In response to the limited success of command-and-control interventions to ensure environmental s... more In response to the limited success of command-and-control interventions to ensure environmental stewardship, policy makers and practitioners have turned to financial payments to incentivize conservation. Many scholars and practitioners, including ecological economists, have cautioned that market-based approaches might modify human ways of relating to nature that are counterproductive to long-term conservation goals. Moving beyond critique, this article invites attention to the reconceptualization of environmental care labor and human-environment relations using the ideas of gift, reciprocity, and affect. Using the case of forest conservation by rural communities in Odisha, India, I discuss how the paradigm of the gift helps us to rethink transactions in ecosystem services, which might lead to more equitable and empowering ways of sharing of the burden and joy of environmental care. I argue that instead of framing conservation as a burdensome activity that entails sacrifice and costs alone, we need to pay attention to the joyful and life-affirming aspects of conservation care labor and its transformative potential.
There is a consensus in the literature and widespread policymaker support on the desirability of ... more There is a consensus in the literature and widespread policymaker support on the desirability of democratic decentralisation of natural resources governance. However, few decentralisation initiatives in developing countries have led to more democratic governance of natural resources. India's Recognition of Forest Rights Act (RFRA), 2006, was enacted as a result of democratic processes driven by demand for recognition of forest rights by forest dwellers. RFRA represents a political, demand-based effort to reform forest governance through a provision of rights to forest-dependent people. India also continues to operate the joint forest management (JFM) programme, a more traditional state-initiated decentralisation effort. The two parallel forest reform programmes being carried out in the same landscapes provide a unique opportunity to study democratisation of forest governance in the country with the world's largest number of forest-dependent people. We examine JFM and RFRA on the criteria of delegation of power and authority, downward accountability and impact on forest-dependent poor to understand the substantively different spaces that they open for democratic forest governance. We find that the implementation of the RFRA has been strongly opposed by powerful interests, and its more radical provisions related to community rights over forests have largely remained unimplemented. However, our findings, drawing from both primary and secondary sources, also bring out the potential of the RFRA to hold the forest bureaucracy accountable to forest-dweller communities and its ability to shift tangible legal powers and authority to forest dwellers.
La crisis ecologica actual cuestiona las formas humanas de relacionarse con el mundo. Como lo exp... more La crisis ecologica actual cuestiona las formas humanas de relacionarse con el mundo. Como lo expresa evocativamente Val Plumwood (2007: 1), la unica esperanza de la humanidad ante el creciente dano ecologico radica en elaborar “nuevas formas de vivir con la Tierra”. Lideres indigenas de todo este mundo estan haciendo llamamientos similares para reelaborar nuestras formas de ser y formar parte de un mundo del pluriverso. El desafio es como responder a estos llamados. En este articulo, destaco el papel critico de los comunes y las practicas de comunalidad en el fomento de las subjetividades poscapitalistas. A partir de mi trabajo con las iniciativas comunitarias de conservacion de bosques en Odisha, India, y los recursos de la teoria del afecto y la ontologia relacional, defiendo que los comunes no son solo recursos compartidos, sino tambien sitios (y resultados) de encuentros afectivos socionaturales que pueden fomentar la subjetividad de estar en comunion con el resto del mundo.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021
Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the c... more Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the commons. This interest corresponds to a growing quest for alternatives to capitalism in view of ongoing socio- ecological crises. As neoliberal capitalism intensifies enclosure of the commons, local actions to reclaim old commons and invent new ones to counter these processes are also on the rise. However, there are diverse conceptions of the commons, and pitfalls in their reproduction and in mobilizing this vocabulary in the dominant neoliberal individualistic culture. Our understanding remains limited about how spaces for commons and commoning practices can be expanded, as well as about specific practices, relations and imaginaries that support commons and subjectivities of being-in-common. This Special Issue on the “Commons, Commoning and Co-becomings” seeks to deepen our understanding of ‘actually-existing’ and ‘more-than- human’ commons in the world, and how ways of relating to them ...
