Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 On the ambiguities of greening
- 2 Social movements and knowledge-making
- 3 The dialectics of environmentalism
- 4 National shades of green
- 5 The challenge of green business
- 6 On the dilemmas of activism
- 7 Concluding reflections
- References
- Index of Names
7 - Concluding reflections
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 On the ambiguities of greening
- 2 Social movements and knowledge-making
- 3 The dialectics of environmentalism
- 4 National shades of green
- 5 The challenge of green business
- 6 On the dilemmas of activism
- 7 Concluding reflections
- References
- Index of Names
Summary
A time to plant, a time to reap …
Pete Seeger, “Turn, Turn, Turn” (1954)Environmental action and environmental discourse, when carried on in the name of “sustainable development,” implicitly or explicitly position themselves with respect to the crisis of justice and the crisis of nature. Different actors produce different types of knowledge; they highlight certain issues and underplay others. How attention is focused, what implicit assumptions are cultivated, what hopes are entertained, and what agents are privileged depends on the way the debate on sustainability is framed.
Wolfgang Sachs, Planet Dialectics (1999: 77–78)A summing-up
Around 1987 the environmental movement began to take on a new character. Metaphorically we might say the seeds that had been planted in the cultural soil had started to take root. The utopian practices which had characterized much of the activity of environmental movements up until then have gradually given way to the somewhat more complicated and diffuse work of instituting and implementing: cultivating and nurturing the seeds that have been planted. As a result the underlying meanings of environmental politics have come to be fundamentally altered. Other interests have had to be taken into account in the launching of campaigns, the development of programs and the taking of initiatives. The terms of discussion have shifted from making particular improvements or pointing to particular environmental problems to integrating environmental concerns into all other kinds of social, economic, and political activities.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Making of Green KnowledgeEnvironmental Politics and Cultural Transformation, pp. 176 - 181Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001