Environmental management as situated practice

Abstract

We propose an analysis of environmental management (EM) as work and as practical activity. This approach enables empirical studies of the diverse ways in which professionals, scientists, NGO staffers, and activists achieve the partial manageability of specific “environments”. In this introduction, we sketch the debates in Human Geography, Management Studies, Science and Technology Studies to which this special issue contributes. We identify the limits of understanding EM though the framework of ecological modernization, and show how political ecology and work- place studies provide important departures towards a more critical approach. Developing these further, into a cosmopolitical direction, we propose studying EM as sets of socially and materially situated practices. This enables a shift away from established approaches which treat EM either as a toolbox whose efficiency has to be assessed, or as simply the implementation of dominant projects and the materialisation of hegemonic discourse. Such a shift renders EM as always messy practices of engagement, critique and improvisation. We conclude that studying the distributed and situated managing agencies, actors and their practices allows to imagine new forms of critical interventions

Notes on a caribou hearing: Spatial marginalization through participatory democracy in western Nunavut

“…It problematizes participation space by questioning the taken‐for‐granted nature of deliberative participation. It presents a way to engage with environmental management as sets of socially and materially situated practices (Lippert et al ). By challenging the myopia about structural and communication inequalities, this analysis creates space to identify and resist unequal power.…”

“…These studies raise questions about the practice of participation, but just as importantly, they raise questions about the context of participation. A challenge for environmental scholars and practitioners is to shift toward more critical approaches that study environmental management as sets of socially and materially situated practices, rather than focusing on its efficacy as an institutional toolbox to solve ecological crises (Lippert et al ). Participation is implicated in that critical shift.…”

“…Participation is implicated in that critical shift. Participation itself must be interrogated as sets of socially and materially situated and, in the words of Lippert et al (, 107), “always messy practices of engagement, critique and improvisation.” Participation must be interrogated as situated communication practice entwined within the co‐constitution of space and society.…”

Análise E Aderência Das Práticas De Gestão E Responsabilidade Ambiental Adotadas Pela Natulab Laboratórios S/a Em Relação as Empresas Do Setor De Medicamentos Listadas Na B3/Analysis and Adherence of Management Practices and Environmental Responsibility Adopted by Natulab Laboratórios S/a in Relation as Companies of the Sector of Medicines Listed in B3

“…Nesse aspecto, as crises ecológicas advêm da má gestão da relação homem-natureza, sendo que haveria sustentabilidade se tal relação fosse gerida de modo correto e eficiente (LIPPERT; KRAUSE; HARTMANN, 2015). Cézar e Carneiro (2017) alertam que as organizações precisam promover o desenvolvimento sustentável com vistas a preservação ambiental.…”

On Not Muddling Lunches and Flights

“…Specifically, I turn to carbon accounting and bookkeeping, numbering and data practice. This ties in with an analytical trajectory that investigates how environments are known and come into being through data, information, algorithms, simulations, databases and reporting-configured into situated practices of environmental management and sustainability governance (Elichirigoity, 1999;Waterton, 2002;Fortun, 2004;Ellis et al, 2007;Millerand and Bowker, 2009;Edwards, 2010;Gabrys, 2016;Lippert et al, 2015;Blok et al, 2016).…”