From state to system: Financialization and the water-energy-food-climate nexus

Schmidt, Jeremy J.; Matthews, Nathanial

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.03.001

Cited by 63 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 69 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Nature-society geographers have engaged both Marxist-inspired political economy and poststructuralism theories/concepts to (separately) evaluate how energy projects are assembled (Bouzarovski et al, 2015;Yenneti, Day, & Golubchikov, 2016), financed (Baker, 2015;Hall, Foxon, & Bolton, 2016;Knuth, 2018;Merme et al, 2014;Newell & Phillips, 2016;Schmidt & Matthews, 2018), constructed, and discursively framed (Hommes, Boelens, & Maat, 2016;Kuchler & Bridge, 2018) and how these practices impact processes such as governance (McCarthy, 2015;Muinzer & Ellis, 2017) and urbanization (Bulkeley, McGuirk, & Dowling, 2016;Dowling, McGuirk, & Maalsen, 2018 (Baka, 2017a;Rignall, 2016;Yenneti et al, 2016). In contrast, work on energy systems in the Global North have largely focused on the political economic logics of developing and operating energy and emissions trading markets (Bridge & Bradshaw, 2017;Carton, 2017;Kama, 2014).…”

Section: The Academic Borderland Of Energy Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolving borderland of energy geographies

Baka

Vaishnava

2020

Geography Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Energy geographers have characterized energy as a borderland topic because of its ability to straddle and interconnect different geographic concepts and debates. In this review, we evaluate how the borderland of energy geographies has been emerging in recent years by analyzing scholarship on energy published in top geography journals and a leading energy studies journal, Energy Research & Social Science. In part 1 of our review, we evaluate how the borderland of energy geographies is evolving by mapping the geographic range of empirical studies, the processes and types of energy systems being researched and the key geographic concepts/theories engaged across the four main sub‐fields of geography. We find that energy geographies scholarship has primarily centered on the Global North, remains focused on the extractive and production phase of energy development and is evolving across and within three of the four sub‐fields of geography. Energy transitions, governance, justice, space, and landscape are key topics and concepts examined. Notable underrepresentations include a relative lack of energy geographies scholarship within physical geography, as well as limited studies that engage geographic concepts to study the transportation sector, unconventional energy development and the food‐energy‐water nexus. In part 2, we identify three broad research themes to expand the frontier of energy geographies: (a) geographies of energy knowledge production, particularly indigenous knowledge; (b) materializing energy, especially through engaging political‐industrial ecology; and (c) advancing geographic thought by critically assessing how studying energy advances/challenges/transforms core geographic concepts and debates. Collectively, our review demonstrates that energy geographies have established firm footing within and across geography. Deepening engagement with emerging trends elsewhere in geography and the social sciences will not only help to better conceptualize what a geographic perspective on energy means but will also help to make clearer sense of the rapid economic, social, environmental, and political transformations currently underway within the global energy system.

show abstract

Section: The Academic Borderland Of Energy Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolving borderland of energy geographies

Baka

Vaishnava

2020

Geography Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nature is perceived as economic resource to be used and regulated for human benefit. Schmidt and Matthews (2018) even argue that the nexus concept serves to financialize nature, as it was deliberately developed by global financial networks to effect the transition from state-oriented to financialized approaches of water development and sustainability. This conceptualization of society-nature relations also underpins the security and risk frame, ecological modernization approach, and economic rationale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is Driving the Water-Energy-Food Nexus? Discourses, Knowledge, and Politics of an Emerging Resource Governance Concept

Wiegleb

Bruns

2018

Front. Environ. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the context of accelerated global socio-environmental change, the Water-Energy-Food Nexus has received increasing attention within science and international politics by promoting integrated resource governance. This study explores the scientific nexus debates from a discourse analytical perspective to reveal knowledge and power relations as well as geographical settings of nexus research. We also investigate approaches to socio-nature relations that influence nexus research and subsequent political implications. Our findings suggest that the leading nexus discourse is dominated by natural scientific perspectives and a neo-Malthusian framing of environmental challenges. Accordingly, the promoted cross-sectoral nexus approach to resource governance emphasizes efficiency, security, future sustainability, and poverty reduction. Water, energy, and food are conceived as global trade goods that require close monitoring, management and control, to be achieved via quantitative assessments and technological interventions. Within the less visible discourse, social scientific perspectives engage with the social, political, and normative elements of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. These perspectives criticize the dominant nexus representation for its managerial, neoliberal, and utilitarian approach to resource governance. The managerial framing is critiqued for masking power relations and social inequalities, while alternative framings acknowledge the political nature of resource governance and socio-nature relations. The spatial dimensions of the nexus debate are also discussed. Notably, the nexus is largely shaped by western knowledge, yet applied mainly in specific regions of the Global South. In order for the nexus to achieve integrative solutions for sustainability, the debate needs to overcome its current discursive and spatial separations. To this end, we need to engage more closely with alternative nexus discourses, embrace epistemic pluralism and encourage multi-perspective debates about the socio-nature relations we actually intend to promote.

show abstract

“…With miners increasingly retrenched from the mines, Lesotho has had to look within its own borders for exploitable resources. This process of financialization of nature evidenced in development policy, notably the water policy including IWRM [23]. According to recent documents linking water, energy, and food, the philosophical underpinning of approaches such as IWRM is that water is prime for exploitation and sustainability requires global economic realignment.…”

Section: Political Ecology and Governmentality: The Hydrosocial Constmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ebbs and Flows of Authority: Decentralization, Development and the Hydrosocial Cycle in Lesotho

Workman

2019

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dominant development discourse holds that water scarcity reflects geophysical limitations, lack of infrastructure or lack of government provision. However, this paper outlines the ways in which scarcity can only be fully explained in the context of development, specifically, neoliberal economic policies and related notions of good governance. Water is Lesotho’s primary natural resource, yet many of its inhabitants remain severely water insecure. Presently, decentralization and Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) are embraced in Lesotho as a philosophy and method to engage varied stakeholders and to empower community members. Using a water committee in Qalo, Lesotho as a case study, this paper explores the micro-politics of water governance. As individuals contest who is responsible for managing water resources for the village—by aligning themselves with traditional chiefs, elected officials, or neither—they transform or reinforce specific hydro-social configurations. While decentralized resource management aims to increase equity and local ownership over resources, as well as moderate the authority of traditional chiefs, water access is instead impacted by conflicts over management responsibility for water resources. Drawing on theories of political ecology and governmentality to extend recent scholarship on IWRM, this paper re-centers the political in water governance by situating local tensions within national policies and development agendas and demonstrating how scarcity is hydro-social.

show abstract

From state to system: Financialization and the water-energy-food-climate nexus

Cited by 63 publications

References 69 publications

The evolving borderland of energy geographies

The evolving borderland of energy geographies

What Is Driving the Water-Energy-Food Nexus? Discourses, Knowledge, and Politics of an Emerging Resource Governance Concept

Ebbs and Flows of Authority: Decentralization, Development and the Hydrosocial Cycle in Lesotho

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About