Community as tool for low carbon transitions: Involvement and containment, policy and action

Gerald Taylor Aiken

Environment and Planning C, 2019, vol. 37, issue 4, 732-749

Abstract: This paper introduces the Heideggerian terms Zuhanden and Vorhanden to studies of community low carbon transitions. It sets apart Zuhandenheit community as involvement: the doing, enacting and belonging aspects of community movements and activism. Vorhandenheit community contrastingly is observed: community as an object at arm's length, to be studied, tasked or used. The article builds on authors, particularly Malpas, who have utilised these concepts in spatial theory by adopting their associated spatialisation of involvement and containment. After introducing this theoretical understanding, the article addresses the case of a Transition initiative in receipt of government funding, where both Vorhanden and Zuhanden subjectivities can be found. Through focusing on this specific Transition project, we can more clearly grasp both the tensions emerging from state-funded community and the limits to, and possibilities for, appreciating community action phenomenologically.

Keywords: Environmental policy; environmental politics; environmental sustainability; sustainable communities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:37:y:2019:i:4:p:732-749

DOI: 10.1177/2399654418791579

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