Restoration as world-making and repair: A pragmatist agenda

Abstract

The UN’s Decade of Ecosystem Restoration commenced in June 2021, with the expectation that ecological restoration will be vastly scaled-up internationally. Millions of hectares of the earth’s surface is projected to be restored, from forests and peatland to rivers, reefs and grasslands. This will transform restoration from a predominantly localized, community-driven field to a highly capitalized, professional activity. As the renowned biologist E. O. Wilson proposed, the twenty-first century certainly does look likely to be characterized by restoration. And yet, thus far, the still emerging field of ecological restoration has been dominated by the natural sciences, in both theory and practice, neglecting broader questions of how to live in and with restored landscapes. This paper contends that if restoration is to be significantly expanded over the next decade, the social sciences and humanities must be involved to ensure its purpose is given adequate scrutiny, by engaging wider publics of interest in scheme planning, design and implementation. This is crucial given the dominance of natural capital accounting in restoration, which privileges economic reasoning over alternative, more radical forms. Pragmatism, which has a substantive philosophical interest in the relationship between humans and their environment, can offer a distinctive orientation to inquiry conducive to collaboration between the natural and social disciplines. Focusing on waterway restoration in the United Kingdom, and drawing on social and natural science literature, this paper outlines a pragmatist research agenda that recognizes multiplicity in nature, advocates experimentation in human-environment relations, and foregrounds community in democratic renewal. The paper considers not only ways that pragmatism can inform restoration but how restoration can advance a pragmatist agenda for invigorating public life. This encourages scholars to think with not only against restoration, attending to composition as well as critique, as part of a political urban ecology.

Introduction: Accumulation by restoration and political ecologies of repair

“…Third, primitive accumulation, dispossession and enclosure are not just part of a northern origin story, a ‘one-off, historical’ event located in England at the dawn of capitalism (De Angelis and Harvie, 2014: 281; Harvey, 2004). Nor are they simply a tired framework speaking about capitalism's ‘fix’ (Usher, 2022). Historically speaking, institutional changes in Europe were not just shaped by internal disruptions and contestations, but also shaped through frictions with and within institutions, knowledge systems, markets and actors outside of Europe that were sometimes ‘unambiguously more powerful than anything seen in Europe at the time’ (Anievas and Nişancıoğlu, 2015: 4; Tsing, 2000).…”

“…Beyond simply introducing AbR as a manifestation of primitive accumulation or ‘socio-ecological fix under neoliberal capitalism’ (Usher, 2022: 7), contributions to this themed issue show how AbR, as an orienting framework, helps deepen understandings of the roles of knowledge and of conceptual, social and built technologies of repair in driving the expansion of capital's enclosures into deeper realms of nature and social life and in the co-production of novel natures and ecologies of repair. How do authoritative discourses of society-nature relationships, ‘repair’ and ‘truth’ facilitate these changes?…”

Futures on Dry Ground

“…A related call for multilateral ocean governance through the UNSDG foregoes prior representations of the ocean as a collective resource and object of state governance in favor of partnerships between government, industry, and civil society to manage anthropogenic environmental change (Spalding and de Ycaza 2020). Most recently, the UN has declared the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, refl ecting a trend in environmental paradigms whereby "sustainability" gives way to "restoration" (Usher 2022). Across these global policy initiatives, coasts are widely regarded for their productive capacities and development potential, and the impetus to protect or restore them oft en derives explicitly or implicitly from their centrality to production and distribution.…”

River restoration as a sociocultural process: A case study from the Waimatā Catchment, Aotearoa New Zealand

“…River restoration and its success are commonly guided by and measured through ecological, biogeochemical, geomorphological and engineering indicators (Eden & Tunstall, 2006). However, restoration extends beyond scientific and technical considerations, as sociocultural, economic and political processes formulate goals and objectives in efforts to meet community and institutional aspirations (de Bell et al, 2020; Guimarães et al, 2021; Johnson et al, 2018; Usher, 2023). Typically, emphasis upon human needs and aesthetic values include concerns for livability, safety and control (Dufour & Pi é gay, 2009; Eden & Tunstall, 2006; Junker & Buchecker, 2008).…”

“…Participating in restoration through community‐based restoration projects can trigger positive feedback loops that enhance rivers ecologically and socially, contributing to shared values and greater interactions with the river (Anderson et al, 2019; Johnson et al, 2018; Usher, 2023), thereby exerting a positive influence upon mental health and well‐being (Foley et al, 2019; McDougall et al, 2020). Here, we use a combination of document analysis, questionnaires and interviews to document sociocultural relations to the Waimatā River on the East Cape of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand.…”