Turning Back the Rising Sea: Theory performativity in the shift from climate science to popular authority

Abstract

Action on climate change continues to be hampered by vested interests seeding doubt about science and the need to reduce carbon emissions. Using a qualitative case study of local climate adaptation to sea level rise, we show how climate change science is translated into a self-referential theory focussed on property prices. Our analysis develops two mechanisms – enablement and theorization – to explain the relationship between theory performativity and power within a process of translation. This contributes to i) the performativity debate by showing how the constitution of power relations shapes theory performativity; ii) theories of power, by tracing the ways in which certain actors are able to enrol others and impact the authority of particular theories, and; iii) processes of translation by developing mechanisms for following the ways in which power and theory performativity interact. We conclude by arguing that a performative understanding of how power shapes beliefs is central to combat the failure to address climate change.

Organizing the Sharing Economy Through Experiments: Framing and taming as onto-epistemological work

“…In our case, for instance, the all-important question of what ‘service’ the concept of mobility-as-a-service involves implied an answer to who the central node in the MaaS network might be and how other mobility providers and their technologies may be arranged around them. Bowden and colleagues (2021) have recently demonstrated that performing theories often requires a ‘scaling down’ of global concepts into local contexts, as in their case of localizing ‘climate change’ to a local flood prevention plan. In these moments of scale change, epistemic authority becomes particularly vulnerable.…”

“…Studying competing experiments thus opens a window into concepts' inherent relationality (D'Adderio, Glaser, & Pollock, 2019), that is, how they simultaneously motivate and channel collective action, and the many different ways in which these relationships may be drawn together. Experiments also draw our attention to the issue of the power to perform (see also Bowden, Gond, Nyberg, & Wright, 2021).…”

“…The political work that is involved in these efforts of framing is emphasized by Beunza and Ferraro (2019) in the field of responsible investment, who also engage with the important question of the resistances related to performative failures. How such resistances can lead to shifts in epistemic authority and power is demonstrated in Bowden and colleagues’ (2021) study of a local council’s endeavour to implement a flood prevention plan in the context of the climate crisis.…”

Unpacking “Sense of Place” and “Place-making” in Organization Studies: A Toolkit for Place-sensitive Research

“…Third, a future-oriented approach to place-making refers to planning in the present for the future of the place (Palermo & Ponzini, 2015). This can be done in anticipation of future events such as urban planning on the road networks in anticipation of the densification of traffic, negotiating new construction rules on the coastline to adapt to future climate change and the rise of sea levels (Bowden et al, 2021), or initiations for the renewal of institutions of public water services (Montgomery & Dacin, 2020). People in organizations can engage in long-term projects for a place because they care about their home-town and they want to invest their time and money in projects that will enhance the place in the future.…”

Social science climate research through the lens of actor-network theory: A proposition for organization studies

“…Third, from a broad look at empirical research on climate-related issues from an organization studies perspective realized to date (e.g., Böhm et al, 2012;Porter et al, 2018;Nyberg et al, 2020;Bowden et al, 2021;Ferns & Amaeshi, 2021)…”