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021
Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the c... more Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the commons. This interest corresponds to a growing quest for alternatives to capitalism in view of ongoing socio-ecological crises. As neoliberal capitalism intensifies enclosure of the commons, local actions to reclaim old commons and invent new ones to counter these processes are also on the rise. However, there are diverse conceptions of the commons, and pitfalls in their reproduction and in mobilizing this vocabulary in the dominant neoliberal individualistic culture. Our understanding remains limited about how spaces for commons and commoning practices can be expanded, as well as about specific practices, relations and imaginaries that support commons and subjectivities of being-in-common. This Special Issue on the "Commons, Commoning and Cobecomings" seeks to deepen our understanding of 'actually-existing' and 'more-thanhuman' commons in the world, and how ways of relating to them open up possibilities of responding to current socioenvironmental challenges and generating beyond-capitalist ways of life. Exploring commoning experiences in diverse settings, the papers assembled in this Special Issue illustrate the role that commons and commoning practices play in reconfiguring human-nature relations. Thinking with these papers,
Struggles for Environmental Justice, more widespread in the global South, are often framed as tra... more Struggles for Environmental Justice, more widespread in the global South, are often framed as traditional societies defending “old ways of life”; while degrowth, a relatively new movement in the global North is seen as striving for a “new ways of life.” I argue that both assert or aspire for other ways of being and belonging to the world and open possibilities for post-capitalist futures. In this Commentary, I focus on ontological continuities between the two movements and the grounds for alliance building. I argue that EJ and degrowth movements need to not only learn from each other, but think with the actual practices on the ground and the epistemologies of the South to foster pluriversal world-making practices. Moreover, dialogues and alliance between the two movements can help to reconceptualize work and care in a post-production, post-growth world.
Engaging the affective and materialist turn in the social sciences, this special section elaborat... more Engaging the affective and materialist turn in the social sciences, this special section elaborates on how analytical attention on affect and affective relations is central to understanding human-nature relations and to conservation interventions. The contributors to this section use conceptual resources from affect theory, new materialism, and indigenous ontologies to illustrate the practical signi cance of paying attention to affect in understanding nature- society relations. This introduction reviews these conceptual resources to make a case for affective political ecology.
Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 2017
This paper draws attention to the somewhat neglected domains of affects, emotions, and subjectivi... more This paper draws attention to the somewhat neglected domains of affects, emotions, and subjectivity in the study of the commons. The paper argues that a focus on affective and communicative relations among humans and between humans and more-than-humans can enrich our understanding of the practices of commoning and the processes of becoming a commoner. Using the case of community forestry initiatives in Odisha, India, it illustrates how rural people become commoners through the embodied practices of caring for the forests as a shared common. The paper uses this empirical example and conceptual resources from affect theory and relational ontology to think about the commons as affective socio-nature entanglements and as a nurturing ground for subjectivity. It discusses the implications of attention on the commons and the practices of commoning for enabling the emergence of other-than-capitalist subjectivities.
How do humans come to care for their environment and what turns them into conservationists are ce... more How do humans come to care for their environment and what turns them into conservationists are central questions in environmental politics. Recent scholars have turned to Foucault’s ideas of “governmentality” to understand how technologies of power intersect with technologies of the self to create “environmental subjects,” that is, people who display a sense of commitment to the conservation of the environment. In this article, I argue that the applications of governmentality tend to privilege technologies of power and pay insufficient attention to the role of affect, emotions, and embodied practices in shaping human subjectivities. I draw on Spinoza’s framework of affects and Hardt and Negri’s idea of “affective labor” to bring attention to the processes through which human beings make themselves and the role of affect and environmental care practices in shaping subjectivity. Using the example of community-based forest conservation efforts in Odisha, India, I argue that we need to look beyond economic and political rationalities to explain human action and behavior. I suggest that villagers’ efforts to regenerate degraded forests involve affective labor in which mind and body, reason and passion, intellect and feeling are all employed together. Through the daily practices of caring for the forest and helping the forests grow, villagers not only transform natural landscapes but also transform their individual and collective subjectivities. I conclude by elaborating on the “biopower from below” of these environmental care practices.
