Ecological Ambivalence, Complexity, and Change by Müller, Simone M.; Schmidt, Matthias; Twelbeck, Kirsten;

Short description:

This book provides a systematic, interdisciplinary analysis of the conflicts, issues and tensions associated with today’s ecological transformation processes from an environmental humanities perspective. Of interest to researchers, academics and students studying environmental humanities, the social sciences and environment sciences. 

Long description:

This book provides a systematic, interdisciplinary analysis of the conflicts, issues, and tensions associated with today’s ecological transformation processes from an Environmental Humanities perspective. It explores the notion of ecological ambivalence, where conflicting reactions, beliefs, or feelings toward public policies or private practices for "saving planet Earth" threaten to produce a stalemate.

Under the umbrella of the Environmental Humanities, the book brings together scholars from fields such as environmental history, ecological economics, human geography, and ecocriticism. Contributions investigate the dissonances, or ambivalences, wound up with processes of environmental transformation both conceptually and empirically. Case studies range from wind farms in India to green mineral mines in Mexico, and from chemical contamination in Denmark to Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Denver, USA. Additionally, with a focus on creative environmental communication—as in Philippe Squarzoni’s graphic novel Climate Changed or G’Ebinyo Ogbowei’s poetry—contributions also present possible pathways for overcoming ambivalences, managing them creatively, or critiquing the concept as whole. The volume highlights how the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences can work together to help humankind develop and cultivate the skills to overcome paralysis and engage in practical action, and in doing so, puts forth ambivalence as an approach for being in today’s world.

This book will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students from the Environmental Humanities, the social sciences, the humanities, and the environmental sciences. It will also be useful for decisionmakers, think tanks, NGOs, and activists.

Table of Contents:

Introduction Part 1: Conceptual Facets 1. Ecological Transformation and the Implications of Spatial Scale 2. Climate Solidarity, Time, and Ambivalence: On a New Term and Its Historical Legacy 3. Transformation and/of ‘Colonial Tropes.’ Latin American Narrative Palimpsests 4. Interactions of Efficiency, Consistency, and Sufficiency across Levels: Assessing Innovation Tensions through the Lens of Paradox Theory 5. Toxic Commons and the Politics of Ambivalence: Re-imagining Toxic Legacy Sites Part 2: Ambivalences in Practice 6. In Praise of Ambivalence: Reflections on Experiences of Pollution and Remediation 7. Global Waste: On the Ambivalence of Wealth, Health, and Contradictory Development Models 8. Farming the Wind: Aeolian Politics and the Sacred Desertscapes (Orans) of Rajasthan 9. Global South Ambivalences of Transformation? Literature, Extractive Capitalism, and Literary Militancy in West Africa 10. Mining for a Low-Carbon Economy? Articulations by the Mexican Corporate Sector 11. Integrating Labor, Environment, and Climate? (Dis)connections in the Spanish and Portuguese Energy Decarbonizations 12. Bioplastics Versus Conventional Plastics: An Analysis from a Sociological, Ethical, and Educational Perspective 13. Against all Odds: Managing Ambivalence in Philippe Squarzoni’s Graphic Novel Climate Changed Concluding Remarks and Survey of the Contributions