Giuseppe Feola presented at the Contesting Loss & Damage Workshop hosted by the Environmental Humanities Lab at KTH, Stockholm

Giuseppe Feola presented the paper Unmaking capitalism in transformation to sustainability: a politics of loss and sacrifice at the ‘Contesting Loss & Damage’ Workshop hosted by the Environmental Humanities Lab at KTH, Stockholm.

Abstract

The current social-ecological crisis is largely an outcome of the capitalist modern development project, which has been pursued through the production of sacrifice zones and the dispensation (loss) of non-human and human life, and cultures. Yet, loss and sacrifice are absent from the collective memory of the past as well as from dominant narratives of the present. This absence is not due to lack of knowledge; it is rather the results of socially produced ignorance.
Transformation to sustainability is now the ubiquitous approach, if only nominally, to the social-ecological crisis. If this crisis is caused by the inherent tendency of capitalist development to dispose human and non-human life, any transformation to sustainability must entail a reconfiguration of patterns of loss and sacrifice. The transformative extent of notions and practices of transformation to sustainability can be ‘measured’ against their ability to mitigate (quantitative aspect) and reconfigure (qualitative aspect) loss and sacrifice which are inherent in social and economic systems. However, questions of loss and sacrifice –who sacrifices, and whom/what is sacrificed– have not been satisfactorily addressed in theorizations of transformation to sustainability.
Therefore, this paper extends the discussion of loss and sacrifice from critiques of capitalist development to the analysis of notions and practices of transformation to sustainability. The aim of this paper is to advance theorizations of transformation to sustainability, by specifically (i) providing a lens through which to reveal the dis-engagement of notions and practices of transformation to sustainability with capitalism and its critiques; (ii) examining how deliberate unmaking of elements of capitalism in processes of transformation reconstitute meanings and patterns of loss and sacrifice.
The paper builds on recent critiques of transformative mitigation and adaptation, which have emphasised the inherent, but often overlooked political character of transformation, and the contested nature of supposed transformative ‘solutions’. Furthermore, it builds on ongoing theoretical and empirical analyses of the interplay between processes of unmaking (of capitalism) and making (of post-capitalist realities).
The analysis is presented in two steps. First, the paper reveals how distinct notions and practices of transformation to sustainability articulate loss and sacrifice with capitalism, politics, and the (un)making of (post)capitalist realities. Three ideal types are identified, namely (i) transformation as development (e.g. Green Growth); (ii) transformation as correction of development (e.g. Sustainable Development Goals), and (iii) transformation as post-development (e.g. Buen Vivir).
Second, the paper demonstrates that notions and practices of transformation as post-development re-politicize transformation, and especially do so because they disarticulate (unmake) loss and sacrifice in present capitalist development. More specifically, in this notion/practice of transformation, political acts of unmaking of capitalism can be seen either in the explicit and programmatic goal of systemic change (e.g. divestment campaigns), or at the more hidden and subtle level of the everyday (e.g. acts of non-participation and refusal). Thus, complementary processes of unmaking can be activated at multiple levels of transformative practice. Furthermore, three characteristics distinguish the politics of loss and sacrifice at the level of the everyday: (i) prefiguration, which underscores the generative role of deliberate loss and sacrifice, (ii) emancipation, which emphasizes the right to decide what to lose or sacrifice, and (iii) responsibility, which recognizes deliberate sacrifice as a democratic act.
By activating processes of unmaking, (some) grassroots movements reconstitute meanings and patterns of loss and sacrifice in transformation to sustainability. Thus, they also politicize loss and sacrifice, which contrasts with the ways in which these aspects are silenced and obscured in predominant discourses of transformation to sustainability.