Natural(izing) Capital: An Ideological Response to Environmental Degradation
(2022) HEKM51 20221Department of Human Geography
Human Ecology
- Abstract
- Natural capital has emerged as the dominant response to revaluing nature in the context of deepening ecological degradation. The belief is that we make the contribution of nature to our well-being visible by seeing it as a form of capital alongside human-produced capitals. This would, it is assumed, help correct the observed imbalances between the capitals and prevent further ecological destruction. Existing criticism however has found this approach flawed on several accounts while tying it to powerful interests, ideologies and discourses. Yet, how the belief achieves its privileged status despite being dubious has not been sufficiently clarified. Neither has the idea been analyzed together with the actual value-form and its recent... (More)
- Natural capital has emerged as the dominant response to revaluing nature in the context of deepening ecological degradation. The belief is that we make the contribution of nature to our well-being visible by seeing it as a form of capital alongside human-produced capitals. This would, it is assumed, help correct the observed imbalances between the capitals and prevent further ecological destruction. Existing criticism however has found this approach flawed on several accounts while tying it to powerful interests, ideologies and discourses. Yet, how the belief achieves its privileged status despite being dubious has not been sufficiently clarified. Neither has the idea been analyzed together with the actual value-form and its recent transformations during neoliberalism. In this thesis, therefore, this dominant view is subjected to an immanent/explanatory critique that locates the sources of the natural capital concept in the specific alienated mediations of capitalism. The analysis suggests that the assumption that we can save nature by conceptualizing it as a form of capital is essentially a false belief that has been underpinned by increasingly abstract, fetishistic forms of value during neoliberalism. As such, the concept functions as an ideological form of consciousness that protects, not nature, but the inherently unsustainable social relation of capital. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9097402
- author
- Blomberg, Kalle Oskar LU
- supervisor
-
- Andreas Malm LU
- organization
- course
- HEKM51 20221
- year
- 2022
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9097402
- date added to LUP
- 2022-09-30 09:36:32
- date last changed
- 2022-09-30 09:36:32
@misc{9097402,
abstract = {{Natural capital has emerged as the dominant response to revaluing nature in the context of deepening ecological degradation. The belief is that we make the contribution of nature to our well-being visible by seeing it as a form of capital alongside human-produced capitals. This would, it is assumed, help correct the observed imbalances between the capitals and prevent further ecological destruction. Existing criticism however has found this approach flawed on several accounts while tying it to powerful interests, ideologies and discourses. Yet, how the belief achieves its privileged status despite being dubious has not been sufficiently clarified. Neither has the idea been analyzed together with the actual value-form and its recent transformations during neoliberalism. In this thesis, therefore, this dominant view is subjected to an immanent/explanatory critique that locates the sources of the natural capital concept in the specific alienated mediations of capitalism. The analysis suggests that the assumption that we can save nature by conceptualizing it as a form of capital is essentially a false belief that has been underpinned by increasingly abstract, fetishistic forms of value during neoliberalism. As such, the concept functions as an ideological form of consciousness that protects, not nature, but the inherently unsustainable social relation of capital.}},
author = {{Blomberg, Kalle Oskar}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Natural(izing) Capital: An Ideological Response to Environmental Degradation}},
year = {{2022}},
}