Making Influence Visible: Innovating Ethnography at the Paris Climate Summit

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly R. Marion Suiseeya ◽  
Laura Zanotti
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Politics Of Representation ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Power And Influence

Although Indigenous Peoples make significant contributions to global environmental governance and were prominent actors at the 2015 Paris Climate Summit, COP21, they remain largely invisible in conventional, mainstream, and academic accounts of COP21. In this article, we adopt feminist collaborative event ethnography to draw attention to often marginalized and unrecognized actors and help make visible processes that are often invisible in the study of power and influence at sites of global environmental governance. Specifically, we integrate current approaches to power from international relations and political ecology scholarship to investigate how Indigenous Peoples, critical actors for solving global environmental challenges, access, navigate, and cultivate power at COP21 to shape global environmental governance. Through conceptual and methodological innovations that illuminate how Indigenous Peoples overcome structural and spatial barriers to engagement, this article demonstrates how attention to the politics of representation through pluralistic approaches to power can help expand the repertoire of possibilities for advancing global environmental governance.

Global Environmental Governance

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Dryzek
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Global Economic Governance ◽  
Dynamic Criteria

Long subordinate to global economic governance, global environmental governance currently fails to produce responses that match the urgency and depth of global environmental challenges, as well as being short on justice and democracy. Environmental political theory can speak to this condition though the critique of the deficiencies of governance, scrutiny of reform proposals, and development of dynamic criteria to seek in improved governance. At issue here are not just institutions generally recognized as environmental, but the system of global governance in its entirety. In the Anthropocene, ecosystemic reflexivity can be recognized as properly the first virtue of global environmental governance.

scholarly journals Private Environmental Governance and International Relations: Exploring the Links

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Falkner
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
International Negotiations ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Private Governance ◽  
Global Environmental Politics ◽  
Global Environmental

This article discusses private environmental governance at the global level. It is widely acknowledged that corporations play an increasing role in global environmental politics, not only as lobbyists in international negotiations or agents of implementation, but also as actors creating private institutional arrangements that perform environmental governance functions. The rise of such private forms of global governance raises a number of questions for the study of global environmental politics: How does private governance interact with state-centric governance? In what ways are the roles/capacities of states and nonstate actors affected by private governance? Does the rise of private governance signify a shift in the ideological underpinnings of global environmental governance? This article explores these questions, seeking a better understanding of the significance of private environmental governance for International Relations.

scholarly journals Indigenous Participation and the Incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives in Global Environmental Governance Forums: a Systematic Review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Zurba ◽  
Anastasia Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Convention On Biological Diversity ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Indigenous Participation

AbstractGlobal environmental governance (GEG) forums, such as those convened through the United Nations, result in the development of monumental guiding frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties (COPs) Aichi and post-2020 targets. The ratification of policy frameworks by member and/or signatory states can result in major shifts in environmental policy and decision-making and has major implications for Indigenous communities. In this article, we present systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on Indigenous participation in GEG forums, and focus on the specific questions: (1) what GEG forums include Indigenous participation and (2) how do Indigenous peoples participate in GEG forums, including how their perspectives and knowledges are framed and/or included/excluded within governance discussions, decisions, and negotiations. We provide a bibliometric analysis of the articles and derive seven inductively determined themes from our review: (1) Critical governance forums and decisions; (2) inclusion and exclusion of Indigenous voices and knowledge in GEG forums; (3) capacity barriers; (4) knowledge hierarchies: inclusion, integration, and bridging; (5) representation and grouping of Indigenous peoples in GEG; (6) need for networks among and between Indigenous peoples and other governance actors; and (7) Indigenous peoples influence on GEG decisions and processes. Our findings can be used to improve GEG forums by contributing to the development strategies that address the barriers and inequities to meaningful and beneficial Indigenous participation and can contribute to future research that is focused on understanding the experiences of Indigenous peoples within GEG forums.

