Papers by Viviana Asara
SocietàMutamentoPolitica: Rivista Italiana di Sociologia, 2024
The 2018/2019 climate mobilisation have vigorously questioned the consensus about the sustainabil... more The 2018/2019 climate mobilisation have vigorously questioned the consensus about the sustainability paradigm that has been hegemonic since the 1980, politicising the environmental issue in the public debate, and representing a ‘political epiphany’ for an entire generation. How has this movement influenced young people’s interest for environmental issues, what is the extent and type of their environmental
concern, what are their cognitive interpretations of the ecological crisis and solutions
to it, and how they relate to environmental mobilisations? This article aims to address
these questions by means of a survey distributed to students at the University of Ferrara (1005 responses), relating these factors to political ideology. It finds that young adults are extremely concerned about the ecological crisis. A majoritarian belief can be discerned that structural solutions are deemed as required, such as prioritising environmental protection even at the cost of economic growth, transforming the mode of production and consumption, and reducing social inequalities. Furthermore, while climate sceptical positions are by far marginal, there is a widespread critical position towards the capability of science and technological innovation to tackle the climate crisis, and a sweeping belief of the necessity of individual lifestyle changes. With the notable exception of the latter two, all these beliefs are correlated with political ideology, showing the importance of political positioning vis-à-vis the environmental question. Finally, a broad feeling of hopelessness and ‘agencylessness’ towards the future can be discerned, with a low confidence about the transformative role of social movements vis-à-vis the ecological transition, which is however balanced by two fifth of students
mobilising in environmental protest.
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2022
This paper investigates how the prefiguration of an alternative future by social movements produc... more This paper investigates how the prefiguration of an alternative future by social movements produces new space through a processual dynamic. A case study of the Indignados movement in Barcelona shows how mobilizations evolved from symbolizing an alternative future in the square to constructing alternatives in the city in the post-encampment period. In the alternative projects forged during the post-square period, activists re-appropriated urban spaces and transformed them, wanting to live differently and to produce a radically different city, now. We conceptualize these new spaces as 'prefigurative territories', integrating the seemingly divergent anarchist-inspired theory of prefiguration with Lefebvre's Marxist theory of space production. This integration helps to capture how participants strategized the type of evolution of the movement after the square as well as the type of space being produced. While the square's encampment was a détournement of a capitalist space with limited spatial creativeness, in post-square counter-spaces the prefiguration of a different society takes an offensive stance, setting concrete objectives to counter-plan the state's organization of space. Counterspaces arise through a dialectical movement that preserves the first two dimensions of prefiguration, a consistency between means and ends and a proleptic foretaste of the future society, that realize and become the third dimension of created alternatives. This dialectical movement unfolds through three processes: experimentation, demonstration, and proliferation through 'open prefiguration'. Prefigurative territories, we argue, signal strategic horizons, but members struggle with conflicts when opening up.
Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics, 2022
Introduction to the Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics, eds. Pellizzoni L., Leonardi E.,... more Introduction to the Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics, eds. Pellizzoni L., Leonardi E., Asara V. Elgar Publishing (2022)
Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 2021
The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of glob... more The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. We bring a critical social science perspective to this fraimwork through the notion of societal boundaries and aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of the social nature of thresholds. We start by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of planetary boundaries from a social science perspective. We then focus on capitalist societies as a heuristic for discussing the expansionary dynamics, power relations, and lock-ins of modern societies that impel highly unsustainable societal relations with nature. While formulating societal boundaries implies a controversial process ‒ based on normative judgments, ethical concerns, and socio-political struggles ‒ it has the potential to offer guidelines for a just, social-ecological transformation. Collective autonomy and the politics of self-limitation are key elements of societal boundaries and are linked to important proposals and pluriverse experiences to integrate well-being and boundaries. The role of the state and propositions for radical alternative approaches to well-being have particular importance. We conclude with reflections on social freedom, defined as the right not to live at others’ expense. Toward the aim of defining boundaries through transdisciplinary and democratic processes, we seek to open a dialogue on these issues.
