Banking nature? The spectacular financialisation of environmental conservation

Sullivan, S (2013) 'Banking nature? The spectacular financialisation of environmental conservation.' Antipode, 45 (1). pp. 198-217. ISSN 0066-4812

Official URL: http://siansullivan.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/su...

Abstract

In this paper I emphasise the financialisation of environmental conservation as 1. the turning of financiers to conservation parameters as a new frontier for investment, and 2. the rewriting of conservation practice and nonhuman worlds in terms of banking and financial categories. I introduce financialisation as a broadly controlling impetus with relevance for environmental conservation. I then note ways in which a spectacular investment frontier in conservation is being opened. I highlight the draw of assertions of lucrative gains, combined with notions of geographical substitutability, in creating tradable indicators of environmental health and harm. I disaggregate financialisation strategies into four categories—nature finance, nature work, nature banking and nature derivatives—and assess their implications. The concluding section embraces Marx and Foucault as complementary thinkers in understanding the transforming intensifications of late capitalism in environmental conservation, and diagnosing their associated effects and costs.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: financialisation, environmental conservation, frontier, primitive accumulation, environmentality, Marx, Foucault
Divisions: School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.00989.x
Date Deposited: 15 Jan 2014 11:28
Last Modified: 15 Jan 2024 16:16
URI / Page ID: https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/1807
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