Introducing the Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science, this chapter summarizes t... more Introducing the Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science, this chapter summarizes the crisis of the neoliberal knowledge economy across several dimensions, and points to new avenues of enquiry and engaged research, highlighting the work illustrated in the subsequent chapters. It concludes that the political economy of research and innovation is a key but neglected dimension of politics in the 21st century.
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography, 2018
This chapter examines Critical Physical Geography’s (CPG) pursuit of integrative and transformati... more This chapter examines Critical Physical Geography’s (CPG) pursuit of integrative and transformative research in a spirit of self-criticism and reflexivity. We question the distinctiveness of CPG, the values and politics embedded within it, and the risks and benefits of endeavoring to produce transformative research. Three overarching questions guide our discussion: (1) What, if anything, does CPG offer that is distinct? (2) Can engagement with the politics of knowledge production strengthen rather than undermine scientific inquiry? and (3) Can science be normative, and what are critical physical geographers trying to change?
Doreen Massey (1944–2016) was one of the most influential geographers of the late twentieth and e... more Doreen Massey (1944–2016) was one of the most influential geographers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Her ideas on space, region, identity, ethics, and capital transformed the field itself, while also attracting a wide audience in sociology, planning, political economy, cultural studies, gender studies, and beyond. The significance of her contributions is difficult to overstate. Massey established both scholarly substance and political salience for the claim that “geography matters,” not as a dry defense of disciplinary turf but as a rallying cry. This collection of Massey’s writings brings together for the first time her formative contributions, showcasing the continuing relevance of her ideas to current debates on financialization, globalization, immigration, and nationalism, among other topics. With introductions and explanatory notes from the editors, the collection provides an unrivaled introduction to the range and depth of Massey’s contributions, which are sure to remain an essential touchstone for social theory and critical geography for generations to come
Doreen Massey was a creative scholar, inspiring teacher and restless activist. Her path-breaking ... more Doreen Massey was a creative scholar, inspiring teacher and restless activist. Her path-breaking thinking about space, place, politics and economy changed not only geography but the critical social sciences, initiating new ways of seeing, understanding and indeed transforming the world. This collection of commissioned essays, including from Doreen Massey’s long-time interlocutors and collaborators, explores both the generative sources and the continuing potential of her remarkably wide-ranging and influential body of work. It provides an unparalleled assessment of the political and social context that gave rise to many of Massey’s key ideas and contributions – such as spatial divisions of labour, power-geometries and the global sense of place – and how they subsequently travelled, and were translated and transformed, both within and outside of academia. Looking forward, rather than merely backward, the collection also highlights the many ways in which Massey’s formulations and frameworks provide a basis for new interventions in contemporary debates over immigration, financialization, macroeconomic crises, political engagement beyond academia, and more. Doreen Massey: Critical Dialogues is a testament to the continuing relevance of Doreen Massey’s work across a wide range of fields, serving as an invaluable companion to the new collection of Massey's own writings, The Doreen Massey Reader, published simultaneously and also compiled by the editors.
Market-based approaches to environmental conservation have been increasingly prevalent since the ... more Market-based approaches to environmental conservation have been increasingly prevalent since the early 1990s. The goal of these markets is to reduce environmental harm not by preventing it, but by pricing it. A housing development on land threaded with streams, for example, can divert them into underground pipes if the developer pays to restore streams elsewhere. But does this increasingly common approach actually improve environmental well-being? In Streams of Revenue, Rebecca Lave and Martin Doyle answer this question by analyzing the history, implementation, and environmental outcomes of one of these markets: stream mitigation banking. In stream mitigation banking, an entrepreneur speculatively restores a stream, generating “stream credits” that can be purchased by a developer to fulfill regulatory requirements of the Clean Water Act. Tracing mitigation banking from conceptual beginnings to implementation, the authors find that in practice it is very difficult to establish equivalence between the ecosystems harmed and those that are restored, and to cope with the many sources of uncertainty that make positive restoration outcomes unlikely. Lave and Doyle argue that market-based approaches have failed to deliver on conservation goals and call for a radical reconfiguration of the process.
Abstract Habitat banking has gained traction in recent years as a means to compensate for the una... more Abstract Habitat banking has gained traction in recent years as a means to compensate for the unavoidable environmental impacts of development projects through the exchange of so-called biodiversity offsets. Analyses of the ideological foundations and operational challenges of habitat banking exist, but there has been far less scholarship on the policy processes leading to the establishment of such schemes. Habitat banking is a controversial policy instrument, which has encountered opponents and proponents in most places where it has been implemented. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observation conducted from 2014 to 2018, we analyse the development of habitat banking policy in Spain. We show who was included or excluded from the policy making process, and we highlight the arguments put forward by different actors to contest or support habitat banking more generally. We show that the process was opaque and non-inclusive, driven by a small constituency of actors who sought to create investment opportunities for biodiversity conservation on private lands, and was grounded on a false social consensus which concealed alternative understandings of how environmental impacts should be addressed. We also demonstrate that the current delay in producing the guidelines can be explained by three circumstances. First, habitat banking was challenged by many civil society groups on the grounds of its market-based character. Second, necessary data was not available or accurate enough to devise effective habitat banks, with ecological metrics involved in quantifying offsets seen as too subjective. And third, key implementation actors lacked capacity and political will. The Spanish standstill highlights the struggles and difficulties that even well-resourced states can face when establishing rules for habitat banking and the trade in biodiversity offsets.