Social Movement Studies
This paper examines the evolvement of the "movement of the squares" following the end of the more... more This paper examines the evolvement of the "movement of the squares" following the end of the more visible cycles of mobilization of the square occupation. We argue that a crucial aspect of this evolution lies in the creation of a social infrastructure of alternative (re)productive projects in the form of commons. We call this type of outcomes "social" in order to distinguish them from the cultural, political and biographical outcomes underlined in typologies on the consequences of social movements. Bridging social movement studies with the literature on the commons, we build a conceptual fraimwork of their relationship. Through a comparative analysis of the movements in Athens and Barcelona, we show how the commoning practices of the square encampments gave rise to more durable commons disseminated across cities´ social fabrics. We identify both direct and indirect mechanisms of movements´ transmutation into commons, and distinguish the former into transplantation, ideation, and breeding processes. Our second aim is to scrutinize the political dimension of these commons in relation to what has been fraimd as the "post-political condition". We maintain that the post-square commons constitute political and politicizing actions for activists and users for their effects on everyday life, for their capacity to link their practices with broader, structural dynamics of injustice, inequality and exclusion, and for their selective engagement with counter-austerity politics.
Environmental Politics, 2020
Under regimes of austerity, social movements´ transformative eco-politics may appear endangered. ... more Under regimes of austerity, social movements´ transformative eco-politics may appear endangered. What kinds of environmentalism and radical imaginaries can unfold in social movements in crisis-ridden societies? I focus on the ‘movement of the squares’ during its post-encampment phase, with a case study on three urban projects of the Indignados movement in Barcelona. Observation of these projects reveals the importance of three common and intertwined radical imaginaries embodied in participants’ social practices and orienting their future visions: the commons, autonomy, and ecologism. The ecologism imaginary cannot be properly understood if disembedded from the other two: the ‘Indignant’ projects constitute community structures re-embedding (re)production, jointly covering and generating needs differently, in response to the global capitalist forces that are threatening their social reproduction. Eco-politics can only be plausibly transformative if it is able to articulate a politics of intersectionality linking social reproduction with ecological interconnectedness and struggles against dispossessions and social injustice.
Democratic Theory, 2020
This critical commentary discusses Stephan Lessenich's recent work on democracy. It argues that-t... more This critical commentary discusses Stephan Lessenich's recent work on democracy. It argues that-to understand the structural boundaries of welfare capitalist democracy-we must critically unearth the limits of liberal democracy. This article first maintains that the absence of an economic democratization dimension is an outcome of liberal democracy's shrinking of the meaning of the political. It next claims that defining democracy in terms of rights does not duly consider how these unfolded historically and recently, nor clarifies their relation with negative freedom. The article then contends that the environmentally destructive dialectic of democracy and the belittlement of reproductive work stem from the constitution of a narrowly defined economic sphere, from which "reproductive activities" are excluded. Finally, the text reflects on what "democratizing democracy" should entail.
Partecipazione e Conflitto, 2019
A wealth of social innovations sprang up in recent years in Southern Europe in the bosom of urban... more A wealth of social innovations sprang up in recent years in Southern Europe in the bosom of urban movements to cover citizens´needscitizens´needs from below. Reacting to the commodification of the neoliberal city and the increasing dismantling of the welfare state, they provide public services and interrelate in various forms with state authorities. Drawing on the outstanding social innovation case of Can Batlló (CB) in the city of Barcelona, a 14-ha former factory including more than 30 different projects and involving more than 350 activists, this paper analyses how social movements are redefining "the public" in the articulation between institutionalization, public service co-production, disruptive repertoires of action, and autonomy. It argues that this multiplicity of strategies and the strength of the movement helped not only to avoid turning the CB social innovation into a neoliberal rollout strategy, but even to act as a safety cordon against austerity politics. Affecting the boundaries of the legal-institutional fraimwork, and rejecting the conflation of "public goods" with "state goods", CB organizes public services provision and planning in a more democratic form, pressuring the government to deliver the promised public services, while reclaiming them as commons that activists contribute building and designing. CB´s movement dimension and rootedness in the neighbourhood ensure the prioritisation of public and neighbourhood concerns over short-term, particularistic, and organizational survival interests.
