Abstract
Drawing on semi‐structured interviews, this paper examines the geographies of environmental expertise underpinning the “dieselgate” scandal as it has played out at the EU level. It begins by mapping the scandal as a conflict between two distinct “knowledge space‐times.” The first of these – underpinned by official off‐the‐road vehicle emissions tests – links epistemic credibility to the ideal of experimental reproducibility. The second – underpinned by the “crowdsourcing” of publicly generated fuel economy measurements – links epistemic credibility to the ideals of empirical richness and diversity. The paper argues, however, that “expertise” in this controversy should not be understood exclusively as the attribute of knowledge produced according to particular spatial or temporal logics. Instead, the boundaries of credible expertise in this case are predetermined by an “anti‐political” ontology of vehicle emissions which presumes their status as a single, homogenous object of governance. Drawing on Barry's concept of “metrological regimes,” the paper therefore contends that the full political potential of dieselgate can only be unlocked by inventing new logics of counting and categorisation that might force us to think differently about how best to partition, label, measure, and ultimately govern the inherently messy practices from which individual acts of driving – and hence vehicle emissions – emerge in the first place.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 482-489 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Area |
Volume | 54 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 24 Aug 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This paper draws on research supported by the John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund (Award No.: 123/822). Early iterations were presented at the 2016 American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in San Francisco, and the 2017 Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference in London. I am particularly grateful to Sophie Elsmore and Alina Congreve for organising such a stimulating session at the latter conference, and for their guidance and encouragement as co-editors of this special issue. I am also indebted to all those who generously participated in this research as interviewees, and to Malcolm Fergusson and Tim Schwanen for numerous helpful conversations and advice. The paper was improved significantly by the suggestions of two anonymous reviewers. Any remaining errors are entirely the author's own.
Publisher Copyright:
The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). © 2019 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).
Keywords
- anti‐politics
- ontological politics
- metrological regimes
- knowledge controversy
- expertise
- dieselgate