Environmental Governance: Broadening Ontological Spaces for a More Livable World

Abstract

"This paper and panel aim to make a novel contribution to the environmental governance scholarship by drawing on recent anthropological scholarship on ontology to ask, 'What do environmental governance concepts render visible, and in what ways do these concepts hinder our ability to envision the world otherwise?' and 'In what ways might more plural ontological engagements open spaces for new ways of relating with the living and nonliving world?' We argue that environmental governance tends to be framed in apolitical, ahistorical and technocratic-scientific terms; is largely unproblematized in much theory and practice; and carries a host of embedded normative assumptions (such as the human-nature dichotomy, environment-as-resource, and nature-as-problem fit for outside intervention) that should be a starting point of any contemporary dialogue on environmental governance."