Exploring the Potential for Just Urban Transformations in Light of Eco-Modernist Imaginaries of Sustainability

Abstract

This article approaches urban ethics through critically examining the production and reproduction of an eco-modern socio-technical imaginary of sustainable urban development in Sweden, and the conditions and obstacles this poses for a just transformation. We see that notions of ecological modernization re-present problems of urban sustainability in ways that do not challenge the predominant regime, but rather uphold unjust power relations. More particularly, through an approach inspired by critical discourse analysis, we uncover what these problem representations entail, deconstructing what we find as three cornerstones of an eco-modern imaginary that obstruct the emergence of a more ethically-engaged understanding of urban sustainability. The first concerns which scales and system boundaries are constructed as relevant, and how this results in some modes and places of production and consumption being constructed as more efficient—and sustainable—than others. The second cornerstone has to do with what resources and ways of using them (including mediating technologies) are foregrounded and constructed as more important in relation to sustainability than others. The third cornerstone concerns the construction of subjectivities, through which some types of people and practices are put forth as more efficient—and sustainable—than others. Utilizing a critical speculative design approach, we explore a selection of alternative problem representations, and finally discuss these in relation to the possibility of affording a more ethical urban design and planning practice.

What Characteristics Do the Firms Have That Go Beyond Compliance with Regulation in Environmental Protection? A Multiple Discriminant Analysis

“…A first examination of the test of equality of groups means in Model 1a and Model 2a was aimed to isolate those variables more efficient to discriminate. It revealed that, when individually considered, EMI is an important discriminant variable, followed by all locus of control variables, sustainable and eco modernist corporate discourse (eco-modernist is one of the terms used to describe those with a green-growth mindset [76,77]), variables representing perception of external obstacles such as lack of access to information, and inadequacies in the regulation; variables capturing perceptions of internal blockers (i.e., low priority attached to environmental issues and lack of internal awareness); and two variables representing quality of environmental technologies, followed by size and supply chain pressures. A further reduction of variables aimed to retain only those significant and with relatively large, standardized discrimination coefficients leads to the models showed in Table 4 (dependent variable COMP_D) and Table 5 (dependent variable COMP_D2).…”

Creating fairer futures for sustainability transitions

“…This paper provides a landscape view of futuring research with geographers in mind. Reviewing research and practice of futuring reveals a proclivity to favour technological‐driven imaginaries of what could provide solutions to social and environmental challenges, seen manifest for instance in smart city visions (Hagbert et al., 2020 ; Lee et al., 2020 ; Leszczynski, 2016 ). Such bounding in the present risks further compounding existing economic, environmental and social issues into the future.…”

“…This is seen, for instance, in corporate‐led visions of smart cities (Lee et al., 2020 ), which are dominated by technology and market‐based conceptions of citizenship. Such visions are not static, but are manifest in cities' approaches to sustainability transitions which prioritise and mobilise technology and corporate solutions (see Hagbert et al., 2020 ). In sum, corporate futuring perspectives can be characterised as techno‐optimistic, elevating dominant narratives and interests.…”

Imaginaries and problematisations: A heuristic lens in the age of artificial intelligence in education

“…As such, we could turn to Hagbert et al (2020) who admittedly are not focusing on education or AIEd per se, but who move beyond a discourse analysis by opening up to imaginaries as being expressed in contemporary Swedish sustainable urban development at large. As such, they provide more room for discussions grounded in sociomateriality and consider how mediating technologies in themselves can be included in an analytical procedure of imaginaries in problematisations.…”

“…As such, they provide more room for discussions grounded in sociomateriality and consider how mediating technologies in themselves can be included in an analytical procedure of imaginaries in problematisations. More specifically, they analyse how the insertion of technical prototypes into an existing environment becomes a way to interrogate ‘traditions and ideals that have become normalised to the extent of becoming “invisible” [that] can be brought to the surface and called into question’ (Hagbert et al, 2020, p. 207). As such, they begin to recognise the role of (physical and conceptual) design as a form of proposed solution (which can also be used speculatively as a way to question and disrupt, for example, taken‐for‐granted rationality and proposed value‐neutrality).…”