The Cultural Complexity of Carbon

Description

This volume discusses the transformational role that carbon – both as a concept and as a distinct set of material forms and effects – has come to play in social and cultural life. As a proxy for greenhouse gas emission data, carbon has grown to become a phenomenon that can no longer be accounted for solely within the technoscientific vocabulary of climate scientists. The Cultural Complexity of Carbon examines the extent to which our knowledge of carbon affects the way that human beings relate to each other and to the climate and/or the environment. It draws on case studies from a diverse range of topics including peatland restoration, religion and energy systems to explore questions that have so far been under-explored in the current literature. These questions include whether the recognition of carbon’s role in climate change leads to an incremental adaptation of lifestyles or to cultural or existential transformations, but also more concretely how carbon is made meaningful, and how these meanings are attached to ideals of cultural change or continuity. Spanning multiple perspectives and disciplinary positions, this volume provides a go-to point for the next generation of ethnographic studies of carbon and climate change. It cuts across what has hitherto been largely separate literatures in anthropology, geography and sociology to provide a meta-level orientation to how contemporary narratives of the role of carbon are being told. By addressing the intimate social and cultural changes that stem from humanity’s involvement with its natural and climatic resources, this volume is of interest to students and scholars of climate change within the social sciences and environmental humanities. Introduction of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of illustrations Figures Tables List of contributors Preface and acknowledgements Introduction: Carbon and culture change Introduction The questions addressed in this volume How the social sciences have approached carbon: a multitude of phenomena Carbon as cultural Culture change The chapters Concluding remarks Acknowledgements Notes References Chapter 1: Renewable energy communities for energy-poor households: Policy mobility challenges in urban and peri-urban European contexts Introduction Renewable energy communities and energy poverty alleviation in Europe Analytical framework and methods: operationalizing a dual policy mobility lens First mobility: from Solar for All to Eurosolar4All Second mobility: adapting Eurosolar4All to different national and local contexts Barcelona, Spain Almada, Portugal Rome, Italy Communauté de communes Coeur de Savoie, France Discussion and conclusion Acknowledgements Notes References Chapter 2: Carbon footprint calculators and behaviour change Introduction Methods Challenges in calculating carbon footprints What level of detail? What data, what scope to include and what calculation method? Carbon footprint calculators as tools for individual change Carbon footprint calculators as tools for collective change Conclusion Notes References Chapter 3: Configuring the carbon farmer: Emerging practices of carbon accounting and biochar engagements in Danish agriculture Introduction: the emerging carbon farmer Anticipating new farming and carbon accounting practices A double carbon subject Technology first Competing for the climate credit Conclusion: making things stay the same Acknowledgements Notes References Chapter 4: The footprint of anarchy: Counting carbon in the Church Introduction 10 bishops = 10 greengrocers Making and taking room The State and its powers Animating the well-ordered anarchy from above The green transition of the People’s Church A technology of distance Divided by faith, unified in numbers An accountable Church? Conclusion Acknowledgements Notes References Chapter 5: Carbon in Chinese notions of ecological civilization: Policy of quantification or philosophy of promise? Introduction Carbon in the socio-technical imaginary of ecological civilization Mapping ecological civilization Decarbonization experiments and examples The Green Great Wall: from socialism to civilization The production team Safeguarding a home to return to Contesting carbon Political play with ecological funding Conclusion: carbon values beyond quantification Acknowledgements Note References Chapter 6: The social life of peat carbon and peat frontier making: An ethnographic study of peatland restoration in Central Kalimantan Introduction The Indonesian “Carbon Frontier” Theory: the making of the peat carbon frontier and the social life of peat carbon Rawa: flexibility and mobility in the peat wetlandscape Wetland as a property frontier: emergence of gambut (peat) The social life of peat carbon: contestations and frictions Conclusion: the social life of peat carbon and the making of new value regimes in the carbon frontier Acknowledgements Notes References Chapter 7: La#oma’s pre- and post-carbon landscape: The ont*-politics of a vanished village Introduction Zooming in on Lakoma Analysing naturescultures as ont*-politics Materials, methodology and multi-modal storying Experiencing La#oma In the Archive At the geographical site of La#oma La#oma ont*-politics La#oma and its configurations with human actors Relationally constituting La#oma’s naturescultures Erasing and easing environmental destruction (Re)imagining La#oma ont*-politically Conclusion: the multiplicity of a village entwined with green and brown transitions Acknowledgements Notes References Chapter 8: Scaling the world through carbon: Discursive decoupling, unity and climate responsibility in Stavanger, Norway Introduction Contextualizing Norwegian oil production Scale as an object of analysis Industry perspectives: the common good of the national community Activist perspectives: taking the global lead Discursive decoupling versus unity of oil and emissions Norwegian goodness as cultural commitment Goodness and comparisons to “bad others” Concluding remarks: discounting climate responsibility through discursive decoupling Acknowledgements Notes References Index