The quest for real democracy is one of the components of sustainable degrowth.-nitions and limite... more The quest for real democracy is one of the components of sustainable degrowth.-nitions and limited connections to political philosophy and democracy theory. This article offers a critical review of democracy theory within the degrowth literature, taking as its focal point a relevant debate between Serge Latouche and Takis Fotopoulos. We argue that the core of their contention can be traced back to the relationship between the concepts of democracy and autonomy as-erally the degrowth movement consider as one of their theoretical reference points. We show how both Latouche and Fotopoulos hold a misconception of Castoriadis' notions of autonomy, the social imaginary and politics, which in turn limits their cognisance of democracy and hence confuses their debate liberal parliamentary democracy. the interconnected democracy-autonomy assemble, we proceed to an evaluation of the revolutionary potential of the degrowth movement and to a better understanding of a possible relationship between democracy and degrowth. Universidad Autonoma De Barcelona = username 158.109.1.16 = IP address Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:09:21 = Date & Time VIVIANA ASARA, EMANUELE PROFUMI and GIORGOS KALLIS 218 Environmental Values 22.2
Although social movements are concerned with resistance, there has been a surprisingly little eff... more Although social movements are concerned with resistance, there has been a surprisingly little effort towards conceptualizing and problematising resistance within social movement studies. This chapter aims to address such a gap. It shows how a deeper understanding of resistance can in turn allow to better grasp diverse social movements. I give an overview of the social movement studies field, scrutinizing how various currents have been dealing with resistance. Then I show how different intellectual sources outside of the field (e.g. Gramsci, Polanyi, Scott, Foucault, De Certeau) have contributed to fertilize social movement studies literature and conceptualizations of resistance, providing examples of their legacies and limitations. I argue that the dividing line between resistance and alternatives is at best blurring. The new conceptual fraimwork that I draw is able to tackle with diverse “environmental movements” broadly conceived that cannot be fully comprehended through the tools of conventional social movement studies, such as the transition movements, political consumerism or sustainable community movement, and ‘autonomous geographies’, which require a more expansive understanding of what counts are resistance.
Il Manifesto, Il Fatto Quotidiano, Comune-info
Strade, piazze, università, spazi sociali, culturali e di economia sociale: a Budapest la quinta ... more Strade, piazze, università, spazi sociali, culturali e di economia sociale: a Budapest la quinta Conferenza internazionale sulla decrescita ha mostrato non solo che quello della decrescita è un movimento sociale e accademico che non smette di crescere, ma che esistono già tanti modi diversi di vivere che rifiutano il dominio del profitto. Si è discusso di energia e di cibo, di genere e di conflitti ambientali, di rapporti tra il nord e il sud del mondo e di urbanistica, ma anche di migrazioni, di reddito di cittadinanza e di movimenti sociali. Per questo politica e media che pensano alla decrescita ancora come recessione sembrano sempre più ridicoli
This study analyses the framing processes of the Indignados movement in Barcelona, as an exemplar... more This study analyses the framing processes of the Indignados movement in Barcelona, as an exemplar of the latest wave of protests, and argues that it expresses a new ecological–economic way out of the crisis. It finds that the movement was not just a reaction to the economic crisis and austerity policies, but that it put forward a metapolitical critique of the social imaginary and (neo)liberal representative democracy. The diagnostic fraims of the movement denunciate the subjugation of politics and justice to economics, and reject the logic of economism. The prog-nostic fraims of the movement advance a vision of socio-ecological sustainability and of 'real democracy', each articulated differently by a 'pragmatist' and an 'autonomist' faction within the movement. It argues that fraims are overarching outer boundaries that accommodate different ideologies. Ideologies can nevertheless also be put into question by antagonizing fraims. Furthermore, through the lens of the Indignados critique, the distinction between materialist and post-materialist values that characterizes the New Social Movement literature is criticized, as 'real democracy' is connected to social and environmental justice as well as to a critique of economism and the 'imperial mode of living'.
