Towards a cultural politics of sustainability transitions : an exploratory study of artistic activism in Scottish community woodlands
Abstract
Sustainability, and transitions away from currently prevailing unsustainability, is a project
with political (economic) and cultural dimensions. Yet, the potential of a cultural political
lens to investigate sustainability prefigurations is neglected by the academy. Moreover,
existing cultural political conceptualizations are ontologically incoherent with green
political perspectives. In this thesis, I articulate a revised notion of cultural politics
consistent with normative visions of sustainability transitions, and validate the new
approach through an exploratory investigation of Scottish community woodland
organizations (CWOs). CWOs are alternative organizations troubling hegemonic land
tenurial and forest management practices. However, these organizations are under-
researched by sustainability scholars. The study shows how one CWO prefigures
sustainability transitions, not least through distinctive woodland artistic activities.
The thesis narrates threefold theoretical originality, and also extends empirical
knowledge. Originality lies (first) in the practice-theoretical recasting of cultural politics
theory, (second) in the synthesis concept describing practices of everyday artistic
activism, and (third) in the green republican interpretive framework of sustainability
subjectivities, against which cultural political performances may be evaluated. Empirical
originality lies in the exploration of community woodlands. I argue that through practices
of everyday artistic activism and more general woodland practices, woodland activists
perform alternative conceptions of human-nature relations, intrahuman relations, and
organization. Through these performances, woodland artistic activists enact a cultural
politics of sustainability transitions, and make visible alternative modes of humans being
in the world. The study contributes to theoretical debates concerned with cultural politics
and artistic activism, with researching community organizing for sustainability
transitions, and with interpretive approaches to sustainability knowledge production.
Empirically, it extends alternative organizational knowledge, showing how sustainability
subjectivities can be communicated through woodland practices.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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