Federico Caprotti

The Green Economy: Functional Domains and Theoretical Directions of Enquiry

The green economy is a highly complex construct in terms of its attempts to integrate economic, environmental, and social concerns, the wide range of actors involved, its material outcomes, and the forms of governance needed to regulate processes of economic greening. As such, it poses new empirical and theoretical challenges for social science research on socioenvironmental futures. This paper has two main aims. The first is to survey the emergent features and functional domains of the green economy. The second is to consider theoretical tools that might be used to analyse the drivers and processes shaping the green economy. Focusing on literature on sociotechnical transitions, ecological modernisation, the ‘green’ cultural economy, and postpolitical governance, we argue that understanding the functional and spatial heterogeneity of the green economy necessitates a multitheoretical approach. We then explore how combining branches of research on socioenvironmental governance can lead to theoretically and ontologically richer insights into the drivers, practices, and power relations within the green economy. In so doing, we respond to calls for socioeconomic research on environmental change which is neither just empirical nor bound to one theoretical outlook to the detriment of understanding the complexity of socioenvironmental governance and human–nature relations.

The New Urban Agenda: key opportunities and challenges for policy and practice

The UN-HABITAT III conference held in Quito in late 2016 enshrined the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) with an exclusively urban focus. SDG 11, as it became known, aims to make cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable through a range of metrics, indicators, and evaluation systems. It also became part of a post-Quito ‘New Urban Agenda’ that is still taking shape. This paper raises questions around the potential for reductionism in this new agenda, and argues for the reflexive need to be aware of the types of urban space that are potentially sidelined by the new trends in global urban policy.

MAKING SENSE OF THE GREEN ECONOMY

Abstract This special issue editorial explores potential research interfaces between human geography and the rapidly unfolding concept and practices of the “green economy”. The article outlines a range of critical issues about the green economy that are particularly pertinent and suited to geographical analysis. The first concerns questions around the construction of the green economy concept and critical questioning of current, largely hegemonic neoliberal, growth‐focused and technocentric definitions of the green economy. The second broaches the spatial complexities of green economic transitions, while the third discusses the need for critical appraisal of the logics and mechanisms of governance and transition that see the green economy as a key mechanism for economic, social and environmental change. The fourth focuses on the crucial issue of micro‐level and individual practices and behaviour, and on links between individual behaviour and wider economic‐environmental governance and economic systems. Finally, the article discusses the need for scholars to engage in imaginative consideration of alternatives to current, growth‐focused paradigms and conceptualizations of the green economy.

Eco-Cities and the Transition to Low Carbon Economies

1. Eco-Cities in the Age of Crisis 2. Experimental Eco-Cities in China 3. Peak Oil and Eco-Urbanism in Abu Dhabi 4. Conclusion: Re-Thinking the Eco-City?

Interrogating urban experiments

ABSTRACT The notion of the “urban experiment” has become increasingly prevalent and popular as a guiding concept and trope used by both scholars and policymakers, as well as by corporate actors with a stake in the future of the city. In this paper, we critically engage with this emerging focus on “urban experiments”, and with its articulation through the associated concepts of “living labs”, “future labs”, “urban labs” and the like. A critical engagement with the notion of urban experimentation is now not only useful, but a necessity: we introduce seven specific areas that need critical attention when considering urban experiments: these are focused on normativity, crisis discourses, the definition of “experimental subjects”, boundaries and boundedness, historical precedents, “dark” experiments and non-human experimental agency.

‘IT'S ALL A QUESTION OF BUSINESS’: INVESTMENT IDENTITIES, NETWORKS AND DECISION-MAKING IN THE CLEANTECH ECONOMY

Abstract Cleantech has emerged in the last decade as a major new investment sector at the forefront of the green economy. It responds to the need for innovative technologies to combat the impact of global environmental, climate and resource trends. Focusing on the cleantech sector, this article explores the central importance of relationality within the financial domain of the green economy. The central aim of this article is to deepen understandings of the operation of cleantech investment by examining the decision‐making processes of cleantech actors, how these are influenced by (and influence) cleantech investment networks, and the relationships between these factors and the macro‐level drivers and discourses focused on the cleantech sector. A relational economic geography approach is used in conjunction with other frameworks (spanning the cultural, structural and actor‐network dimensions of cleantech investment) to investigate: how cleantech investors define the sector; the macro‐ and micro‐level drivers of cleantech investment; and how cleantech networks form and operate to create and disseminate cleantech discourses and to generate the mutual trust and information sharing needed to secure cleantech investments. In so doing, the article seeks to shed greater light on the micro‐level processes contributing to the creation and growth of cleantech investment markets as an essential catalyst and component of the green economy.

