Jeremy Walker

Genealogies of resilience From systems ecology to the political economy of crisis adaptation

The concept of ‘resilience’ was first adopted within systems ecology in the 1970s, where it marked a move away from the homeostasis of Cold War resource management toward the far-from-equilibrium models of second-order cybernetics or complex systems theory. Resilience as an operational strategy of risk management has more recently been taken up in financial, urban and environmental security discourses, where it reflects a general consensus about the necessity of adaptation through endogenous crisis. The generalization of complex systems theory as a methodology of power has ambivalent sources. While the redefinition of the concept can be directly traced to the work of the ecologist Crawford S. Holling, the deployment of complex systems theory is perfectly in accord with the later philosophy of the Austrian neoliberal Friedrich Hayek. This ambivalence is reflected in the trajectory of complex systems theory itself, from critique to methodology of power.

The Wild Life of Pesticides: urban agriculture, institutional responsibility, and the future of biodiversity in Sydney's Hawkesbury-Nepean River

Abstract Agricultural chemicals are a notoriously intractable source of environmental pollution. Offering enhanced agricultural productivity, they simultaneously risk degrading the ecological basis upon which agriculture depends. This paper considers chemicalisation as a cause of the erosion of aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem resilience, focusing on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River and the small-scale horticulturalists who supply the citys fresh vegetable markets, working under the pressure of urbanisation, retail monopolies, indifferent land-use planning, and often without access to information about pesticide use in the languages they understand. Arguing that standard practices of ‘risk management’ are unable to adequately control chemical contamination, the paper presents findings from interviews with actors within the ‘assemblage’ of institutions with responsibility for agriculture, water quality, and environmental protection, in order to assess the effectiveness of pesticide governance in the Greater Sydney Basin. It appears that pesticide pollution is far from being tamed: it is rarely measured nor monitored, neither is it a priority of any particular agency. Arguing that public health, the long-term viability of local farming and the ecological well-being of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River are mutually consistent goals, we conclude that these vital elements of the common-weal are currently subject to a system of ‘organised irresponsibility’. The paper concludes by proposing several ways forward.