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Abstract
Pacifism is the view that necessarily, the nonconsensual physical harming of pro tanto rights-bearers is all-things-considered morally impermissible. Critics of pacifism frequently point to common moral intuitions about self-defenders and other-defenders as evidence that pacifism is false and that self- and other-defense are often morally justified. I call this the Justification View and defend its rival, the Excuse View. According to the latter, a robust view of moral excuse adequately explains the common moral intuitions invoked against pacifism and is compatible with pacifism. The paper proceeds in five steps. First, I identify ten intuitive data points that require explanation. Second, I introduce the justification/excuse distinction. Third, I demonstrate the Excuse View’s equal explanatory power with respect to the intuitive data. Fourth, I defend the Fair Use Principle: When evaluating the plausibility of rival theories J and E, the use of datum d’s full intuitive force against E and for J is epistemically permissible only if (i) d is better explained by J than E and (ii) no intuitive components of d are equally well-explained by E. Finally, I conclude that the conjunction of pacifism and the Excuse View renders the intuitive defense of the Justification View largely moot, and that this is a substantial victory for pacifism.
Abstract
Green technologies designed to mitigate climate change through renewable energy and zero-emissions transportation currently depend on lithium-ion batteries, which require ‘critical materials’. Like nickel, graphite, manganese and cobalt, lithium is a key component of batteries that store energy for electric vehicles, smart devices and renewable power plants. Although lithium is present all over the globe, one of the main commercial lithium reserves is in the Puna de Atacama, a desert region at the borders of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Resulting from a collaborative study for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Plurinational Observatory of Andean Salt Flats, this chapter examines how the reliance on brine evaporation as an extraction method for lithium mining exacerbates conditions of ecological ‘exhaustion’ in the Puna de Atacama. The study is based on ethnographic and historical research primarily conducted in Chile with environmental activists, Indigenous leaders, scientists and policy practitioners. Furthering the concept of ‘alterlives’ to examine not only exposure to downstream chemicals but also the in situ alteration of life at mining sites upstream in the chemical supply chain, the chapter analyses environmental injustices inherent to green extractivism across multiple scales. It considers under what conditions Indigenous and local participation may contribute new models and standards for monitoring and offers policy recommendations to prevent further social harm and environmental damage.
Abstract
Suriname was one of the first countries in the global South to produce aluminium. The establishment of this industry, including the hydroelectric dam that was meant to power it, was the key idea upon which Suriname’s entire dream of modernity and independence was constructed. Negotiations with the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) resulted in Suriname accepting a treaty under which hardly any benefits accumulated in the country itself, while the establishment of the industry caused loss of land, environmental damage and the deculturation of the Surinamese Maroon communities. After these revolted against the state, Alcoa left the country, leaving behind an ‘aluminium landscape’ where aluminium is no longer produced, but where the original population, insofar as its members have not moved to the cities, is still heavily affected by the changes caused by the Surinamese aluminium boom.
Abstract
In the context of a global expansion of the extractive frontier, building broad protest coalitions is key for emancipatory and non-extractive future transformations of the countryside. Yet even though movements in both the agrarian and the mining sector struggle against the enclosure of land and the loss of livelihoods in rural areas, inter-sectoral coalitions remain scarce. This chapter therefore aims to identify challenges to inter-sectoral coalition building between movements struggling against extractive projects in the agrarian and the mining sector. Based on a case study of Senegal it shows that mutually exclusive identities, missing ‘bridge builders’, and different policy spaces constitute key challenges for the building of coalitions. Furthermore, extraction plays out differently in the agrarian and in the mining sector. Different regulations and economic histories as well as distinct impacts of extractive activities on land and nature provide different incentives and challenges for claim making in the two sectors. In order to understand resistance to extraction, it is therefore key to stay attuned to the different impacts extractive investments have on the ground.
Abstract
This study develops a model of nonviolence leadership based on the prescient insights of the Daoist (Taoist) philosopher Laozi (a.k.a. Lao-tzu). This model is then illustrated in practice via a twentieth century political leader who largely embodied this approach to nonviolence. That leader is , former Prime Minister of Sweden (1969-76; 1982-86). As demonstrated here, Palme’s leadership style closely resembles the Daoist nonviolence leadership model and can serve as an inspiration to others seeking to eliminate violence and to increase peace. As this study concludes, the world might gain significantly were more leaders to adopt a similar approach.