In response to the limited success of command-and-control interventions to ensure environmental s... more In response to the limited success of command-and-control interventions to ensure environmental stewardship, policy makers and practitioners have turned to financial payments to incentivize conservation. Many scholars and practitioners, including ecological economists, have cautioned that market-based approaches might modify human ways of relating to nature that are counterproductive to long-term conservation goals. Moving beyond critique, this article invites attention to the reconceptualization of environmental care labor and human–environment relations using the ideas of gift, reciprocity, and affect. Using the case of forest conservation by rural communities in Odisha, India, I discuss how the paradigm of the gift helps us to rethink transactions in ecosystem services, which might lead to more equitable and empowering ways of sharing of the burden and joy of environmental care. I argue that instead of framing conservation as a burdensome activity that entails sacrifice and costs alone, we need to pay attention to the joyful and life-affirming aspects of conservation care labor and its transformative potential.
There is a consensus in the literature and widespread policymaker support on the desirability of ... more There is a consensus in the literature and widespread policymaker support on the desirability of democratic decentralisation of natural resources governance. However, few decentralisation initiatives in developing countries have led to more democratic governance of natural resources. India's Recognition of Forest Rights Act (RFRA), 2006, was enacted as a result of democratic processes driven by demand for recognition of forest rights by forest dwellers. RFRA represents a political, demand-based effort to reform forest governance through a provision of rights to forest-dependent people. India also continues to operate the joint forest management (JFM) programme, a more traditional state-initiated decentralisation effort. The two parallel forest reform programmes being carried out in the same landscapes provide a unique opportunity to study democratisation of forest governance in the country with the world's largest number of forest-dependent people. We examine JFM and RFRA on the criteria of delegation of power and authority, downward accountability and impact on forest-dependent poor to understand the substantively different spaces that they open for democratic forest governance. We find that the implementation of the RFRA has been strongly opposed by powerful interests, and its more radical provisions related to community rights over forests have largely remained unimplemented. However, our findings, drawing from both primary and secondary sources, also bring out the potential of the RFRA to hold the forest bureaucracy accountable to forest-dweller communities and its ability to shift tangible legal powers and authority to forest dwellers.
In response to the limited success of command-and-control interventions to ensure environmental s... more In response to the limited success of command-and-control interventions to ensure environmental stewardship, policy makers and practitioners have turned to financial payments to incentivize conservation. Many scholars and practitioners, including ecological economists, have cautioned that market-based approaches might modify human ways of relating to nature that are counterproductive to long-term conservation goals. Moving beyond critique, this article invites attention to the reconceptualization of environmental care labor and human-environment relations using the ideas of gift, reciprocity, and affect. Using the case of forest conservation by rural communities in Odisha, India, I discuss how the paradigm of the gift helps us to rethink transactions in ecosystem services, which might lead to more equitable and empowering ways of sharing of the burden and joy of environmental care. I argue that instead of framing conservation as a burdensome activity that entails sacrifice and costs alone, we need to pay attention to the joyful and life-affirming aspects of conservation care labor and its transformative potential.
