian & Schank, Christoph, 2024. "Challenging the growth-prosperity Nexus: Redefining undergraduate economics education for the Anthropocene," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    15. Asma Awan & Sidra Nawaz, 2022. "Towards Green Growth: Monitoring Progress and Investigating Its Determinants in South Asia," Journal of Economic Impact, Science Impact Publishers, vol. 4(3), pages 252-264.
    16. Gräbner-Radkowitsch, Claudius & Strunk, Birte, 2023. "Degrowth and the Global South: The twin problem of global dependencies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    17. Florian Ahrens & Johann Land & Susan Krumdieck, 2022. "Decarbonization of Nitrogen Fertilizer: A Transition Engineering Desk Study for Agriculture in Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-24, July.
    18. Semieniuk, Gregor, 2024. "Inconsistent definitions of GDP: Implications for estimates of decoupling," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    19. Ofori, Isaac K. & Gbolonyo, Emmanuel Y. & Ojong, Nathanael, 2022. "Foreign Direct Investment and Inclusive Green Growth in Africa: Energy Efficiency Contingencies and Thresholds," MPRA Paper 115379, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Nov 2022.
    20. Warlenius, Rikard Hjorth, 2023. "The limits to degrowth: Economic and climatic consequences of pessimist assumptions on decoupling," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envval:v:33:y:2024:i:1:p:71-89. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.