(Re)Assembling Neoliberal Logics in the Service of Climate Justice: Fuzziness and Perverse Consequences in the Fossil Fuel Divestment Assemblage

Robyn Mayes, Carol Richards, Michael Woods

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Socially-motivated divestment from the fossil fuel industry (eg coal mining) is occurring at a rapid rate. Banks, pension funds, universities and philanthropic organisations around the world are divesting vast amounts of capital. This new strategy adopted by environmental movements in the pursuit of climate justice is challenging the legitimacy of the fossil fuel based energy economy and business-government-society interrelationships. Based on empirical data co-constructed through face-to-face interviews with key divestment actors in the UK and Australia, this chapter explores the entanglements between the divestment and neoliberal assemblages. By approaching this topic through the analytical frame of ‘the assemblage’, we highlight the ‘perverse consequences’ arising from the mobilization of the responsible citizen subject through free market mechanisms. That is, whilst the divestment movement achieves its aims in disrupting flows of capital around the fossil fuel industry, it unwittingly reproduces neoliberalizing ideologies by reinforcing the neoliberal shift away from the state as the key corporate regulator. This fuzziness has occurred as a result of state unresponsive to the urgency of climate change, presenting little option but to engage within the parameters of the neoliberal assemblage.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAssembling Neoliberalism
Subtitle of host publicationExpertise, Practices, Subjects
EditorsVaughan Higgins, Wendy Larner
PublisherSpringer Nature
Pages131-149
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-137-58204-1
ISBN (Print)978-1-137-58203-4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 07 Apr 2017

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