There is a consensus in the literature and widespread policymaker support on the desirability of ... more There is a consensus in the literature and widespread policymaker support on the desirability of democratic decentralisation of natural resources governance. However, few decentralisation initiatives in developing countries have led to more democratic governance of natural resources. India's Recognition of Forest Rights Act (RFRA), 2006, was enacted as a result of democratic processes driven by demand for recognition of forest rights by forest dwellers. RFRA represents a political, demand-based effort to reform forest governance through a provision of rights to forest-dependent people. India also continues to operate the joint forest management (JFM) programme, a more traditional state-initiated decentralisation effort. The two parallel forest reform programmes being carried out in the same landscapes provide a unique opportunity to study democratisation of forest governance in the country with the world's largest number of forest-dependent people. We examine JFM and RFRA on the criteria of delegation of power and authority, downward accountability and impact on forest-dependent poor to understand the substantively different spaces that they open for democratic forest governance. We find that the implementation of the RFRA has been strongly opposed by powerful interests, and its more radical provisions related to community rights over forests have largely remained unimplemented. However, our findings, drawing from both primary and secondary sources, also bring out the potential of the RFRA to hold the forest bureaucracy accountable to forest-dweller communities and its ability to shift tangible legal powers and authority to forest dwellers.
La crisis ecologica actual cuestiona las formas humanas de relacionarse con el mundo. Como lo exp... more La crisis ecologica actual cuestiona las formas humanas de relacionarse con el mundo. Como lo expresa evocativamente Val Plumwood (2007: 1), la unica esperanza de la humanidad ante el creciente dano ecologico radica en elaborar “nuevas formas de vivir con la Tierra”. Lideres indigenas de todo este mundo estan haciendo llamamientos similares para reelaborar nuestras formas de ser y formar parte de un mundo del pluriverso. El desafio es como responder a estos llamados. En este articulo, destaco el papel critico de los comunes y las practicas de comunalidad en el fomento de las subjetividades poscapitalistas. A partir de mi trabajo con las iniciativas comunitarias de conservacion de bosques en Odisha, India, y los recursos de la teoria del afecto y la ontologia relacional, defiendo que los comunes no son solo recursos compartidos, sino tambien sitios (y resultados) de encuentros afectivos socionaturales que pueden fomentar la subjetividad de estar en comunion con el resto del mundo.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021
Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the c... more Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the commons. This interest corresponds to a growing quest for alternatives to capitalism in view of ongoing socio- ecological crises. As neoliberal capitalism intensifies enclosure of the commons, local actions to reclaim old commons and invent new ones to counter these processes are also on the rise. However, there are diverse conceptions of the commons, and pitfalls in their reproduction and in mobilizing this vocabulary in the dominant neoliberal individualistic culture. Our understanding remains limited about how spaces for commons and commoning practices can be expanded, as well as about specific practices, relations and imaginaries that support commons and subjectivities of being-in-common. This Special Issue on the “Commons, Commoning and Co-becomings” seeks to deepen our understanding of ‘actually-existing’ and ‘more-than- human’ commons in the world, and how ways of relating to them ...
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021
Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the c... more Over the last decade, there has been an expansion of scholarly and activist engagement with the commons. This interest corresponds to a growing quest for alternatives to capitalism in view of ongoing socio-ecological crises. As neoliberal capitalism intensifies enclosure of the commons, local actions to reclaim old commons and invent new ones to counter these processes are also on the rise. However, there are diverse conceptions of the commons, and pitfalls in their reproduction and in mobilizing this vocabulary in the dominant neoliberal individualistic culture. Our understanding remains limited about how spaces for commons and commoning practices can be expanded, as well as about specific practices, relations and imaginaries that support commons and subjectivities of being-in-common. This Special Issue on the "Commons, Commoning and Cobecomings" seeks to deepen our understanding of 'actually-existing' and 'more-thanhuman' commons in the world, and how ways of relating to them open up possibilities of responding to current socioenvironmental challenges and generating beyond-capitalist ways of life. Exploring commoning experiences in diverse settings, the papers assembled in this Special Issue illustrate the role that commons and commoning practices play in reconfiguring human-nature relations. Thinking with these papers,
Struggles for Environmental Justice, more widespread in the global South, are often framed as tra... more Struggles for Environmental Justice, more widespread in the global South, are often framed as traditional societies defending “old ways of life”; while degrowth, a relatively new movement in the global North is seen as striving for a “new ways of life.” I argue that both assert or aspire for other ways of being and belonging to the world and open possibilities for post-capitalist futures. In this Commentary, I focus on ontological continuities between the two movements and the grounds for alliance building. I argue that EJ and degrowth movements need to not only learn from each other, but think with the actual practices on the ground and the epistemologies of the South to foster pluriversal world-making practices. Moreover, dialogues and alliance between the two movements can help to reconceptualize work and care in a post-production, post-growth world.