UNEP in Global Environmental Governance: Design, Leadership, Location

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Ivanova
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
United Nations Environment Programme ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Subsequent Performance ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Systematic Methodology ◽  
Nations Environment ◽  
Environment Programme

As debates on reform of global environmental governance intensify, the future of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has come into acute political focus. Many argue that the organization has faltered in its role as the UN's leading agency for the environment. In this article, I use historical institutional analysis in combination with current international relations and management theory to explain UNEP's creation and evolution. Having described how the creators of UNEP envisioned the nascent organization, I analyze its subsequent performance, identifying the key factors that have shaped its record. I argue that the original vision for UNEP was ambitious but fundamentally pragmatic, and that the organization's mixed performance over the years can be explained by analysis of three factors: its design, leadership, and location. Thus, this article clarifies the record on UNEP's intended function, and lays the foundation for a systematic methodology for evaluating international organizations.

scholarly journals Doing feminist collaborative event ethnography

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 961-987
Author(s):  
Laura Zanotti ◽  
Kimberly Marion Suiseeya
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Science ◽  
Environmental Conflict ◽  
Environmental Knowledge ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Feminist Political Ecology ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Ecological Practice

Feminist political ecologists have transformed mainstream political ecology since its inception. The foundational and current work of feminist political ecologists indicate that their field is attentive to the epistemological foundations of power, inequities, and inequalities that cut across intersectional identities and hierarchies of difference and at the sites of  environmental conflict and governance. Feminist political ecologists have made important theoretical interventions in the interdisciplinary community of political ecologists, but the use of feminist methodologies and 'team-based environmental science' can be expanded. We argue that revisiting feminist methodological commitments is critical for furthering how feminist political ecology examines how, and in what way, power and privilege operate in the contexts where environmental knowledge is produced. We make our argument by drawing upon a multi-year, multi-sited project to describe how collaborative event ethnography (CEE) offers many possibilities to reassess feminist political ecology research designs. We show how the recognition of diverse and plural epistemologies are foundational preconditions to integrating feminist principles in feminist political ecology research. We find that integrating reflexivity, responsibility, and co-production in research designs create opportunities for, and challenges to, carrying out feminist political ecological practice. In so doing, the integration of feminist methodologies are critical to disrupting knowledge hegemonies and providing new modes of practicing feminist political ecologies.Keywords: Collaborative event ethnography, feminist political ecology, feminist methodologies, global environmental governance

scholarly journals Introduction: The Institutional Fragmentation of Global Environmental Governance: Causes, Consequences, and Responses

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fariborz Zelli ◽  
Harro van Asselt
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Research Themes ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Governance Architecture ◽  
Institutional Fragmentation

This article introduces a special issue on the expanding research agenda on institutional fragmentation. The term refers to the growing diversity and challenges to coordination among private and public norms, treaties, and organizations that address a given issue area of international politics. International relations scholars increasingly address this phenomenon, framing it with alternative concepts like regime complexes or polycentricity. A considerable part of the existing debate remains focused on whether a centralized or polycentric governance architecture is preferable. Instead, as this special issue shows, domains of global environmental governance—like climate change, biological diversity, renewable energy, and forestry—are already fragmented. It is time to address new, more pertinent questions and help advance institutionalist research on this phenomenon. We introduce four major research themes for analyzing the fragmentation of different domains of global environmental governance: taking stock, causes, consequences, and responses.

A political ecology of data

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110435
Author(s):  
Eric Nost ◽  
Jenny Elaine Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Data Infrastructures ◽  
Dominant Representation

Conservationists, governments, and corporations see promise in digital technologies to provide holistic, rapid, and objective information to inform policy, shape investments, and monitor ecosystems. But it is increasingly clear that environmental data does more than simply offer a better view of the planet. This special issue makes a single overarching argument: that we cannot fully understand the current conjuncture in global environmental governance without understanding the platforms, devices, and institutions that comprise environmental data infrastructures. The papers draw together scholarship from political ecology and science and technology studies to demonstrate how data has become a significant site in which contemporary environmental politics are waged and socionatures are materialized. We address: (1) the contested practices of utilizing and maintaining data infrastructures; (2) the ways they are governed and the territorial statecraft they enable; (3) the socionatural materiality they arise within but also produce. The papers in this special issue show that, against its dominant representation, data is material, governed, practiced, and requires praxis. Political ecologists could adopt such an approach to make sense of the emerging ways in which data technologies shape environments and their politics.

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