Abstract
Norway has the world-class ambition to make transport more sustainable and climate friendly. Its electric vehicle (EV) rollout is celebrated by and aspirational for other countries, manifesting the imaginary of technological solutions for sustainable mobility. This chapter undertakes a critically constructive analysis of the value chains of this rollout, tracing the production, usage and discard of EVs. Our point of departure in Norway’s EV rollout serves to map broader implications of a rapid, massive shift towards electric transport. We map relevant externalities associated with, for example, the mining of raw materials and with modes of digitalisation that run counter to circular economy principles. The requisite resources for the transition to renewably powered, electrified transportation—notably batteries—are sourced in the global South, whereas their consumption and industries that reuse and recycle valuable minerals are emerging in the global North. The uneven distribution of benefits and burdens is increasingly being criticised as green extractivism for an imperial mode of living. By paying attention to site-specific struggles over resources, our mapping demonstrates that practices of legitimation have yet to be welded with holistic accountability. By piecing together some major links along the value chains of Norway’s EV rollout, we argue for a global perspective on this transition.
Abstract
The rapacious planetary extraction of energy and materials and associated socioecological violence have culminated in overlapping ecological, social, and political crises. With the advent of global initiatives that seek to address these crises and signs of post-pandemic recovery programmes deepening extraction, ‘extractivisms’ are at a critical juncture. Discussions over extractivisms, their relation to capitalism, and implications for creating alternative post-extractivist futures have proliferated in recent years. As a result, definitions have multiplied and expanded, which has led to ambiguity and prompted calls to better define and conceptualise extractivisms. This chapter contributes to this exercise in three ways: First, it details a genealogy of extractivisms that originates in Latin American scholarship, expands to ‘global extractivisms’, and culminates in conceptual expansions that progressively divorce the concept from the extraction of energy and materials. Second, it addresses how Marxian thought has theorised the relationship between capitalism and the biophysical world and analyses four recent interventions to clarify why extractivisms are pivotal to but cannot be equated with capitalism. Third, the chapter synthesises insights from these discussions to argue that extractivisms are best conceived of as particular ‘modes of extraction’ that provide the energetic and material basis for ‘imperial modes of living’. It concludes with reflections on how more sustainable and peaceful futures must be premised on transitions to ‘post-extractivisms’ and ‘post-imperial solidarity modes of living’.
Abstract
This chapter examines the ‘green’ energy developments apparent in the South African government’s energy policy and renewable energy programme. In 2011, the South African government introduced the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme as a new policy imperative for electricity generation from renewable energy sources through public–private partnerships. The Programme has been hailed for attracting a huge amount of direct foreign investment in climate mitigation in South Africa. This chapter analyses the material nature of the Programme and the public–private partnership investment conditions, based on a case study of the Tsitsikamma Community Wind Farm in the Eastern Cape in South Africa, an electricity generation project initiated prior to the introduction of the Independent Power Producer renewable energy programme on community reclaimed land. This community was a willing partner in the wind energy investment partnership. Despite their inclusion in this techno-capitalist development project, however, the material well-being of members of this community remains unchanged, as does the degraded state of the commercial agricultural land involved. The chapter argues that the capitalist neo-liberal logic of alternative ‘green’ energy interventions in investment models such as this renewable energy programme is embedded in the machinations of the extractivist productivist model through ‘new’ forms of financialisaton for capital accumulation.
Abstract
This volume of International Development Policy brings together post-extractivist imaginaries, diverse and ever-evolving forms of resistance and contestation, and a growing recognition of the paradox of ‘green’ extractivism. Despite the pervasive narrative that more rather than less mining is necessary to achieve decarbonisation, there is now growing recognition that the current model of economic development based on fossil fuels and resource extraction is not sustainable in the long term. The introduction to this volume acknowledges the complex and ongoing legacies of extraction and the urgent need to move beyond extractive models of development and towards alternative pathways that prioritise social justice, environmental sustainability, democratic governance, and the well-being of both human and non-human beings.
Abstract
What sort of social and economic arrangements are enabled by an extractive economy and its successors? How are patterns of social stratification influenced by these processes? Drawing on ethnographic evidence collected in a tourist destination town in Yunnan that is surrounded by iron mines, I argue that the underlying logics of extractivism persist into the development of a service sector economy (in this case, tourism). The specific case documents economic and social change in a community being reshaped by an emergent cultural tourism industry. New logics of extractivism are motivated by an assumption that peripheral capital is raw and unchanging and exists to be processed, monetised, and consumed by core elites. Even as the makeup of economic sectors change, the national periphery continues to be a site of raw resources to be extracted and valorised by elites and other stakeholders from urban cores. The effect of this extractive tourism industry is to flatten, ossify, and ‘legibilise’ culture in ways that prioritise performance and experience over the agency of local people. The resulting reformation of cultural practice creates new forms of inequality, here marked by gender and ethnicity.