Imagining socioecological transformation: An analysis of the Welsh Government’s policy innovations and orientations to the future

Abstract

This article explores how the Welsh Government's recent policy innovations in climate change and environmental sustainability can be read in terms of their imaginative capacity for transformation. The Welsh Government is one of only a few governments in the world to have a legal duty to sustainable development, which includes the pioneering Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015). The legislation has received international attention and praise from the United Nations but, as yet, the Welsh Government's imaginaries of socioecological transformation have received little scrutiny regarding the kinds of ideas about the future and possibilities for change they set in motion. The article considers imaginaries as providing the very grounds of possibility for transformation, being comprised of stories and narratives about what kinds of futures are possible and desirable, intermingled with emotional-affective "atmospheres" that can promote or hinder people's engagement with environmental issues. The article focuses on three aspects of the Welsh Government's imaginaries related to socioecological transformation, namely; resilience and anticipatory discourse, linear time, and "conspiracies of optimism". A number of tensions are drawn out that highlight how the Welsh Government's seemingly progressive rhetoric risks being undermined by the conceptions of time and change it employs. Thus, the article contributes to wider critical analyses of how new politics and modes of governance of and for the (proposed) Anthropocene are taking shape.

Imagination and transformations to sustainable and just futures

“…The authors illustrate how the choices and facilitation of these imaginative exercises is political-it matters who can and does initiate or claim control of collective imagination processes. For example, some methods may build and expand imagination, some may constrain it or "lock into" a dominant, existing imaginary, while others simply focus on engaging with existing patterns of sensemaking (Milkoreit, 2017;Galafassi et al, 2018;Marzec, 2018;Pigott, 2018;Pereira et al, 2019).…”

“…None of the papers in this collection explore the potential of agents to use imagination in combination with power to obstruct transformation, although we suggest this is an artifact of the specific cases examined by authors rather than any indication that such obstruction does not exist. Pigott (2018) and Marzec (2018) do, however, point to the risk of reinforcing current systems and their problems in imagination processes rather than opening up pathways to truly novel futures. Additionally, Pigott (2018) offers an insightful analysis of a national government (Wales)-an actor with a special set of power, authority, and other resources-attempting to shape the national imagination of sustainability.…”

“…Pigott (2018) and Marzec (2018) do, however, point to the risk of reinforcing current systems and their problems in imagination processes rather than opening up pathways to truly novel futures. Additionally, Pigott (2018) offers an insightful analysis of a national government (Wales)-an actor with a special set of power, authority, and other resources-attempting to shape the national imagination of sustainability. This analysis shows both how the political interests of governmental agents place certain limitations on the futures they imagine and how the importance of individual psychological dynamics, especially fears of change, among agents with extraordinary structural power can affect what is imagined.…”

“…Beyond the debates of inclusiveness and power, multiple articles offer insights regarding the importance of emotions for the exercise of agency and as a catalyst for imagination (Milkoreit, 2017;Galafassi et al, 2018;Pigott, 2018;DaSilva, 2019;Pereira et al, 2019). Pigott (2018) suggests that feelings of apathy and surrender, whether created by too much dystopianism or too much utopianism, can diminish agency, while hope and anger can fuel it. Similarly, DaSilva (2019) distinguishes two "impulses" in Hollywood climate fiction, triggering either hope or fear, thereby creating a tension between aspiration and warning.…”

The anticipatory politics of dispossession in a Senegalese mining negotiation

“…Anticipation and anticipatory action reflect a particular temporality in which time flows backward from the future, demanding a response in the present (Anderson 2010;Braun 2015;Granjou et al 2017). The desire to manage and control the myriad uncertainties that characterize the contemporary world (Beck 1999) has led to "anticipatory governance", through which state actors and economic planners have developed strategies designed to predict or prevent a range of potential problems, such as the resource curse, natural hazards, peak oil, and continued effects from climate change (Adey and Anderson 2011;Anderson 2007;Pigott 2018;Szeman 2007;Weszkalnys 2014).…”