Agonistic Pluralism and Imagining CSEAR into the Future

Jesse Dillard and Judy Brown

Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 2012, vol. 32, issue 1, 3-16

Abstract: The recent success of the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) specifically, and social and environmental accounting (SEA) generally, has been an occasion for both celebration and reflection. We celebrate the heightened level of interest and accomplishment while reflecting on how we can maintain this momentum into the future. How do we imagine CSEAR into a future that is informed, but not inhibited, by predispositions and past practices? We propose agonistic pluralism as providing useful insights into how we might sustain and enhance a pluralistic ethos within CSEAR. Agonistic pluralism suggests that consensus-oriented practices too often deny alternative viewpoints, obscuring unresolved contestation and masking power asymmetries. In proposing agonistic pluralism, our purpose is not to provide solutions but to suggest a heteroglossic rendering that creates space for those with divergent ideological orientations to imagine and debate CSEAR into the future. If CSEAR can sustain and enhance its pluralistic ethos, it can maintain its energising critical perspective and, thus, continue to be a source of ingenuity and energy to its members, the larger SEA community and beyond.

Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1080/0969160X.2012.656403

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