How can we use blockchain for an eco-socialist transformation?

By Defne Gonenc There is a lot of excitement about blockchain among technology professionals. It is also celebrated by many for bringing more transparency to supply chains and promoting decentralized governance. However, can blockchain do more than this? Can this technology potentially open the door for a complete eco-socialist transformation? Yes, but how? Time for …

Why ‘Game of Thrones’ was about ecomodernism

By Chris Giotitsas & Vasilis Kostakis Game of Thrones was arguably about climate change, but the HBO series turned this narrative around by presenting a last-minute technological solution as magically saving the day, the planet, and existence.  !!! SPOILERS AHEAD !!! Game of Thrones was arguably about climate change. George RR Martin himself confirmed that it is …

Environmentalism is not a metaphor

By Remy Bargout Environmentalists live under a growing and yet age-old illusion that the mainstream movement has gained a critical mass, or unstoppable momentum that ‘now, consumer society, world leaders, and the capitalist system must reckon with’. In reality, the mainstream movement does not speak to power, but actually exerts it. Elite environmentalism is a …

Political Ecologies of Waste: Salvaged Livelihoods and Infra-structural Labour

by Benjamin Irvine Solid waste is often seen as an environmental problem to be solved through change of behaviour and recycling. Political ecology can sharpen our analysis of the politics involved in the way materials move through the economy. Prospects for reducing the amount of solid waste generated and ambitions for a “circular economy” will …

Book Review: “Total Transition – The human side of the Renewable Energy Revolution”

By Marula Tsagkari The book Total Transition: The Human Side of the Renewable Energy Revolution offers an in-depth look at the social and environmental impacts of the current fossil fuel energy system, and calls for a renewable energy transition, which takes into account the needs of those communities that have been most affected by this …

Heterotopias and a serious joke at IHE Delft library

by Cristóbal Bonelli With the notion of heterotopia Foucault describes spaces that are somehow “different”, mirroring and yet distinguishing themselves from what is outside, like gardens, cemeteries, or ships. Heterotopias are places of imagination, escape, otherness and a microcosm of different environments. Cristobal Bonelli found his own heterotopia in the IHE library, during the presentation …

‘The Land Beneath Our Feet’ – A Review

By Fidel C.T. Budy The critically-acclaimed documentary The Land Beneath Our Feet, produced by Gregg Mitman and Sarita Siegel (University of Wisconsin-Madison and Alchemy Films), is an in-depth ethnographic portrayal of processes of land grabbing and dispossession of rural communities in Liberia, which challenges the dominant narrative that depicts affected communities as passive victims. Gregg …

Special Issue: “The Making of Caribbean Not-so-Natural Disasters”

Social inequality, colonialism and the commodification of disaster-related recovery are central to explaining the not-so-natural disasters caused by the 2017 Caribbean hurricane season, a recent special issue by Alternautas blog shows. Alternautas , a peer-reviewed blog dedicated to critical explorations of development and the civilizational crisis has recently published a special issue titled "The Making of Caribbean Not-so-Natural …

Curiosity, relationalities and monkeywrenching: The futures of the Anthropocene

by Daniele Valisena Daniele Valisena reviews the book Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene, edited by Gregg Mitman, Marco Armiero and Robert Emmett (University of Chicago Press, 2018). If curiosity is insubordination, Future Remains elevates it to a key role in approaching – and hopefully changing – the "human epoch". “I don’t particularly …

Resisting Development: The politics of the zad and NoTav

Alexander Dunlap reviews the book The ZAD and NoTAV: Territorial Struggles and the Making of a New Political Intelligence, by the Mauvaise Troupe Collective.