Information Management and Fascist Identity: newsreels in fascist Italy

Recent research in the study of Italian fascism has emphasized the cultural manifestations of Mussolini’s totalitarian regime. This specific field has of late generated a wide variety of interest and scholarship, both on a general and on a more specific level. The relationship between culture and the regime [1], fascist theatre [2] and art and aesthetics [3] have all been subjects of recent research. This paper aims to explore a more material side of one of fascism’s aesthetic and cultural products: the distribution networks of newsreels and documentaries. Cinema has been one of the fields examined through the cultural lens. The moving image and its associated discourses have been re-fragmented and subject to analysis in view of their historical, political and cultural contexts. Within studies of fascism there exists a broad field of cultural /political research on the propagandistic aspects of the fascist regime. There has been constant interest in film propaganda with a focus on Italy and on newsreels [4]. Propaganda newsreels, produced under fascism by the LUCE institute, have also aroused recently scholarly interest [5]. This paper’s analysis of the distribution and propagation side of the LUCE institute aims to contribute to an understanding of the manner in which newsreels, defined as weekly series of edited and collated news items, were propagated in order to project an image of fascism. Archival material from the Central State Archive in Rome is utilized to support the arguments presented in this paper. The documents originate specifically from the public collection, or Carteggio Ordinario, of documents from Mussolini’s governmental office, the Segreteria Particolare del Duce. The first section of this paper gives a brief overview of the organization of propaganda in fascist Italy, with a focus on cinema. The second section emphasizes cinema propaganda, paying particular attention to newsreels. The third section is a more specific discussion of the LUCE institute, which was charged with producing newsreels and documentaries in the 1920s and 1930s. The utility of newsreel distribution for the propagation of fascist identity is examined in the fourth section. In light of this, an analysis of LUCE’s distribution network follows in the fifth section. Newsreels, documentaries and films produced by the LUCE institute are understood as instruments utilized by the fascist regime to attempt to project a unitary vision of fascist identity in the national and international sphere.

Visuality, Hybridity, and Colonialism: Imagining Ethiopia Through Colonial Aviation, 1935–1940

This article examines the discursive construction of visual imaginations of Italian East Africa through visual and textual materials associated with fascist colonial civil aviation from 1934 through 1940. Analysis of materials produced by Ala Littoria, the fascist regimes main airline, reveals discursive strands and themes that contributed to the deeply modern depiction of Ethiopia, Italian Somaliland, and Eritrea (the constituent colonies within Italian East Africa) as “natural” landscapes that could be accessed, consumed, and dominated through the air, and in particular through aviation technology and the institution of a colonial civil aviation network in East Africa. Aviation was as a hybrid technology that contributed to the discursive, and therefore material, imaginative construction of Italian East Africa through aviations material and technological basis as well as its visual representation.

Financial crisis, activist states and (missed) opportunities

Purpose – This article seeks to discuss three key issues raised by the recent financial crisis: the rise of “activist states”; a new focus on the geopolitical effects of finance; and possible future social implications of the rapid response to crisis.Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides an analytical overview of three of the implications of the current crisis, and introduces the idea of the “activist state” in financial markets.Findings – The article focuses on three issues raised in connection with the recent crisis: the rapid rise of “activist states” as a result of impaired liquidity; the bringing to light of long‐neglected geopolitical spaces of finance; and the opportunities for improved social aims communication and lobbying which result from future analyses of responses to the crisis.Originality/value – The articles focus is on the interface between finance and politics. The article introduces the idea of a financial “activist state” as a public entity which behaves like an activist sh...

Technology and geographical imaginations: representing aviation in 1930s Italy

This paper examines the geographical imaginations associated with aviation in fascist Italy, focusing on the representation of flight on the one hand, and on the other hand the role of propaganda flights organized by the regime in the 1930s. The representation and use of aviation in interwar Italy is explored in light of the concept of technological legitimation, based on an understanding of technological practice as a political and ideological instrument. Aviation, as one of the new subjects of artistic representations of the modern era, was grasped by avant-garde and modern movements in the early twentieth century. In turn, representations of aviation were used by Mussolinis regime, which considered it a key to national development and modernization, materially as well as in the representational sphere. Propaganda flights in 1930s Italy were organized by the Ministry of Aeronautics and local aero clubs, and were an expression of the politicized use of aviation, both in terms of representations of technology and the aviator, and the exploitation of flights public potential for the construction of fascist spectacle.