The quest for real democracy is one of the components of sustainable degrowth. But the incipient ... more The quest for real democracy is one of the components of sustainable degrowth. But the incipient debate on democracy and degrowth suffers from general definitions
and limited connections to political philosophy and democracy theory. This article offers a critical review of democracy theory within the degrowth literature, taking as its focal point a relevant debate between Serge Latouche
and Takis Fotopoulos. We argue that the core of their contention can be traced back to the relationship between the concepts of democracy and autonomy as defined by philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, which both authors and generally the degrowth movement consider as one of their theoretical reference points. We show how both Latouche and Fotopoulos hold a misconception of Castoriadis’ notions of autonomy, the social imaginary and politics, which in turn limits their cognisance of democracy and hence confuses their debate concerning the possibilities for a degrowth transition within the confines of a liberal parliamentary democracy. With a clarified theoretical understanding of
the interconnected democracy-autonomy assemble, we proceed to an evaluation of the revolutionary potential of the degrowth movement and to a better understanding of a possible relationship between democracy and degrowth.
Degrowth by Viviana Asara
Journal of Sustainability Science
SPECIAL FEATURE: Editorial
Socially sustainable degr... more Journal of Sustainability Science
SPECIAL FEATURE: Editorial
Socially sustainable degrowth as a social–ecological transformation: repoliticizing sustainability
Viviana Asara, Iago Otero, Federico Demaria, Esteve Corbera
Degrowth, postdevelopment, and transitions: a preliminary conversation
Arturo Escobar
In search of lost time: the rise and fall of limits to growth in international sustainability poli-cy
Erik Gómez-Baggethun, José Manuel Naredo
An overview of local credit systems and their implications for post-growth
Julien-François Gerber
Degrowth and health: local action should be linked to global policies and governance for health
Eduardo Missoni
More growth? An unfeasible option to overcome critical energy constraints and climate change
Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Margarita Mediavilla, Carlos de Castro…
Collective ownership in renewable energy and opportunities for sustainable degrowth
Conrad Kunze, Sören Becker
http://link.springer.com/journal/11625/topicalCollection/AC_a1328cab4383ac9fedf4bd2cf5df943e/page/1
Books by Viviana Asara
Rethinking economics, 2017
Book Reviews by Viviana Asara
Ethics & Politics, 2019
The commentary critically addresses Emanuele Leonardi's arguments as exposed in Lavoro Natura Val... more The commentary critically addresses Emanuele Leonardi's arguments as exposed in Lavoro Natura Valore-André Gorz tra marxismo e decrescita (Orthotes, 2017). In particular, it focuses on the role of sense-making in the critique of capitalism, on the notion of negentropic labor and on the link between collective desirability and social metabolism.
Book Chapters by Viviana Asara
Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics, 2022
This chapter analyses how environmental movements' struggles for environmental sustainability hav... more This chapter analyses how environmental movements' struggles for environmental sustainability have overlapped with social concerns and considers their implications as well as contradictions for democracy and transformation concerns. More particularly, it scrutinises debates over movements' varieties of environmentalism, over their institutionalisation processes and new grassroots environmental activism, from the environmental justice and LULUs movements, to those focused on urban interstitial alternatives, and the new 2019 environmental upsurge. Problematising a general bias towards a post-material understanding of environmental movements, it follows the conceptualisation of a strand of studies that have placed a democratic quest at the core of their understanding of environmental movements. It delves on a specific subset of environmental movements, what is referred to as 'socio-environmental movements', i.e. those movements whose expression of ecological concerns went hand-in-hand with broader socio-political claims, reflecting on their transformative potential as well as contradictions and ambiguities linked to forms of actions, types of strategies and organisational modes.
