BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Assemblages for sustainable development: omissions and transformat
 ions in Bolivia - Jessica Hope\, University of Bristol
DTSTART:20180605T120000Z
DTEND:20180605T130000Z
UID:TALK105505@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Karen Wong
DESCRIPTION:In this paper\, I analyse how global development NGOs treat co
 ntentious politics in Bolivia\, as the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Goa
 ls are being constituted. In Bolivia\, progressive environmental policies 
 (seen in reconceptualising development as Vivir Bien/ Buen Vivir and award
 ing rights to nature) and increased political rights for indigenous groups
  (seen in political autonomy over territories and inclusion into a reworke
 d state) have been curtailed and undermined by increasingly aggressive ext
 ractive frontiers\, particularly in lowland\, Amazonian areas. In 2015\, t
 he government announced plans to become the energy heart of Latin America\
 , adding hydropower and fracking sites to areas contracted for hydrocarbon
  extraction. Once again\, these cross into\, or sit alongside\, indigenous
  territories and conservation areas and bring roads and other infrastructu
 re. Oppositional contentious politics find discourses of progressive chang
 e appropriated by the government and face criminalisation and threats in t
 he face of claims for development and the environment. \n\nIn this context
 \, I interrogate the environmental remit of the 2015 UN Sustainable Develo
 pment Goals (SDGs) and question the extent to which they bring about socio
 -environmental transformation. I argue that assemblage theory is a product
 ive way to investigate and make sense of the (re)emergent sustainability a
 genda (Delanda 2006)\, addressing the vague content of the term\, as well 
 as questions of power\, control and transformation. I show that despite ev
 idence that social movement and contentious politics are crucial for infor
 ming understandings of what is (or is not) sustainable (Scheidel et al 201
 7) and vital for transforming hegemonic and destructive patterns of resour
 ce use and ownership (Adams 2008)\, SDG assemblages can too easily side-st
 ep and ignore unsustainable logics of development by failing to include or
  support contentious politics. Finally\, I argue that in Bolivia the SDGs 
 are being disciplined by the state’s extractive project and that the sus
 tainable development agenda remains remarkably unchanged by Bolivia’s na
 tional\, regional or local environmental politics.\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, Department of Geography
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR