TY - JOUR
T1 - The urban resource nexus
T2 - On the politics of relationality, water-energy infrastructure, and the fallacy of efficient integration
AU - Williams, Joe G
AU - Bouzarovski, Stefan
AU - Swyngedouw, Erik
N1 - The acceptance date for this record is provisional and based upon the month of publication for the article.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - The ‘resource nexus’ has emerged over the past decade as an important new paradigm of environmental governance, which emphasises the interconnections, tensions and synergies between sectors that have traditionally been managed separately. Nexus thinking presents itself as a radically new approach to integrated governance in response to interconnected socio-environmental challenges and constraints. This paper provides a critical review of nexus thinking. The nexus paradigm, we contend, is part of a broader trend towards integrated environmental governance where previously externalised ‘bad’ nature is increasingly internalised by capital. In general, the nexus discourse has become techno-managerial in style, linear in its analysis and reductionist in its recommendations. Focussing particularly on urban water and energy infrastructure as important political sites in the (re)configuration of resource connectivities, we advance two principal arguments. Firstly, that the current nexus thinking inadequately conceptualises the scalar politics of interconnections between resource sectors. Secondly, we challenge the currently pervasive focus on technological and institutional ‘solutions’, efficiency-oriented ecological modernist vision and the presentation of ‘integration’ as a panacea for unsustainable resource practices.
AB - The ‘resource nexus’ has emerged over the past decade as an important new paradigm of environmental governance, which emphasises the interconnections, tensions and synergies between sectors that have traditionally been managed separately. Nexus thinking presents itself as a radically new approach to integrated governance in response to interconnected socio-environmental challenges and constraints. This paper provides a critical review of nexus thinking. The nexus paradigm, we contend, is part of a broader trend towards integrated environmental governance where previously externalised ‘bad’ nature is increasingly internalised by capital. In general, the nexus discourse has become techno-managerial in style, linear in its analysis and reductionist in its recommendations. Focussing particularly on urban water and energy infrastructure as important political sites in the (re)configuration of resource connectivities, we advance two principal arguments. Firstly, that the current nexus thinking inadequately conceptualises the scalar politics of interconnections between resource sectors. Secondly, we challenge the currently pervasive focus on technological and institutional ‘solutions’, efficiency-oriented ecological modernist vision and the presentation of ‘integration’ as a panacea for unsustainable resource practices.
U2 - 10.1177/0263774X18803370
DO - 10.1177/0263774X18803370
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
SN - 2399-6544
VL - 37
SP - 652
EP - 669
JO - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
JF - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
IS - 4
ER -