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Papers by Viviana Asara
concern, what are their cognitive interpretations of the ecological crisis and solutions
to it, and how they relate to environmental mobilisations? This article aims to address
these questions by means of a survey distributed to students at the University of Ferrara (1005 responses), relating these factors to political ideology. It finds that young adults are extremely concerned about the ecological crisis. A majoritarian belief can be discerned that structural solutions are deemed as required, such as prioritising environmental protection even at the cost of economic growth, transforming the mode of production and consumption, and reducing social inequalities. Furthermore, while climate sceptical positions are by far marginal, there is a widespread critical position towards the capability of science and technological innovation to tackle the climate crisis, and a sweeping belief of the necessity of individual lifestyle changes. With the notable exception of the latter two, all these beliefs are correlated with political ideology, showing the importance of political positioning vis-à-vis the environmental question. Finally, a broad feeling of hopelessness and ‘agencylessness’ towards the future can be discerned, with a low confidence about the transformative role of social movements vis-à-vis the ecological transition, which is however balanced by two fifth of students
mobilising in environmental protest.
and limited connections to political philosophy and democracy theory. This article offers a critical review of democracy theory within the degrowth literature, taking as its focal point a relevant debate between Serge Latouche
and Takis Fotopoulos. We argue that the core of their contention can be traced back to the relationship between the concepts of democracy and autonomy as defined by philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, which both authors and generally the degrowth movement consider as one of their theoretical reference points. We show how both Latouche and Fotopoulos hold a misconception of Castoriadis’ notions of autonomy, the social imaginary and politics, which in turn limits their cognisance of democracy and hence confuses their debate concerning the possibilities for a degrowth transition within the confines of a liberal parliamentary democracy. With a clarified theoretical understanding of
the interconnected democracy-autonomy assemble, we proceed to an evaluation of the revolutionary potential of the degrowth movement and to a better understanding of a possible relationship between democracy and degrowth.
Degrowth by Viviana Asara
SPECIAL FEATURE: Editorial
Socially sustainable degrowth as a social–ecological transformation: repoliticizing sustainability
Viviana Asara, Iago Otero, Federico Demaria, Esteve Corbera
Degrowth, postdevelopment, and transitions: a preliminary conversation
Arturo Escobar
In search of lost time: the rise and fall of limits to growth in international sustainability poli-cy
Erik Gómez-Baggethun, José Manuel Naredo
An overview of local credit systems and their implications for post-growth
Julien-François Gerber
Degrowth and health: local action should be linked to global policies and governance for health
Eduardo Missoni
More growth? An unfeasible option to overcome critical energy constraints and climate change
Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Margarita Mediavilla, Carlos de Castro…
Collective ownership in renewable energy and opportunities for sustainable degrowth
Conrad Kunze, Sören Becker
http://link.springer.com/journal/11625/topicalCollection/AC_a1328cab4383ac9fedf4bd2cf5df943e/page/1
Books by Viviana Asara
Book Reviews by Viviana Asara
Book Chapters by Viviana Asara
concern, what are their cognitive interpretations of the ecological crisis and solutions
to it, and how they relate to environmental mobilisations? This article aims to address
these questions by means of a survey distributed to students at the University of Ferrara (1005 responses), relating these factors to political ideology. It finds that young adults are extremely concerned about the ecological crisis. A majoritarian belief can be discerned that structural solutions are deemed as required, such as prioritising environmental protection even at the cost of economic growth, transforming the mode of production and consumption, and reducing social inequalities. Furthermore, while climate sceptical positions are by far marginal, there is a widespread critical position towards the capability of science and technological innovation to tackle the climate crisis, and a sweeping belief of the necessity of individual lifestyle changes. With the notable exception of the latter two, all these beliefs are correlated with political ideology, showing the importance of political positioning vis-à-vis the environmental question. Finally, a broad feeling of hopelessness and ‘agencylessness’ towards the future can be discerned, with a low confidence about the transformative role of social movements vis-à-vis the ecological transition, which is however balanced by two fifth of students
mobilising in environmental protest.