Engaging the affective and materialist turn in the social sciences, this special section elaborat... more Engaging the affective and materialist turn in the social sciences, this special section elaborates on how analytical attention on affect and affective relations is central to understanding human-nature relations and to conservation interventions. The contributors to this section use conceptual resources from affect theory, new materialism, and indigenous ontologies to illustrate the practical signi cance of paying attention to affect in understanding nature- society relations. This introduction reviews these conceptual resources to make a case for affective political ecology.
Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 2017
This paper draws attention to the somewhat neglected domains of affects, emotions, and subjectivi... more This paper draws attention to the somewhat neglected domains of affects, emotions, and subjectivity in the study of the commons. The paper argues that a focus on affective and communicative relations among humans and between humans and more-than-humans can enrich our understanding of the practices of commoning and the processes of becoming a commoner. Using the case of community forestry initiatives in Odisha, India, it illustrates how rural people become commoners through the embodied practices of caring for the forests as a shared common. The paper uses this empirical example and conceptual resources from affect theory and relational ontology to think about the commons as affective socio-nature entanglements and as a nurturing ground for subjectivity. It discusses the implications of attention on the commons and the practices of commoning for enabling the emergence of other-than-capitalist subjectivities.
How do humans come to care for their environment and what turns them into conservationists are ce... more How do humans come to care for their environment and what turns them into conservationists are central questions in environmental politics. Recent scholars have turned to Foucault’s ideas of “governmentality” to understand how technologies of power intersect with technologies of the self to create “environmental subjects,” that is, people who display a sense of commitment to the conservation of the environment. In this article, I argue that the applications of governmentality tend to privilege technologies of power and pay insufficient attention to the role of affect, emotions, and embodied practices in shaping human subjectivities. I draw on Spinoza’s framework of affects and Hardt and Negri’s idea of “affective labor” to bring attention to the processes through which human beings make themselves and the role of affect and environmental care practices in shaping subjectivity. Using the example of community-based forest conservation efforts in Odisha, India, I argue that we need to look beyond economic and political rationalities to explain human action and behavior. I suggest that villagers’ efforts to regenerate degraded forests involve affective labor in which mind and body, reason and passion, intellect and feeling are all employed together. Through the daily practices of caring for the forest and helping the forests grow, villagers not only transform natural landscapes but also transform their individual and collective subjectivities. I conclude by elaborating on the “biopower from below” of these environmental care practices.
In response to the limited success of command-and-control interventions to ensure environmental s... more In response to the limited success of command-and-control interventions to ensure environmental stewardship, policy makers and practitioners have turned to financial payments to incentivize conservation. Many scholars and practitioners, including ecological economists, have cautioned that market-based approaches might modify human ways of relating to nature that are counterproductive to long-term conservation goals. Moving beyond critique, this article invites attention to the reconceptualization of environmental care labor and human–environment relations using the ideas of gift, reciprocity, and affect. Using the case of forest conservation by rural communities in Odisha, India, I discuss how the paradigm of the gift helps us to rethink transactions in ecosystem services, which might lead to more equitable and empowering ways of sharing of the burden and joy of environmental care. I argue that instead of framing conservation as a burdensome activity that entails sacrifice and costs alone, we need to pay attention to the joyful and life-affirming aspects of conservation care labor and its transformative potential.
