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 language | English |
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Title of host publication | Assembling Neoliberalism |
Subtitle of host publication | Expertise, Practices, Subjects |
Editors | Vaughan Higgins, Wendy Larner |
Publisher | Springer Nature |
Pages | 131-149 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-137-58204-1 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-1-137-58203-4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 07 Apr 2017 |