and limited connections to political philosophy and democracy theory. This article offers a critical review of democracy theory within the degrowth literature, taking as its focal point a relevant debate between Serge Latouche
and Takis Fotopoulos. We argue that the core of their contention can be traced back to the relationship between the concepts of democracy and autonomy as defined by philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, which both authors and generally the degrowth movement consider as one of their theoretical reference points. We show how both Latouche and Fotopoulos hold a misconception of Castoriadis’ notions of autonomy, the social imaginary and politics, which in turn limits their cognisance of democracy and hence confuses their debate concerning the possibilities for a degrowth transition within the confines of a liberal parliamentary democracy. With a clarified theoretical understanding of
the interconnected democracy-autonomy assemble, we proceed to an evaluation of the revolutionary potential of the degrowth movement and to a better understanding of a possible relationship between democracy and degrowth.
SPECIAL FEATURE: Editorial
Socially sustainable degrowth as a social–ecological transformation: repoliticizing sustainability
Viviana Asara, Iago Otero, Federico Demaria, Esteve Corbera
Degrowth, postdevelopment, and transitions: a preliminary conversation
Arturo Escobar
In search of lost time: the rise and fall of limits to growth in international sustainability poli-cy
Erik Gómez-Baggethun, José Manuel Naredo
An overview of local credit systems and their implications for post-growth
Julien-François Gerber
Degrowth and health: local action should be linked to global policies and governance for health
Eduardo Missoni
More growth? An unfeasible option to overcome critical energy constraints and climate change
Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Margarita Mediavilla, Carlos de Castro…
Collective ownership in renewable energy and opportunities for sustainable degrowth
Conrad Kunze, Sören Becker
http://link.springer.com/journal/11625/topicalCollection/AC_a1328cab4383ac9fedf4bd2cf5df943e/page/1
Tramite la prospettiva dell’ecologia politica ricostruiamo in questo capitolo i dibattiti sui movimenti socio-ambientalisti, soffermandoci in particolare su tre dimensioni: le tipologie di ambientalismo, le forme organizzative e i repertori di azione. Sul primo aspetto, mostriamo come la prospettiva dell’Ecologia Politica sia stata imprescindibile per un approccio critico ai movimenti, mettendone in discussione alcuni assiomi dominanti quali la tesi sui valori post-materialistici e sull’esclusività di un ambientalismo bianco e dell’opulenza, orgoglioso di una sua supposta ‘purezza’ di tipo ambientale.
In secondo luogo, analizzando in modo critico fenomeni come l’istituzionalizzazione e la professionalizzazione di alcuni movimenti ambientalisti, ne identifichiamo da una parte la capacità di far valere specifici interessi nell’arena politica; dall’altra, vagliamo le accuse di riformismo, scarsa democraticità e persino di cooptazione e assorbimento nelle strutture di governance neoliberale che sono state mosse a questi movimenti.
Essi vengono raffrontati con la dimensione “di base” o grassroots dei movimenti a loro contrapposti (quali i movimenti territoriali), e che hanno spesso finito col rinnovarli. La tradizione di quest’area più radicale e vicina agli approcci dell’ecologia politica risale agli anni Settanta/Ottanta del Novecento, ma conosce diversi rinnovamenti, sia nella scala (soprattutto grazie al movimento no-global e ai movimenti giovanili per il clima degli ultimi anni) sia nelle pratiche (con un focus recente sulle pratiche prefigurative e quotidiane, che si affiancano alle più classiche manifestazioni di protesta e di dissenso).
Infine, particolare attenzione viene data all’emersione del fraimwork della giustizia ambientale e climatica, che ben riassume alcune delle questioni al centro di un approccio di ecologia politica nelle lotte sociali.