There is a consensus in the literature and widespread policymaker support on the desirability of ... more There is a consensus in the literature and widespread policymaker support on the desirability of democratic decentralisation of natural resources governance. However, few decentralisation initiatives in developing countries have led to more democratic governance of natural resources. India's Recognition of Forest Rights Act (RFRA), 2006, was enacted as a result of democratic processes driven by demand for recognition of forest rights by forest dwellers. RFRA represents a political, demand-based effort to reform forest governance through a provision of rights to forest-dependent people. India also continues to operate the joint forest management (JFM) programme, a more traditional state-initiated decentralisation effort. The two parallel forest reform programmes being carried out in the same landscapes provide a unique opportunity to study democratisation of forest governance in the country with the world's largest number of forest-dependent people. We examine JFM and RFRA on the criteria of delegation of power and authority, downward accountability and impact on forest-dependent poor to understand the substantively different spaces that they open for democratic forest governance. We find that the implementation of the RFRA has been strongly opposed by powerful interests, and its more radical provisions related to community rights over forests have largely remained unimplemented. However, our findings, drawing from both primary and secondary sources, also bring out the potential of the RFRA to hold the forest bureaucracy accountable to forest-dweller communities and its ability to shift tangible legal powers and authority to forest dwellers.
This paper draws attention to the somewhat neglected domains of affects, emotions, and subjectivi... more This paper draws attention to the somewhat neglected domains of affects, emotions, and subjectivity in the study of the commons. The paper argues that a focus on affective and communicative relations among humans and between humans and more-than-humans can enrich our understanding of the practices of commoning and the processes of becoming a commoner. Using the case of community forestry initiatives in Odisha, India, it illustrates how rural people become commoners through the embodied practices of caring for the forests as a shared common. The paper uses this empirical example and conceptual resources from affect theory and relational ontology to think about the commons as affective socio-nature entanglements and as a nurturing ground for subjectivity. It discusses the implications of attention on the commons and the practices of commoning for enabling the emergence of other-than-capitalist subjectivities.
This paper draws attention to the somewhat neglected domains of affects, emotions, and subjectivi... more This paper draws attention to the somewhat neglected domains of affects, emotions, and subjectivity in the study of the commons. The paper argues that a focus on affective and communicative relations among humans and between humans and more-than-humans can enrich our understanding of the practices of commoning and the processes of becoming a commoner. Using the case of community forestry initiatives in Odisha, India, it illustrates how rural people become commoners through the embodied practices of caring for the forests as a shared common. The paper uses this empirical example and conceptual resources from affect theory and relational ontology to think about the commons as affective socio-nature entanglements and as a nurturing ground for subjectivity. It discusses the implications of attention on the commons and the practices of commoning for enabling the emergence of other-than-capitalist subjectivities.
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Papers by Neera Singh
defending “old ways of life”; while degrowth, a relatively new movement in the global North is seen as
striving for a “new ways of life.” I argue that both assert or aspire for other ways of being and belonging to the
world and open possibilities for post-capitalist futures. In this Commentary, I focus on ontological continuities
between the two movements and the grounds for alliance building. I argue that EJ and degrowth movements
need to not only learn from each other, but think with the actual practices on the ground and the epistemologies
of the South to foster pluriversal world-making practices. Moreover, dialogues and alliance between the two
movements can help to reconceptualize work and care in a post-production, post-growth world.
defending “old ways of life”; while degrowth, a relatively new movement in the global North is seen as
striving for a “new ways of life.” I argue that both assert or aspire for other ways of being and belonging to the
world and open possibilities for post-capitalist futures. In this Commentary, I focus on ontological continuities
between the two movements and the grounds for alliance building. I argue that EJ and degrowth movements
need to not only learn from each other, but think with the actual practices on the ground and the epistemologies
of the South to foster pluriversal world-making practices. Moreover, dialogues and alliance between the two
movements can help to reconceptualize work and care in a post-production, post-growth world.