Abstract We present results from a Q-method survey on a key question in water governance and refl... more Abstract We present results from a Q-method survey on a key question in water governance and reflect on Q-method as an approach that quantitatively distinguishes qualitative subject-positions. The survey was conducted with the Q-TIP platform, which we designed for the study and is now open to all researchers ( https://qtip.geography.wisc.edu/ ). Our study asked how stream restoration should be evaluated in state regulatory programs. Streams are dynamic and multi-scalar geomorphological, chemical, biological, as well as socio-cultural systems and it is not obvious what good restoration means or how it should be assessed. Across the stream restoration community we found four different priorities, each of which differently characterizes the feasibility of assessing outcomes. These four perspectives were that metrics of success should: (a) be rigorous and site-focused; (b) be simple and easy to implement in the field; (c) capture complexity; (d) reflect innovations in watershed planning, ecosystem functions, and stakeholder inclusion. These subject-positions on assessment do not, however, map cleanly onto informant profession or background, and a single informant can hold more than one view. Despite relatively limited uptake in geography, Q offers the promise of a critical quantitative approach to researching subjectivity in a way that is compatible with poststructural understandings of identity. We use our case material to show that methodological rules of thumb limit Q’s potential, but we demonstrate unconventional approaches. Drawing on the process and results of our survey of stream restoration practitioners, we argue that Q-method can help in the task of representing subjectivity while respecting its complexity.
Compensatory mitigation (also known as offsetting) is the practice of allowing harm to one ecosys... more Compensatory mitigation (also known as offsetting) is the practice of allowing harm to one ecosystem as long as a comparable ecosystem elsewhere is restored. This common practice is intended to balance the competing demands of economic development and environmental protection. Here, I explore compensatory mitigation through a focus on one particular type: stream mitigation banking in the United States under the Clean Water Act, a market-based form of environmental management. I explain the motivations for compensating for rather than preventing environmental damage more broadly, the practice of stream mitigation banking, and what we know about its environmental and social impacts. I conclude by calling out the stakes in offsetting more generally, and in stream mitigation banking in particular, arguing that neither market-based environmental management nor offsetting more generally may be serving us well.
The Trump administration has undertaken an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ... more The Trump administration has undertaken an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an agency critical to environmental health. This assault has precedents in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The early Reagan administration (1981-1983) launched an overt attack on the EPA, combining deregulation with budget and staff cuts, whereas the George W. Bush administration (2001-2008) adopted a subtler approach, undermining science-based policy. The current administration combines both these strategies and operates in a political context more favorable to its designs on the EPA. The Republican Party has shifted right and now controls the executive branch and both chambers of Congress. Wealthy donors, think tanks, and fossil fuel and chemical industries have become more influential in pushing deregulation. Among the public, political polarization has increased, the environment has become a partisan issue, and science and the mainstream media are distrusted....
Stream restoration is deeply shaped by social influences. A substantial body of literature has de... more Stream restoration is deeply shaped by social influences. A substantial body of literature has demonstrated the ways in which social dynamics shape myriad aspects of restoration practice. After illustrating these findings via brief reviews of existing research on public participation and environmental justice, I turn to the less commonly addressed influence of social dynamics on the practice and content of river science. I first review the approach and some of the key findings of Science and Technology Studies, a body of research that takes the practice of science as its empirical object of study. I then use the Rosgen Wars, a conflict that has strongly influenced the development of stream restoration science and practice in the United States, as a case study for examining the impacts of social dynamics on the practice of river scientists, the redistribution of scientific authority, and on fluvial landscapes more broadly. Given that is impossible to avoid social influences, I argue that it is crucial that we examine them, and that we choose research and implementation practices that reflect our ecological, scientific, and political commitments rather than passively accepting the existing commitments embedded in our work. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
Whether (and how) physical and human geography should be integrated is a longstanding debate in o... more Whether (and how) physical and human geography should be integrated is a longstanding debate in our field. I return here to two entries in this debate from the early years of Progress in Physical Geography. While John Thornes’ 1981 progress report on atmospheric science reads like an early call for critical physical geography, the focus of this special issue, Ron Johnston’s 1983 article emphatically asserts that no such synthesis is intellectually or practically necessary. I argue, however, that Johnston’s article, perhaps inadvertently, lays the groundwork for integrated research.
Introducing the Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science, this chapter summarizes t... more Introducing the Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science, this chapter summarizes the crisis of the neoliberal knowledge economy across several dimensions, and points to new avenues of enquiry and engaged research, highlighting the work illustrated in the subsequent chapters. It concludes that the political economy of research and innovation is a key but neglected dimension of politics in the 21st century.
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography, 2018
This chapter examines Critical Physical Geography’s (CPG) pursuit of integrative and transformati... more This chapter examines Critical Physical Geography’s (CPG) pursuit of integrative and transformative research in a spirit of self-criticism and reflexivity. We question the distinctiveness of CPG, the values and politics embedded within it, and the risks and benefits of endeavoring to produce transformative research. Three overarching questions guide our discussion: (1) What, if anything, does CPG offer that is distinct? (2) Can engagement with the politics of knowledge production strengthen rather than undermine scientific inquiry? and (3) Can science be normative, and what are critical physical geographers trying to change?
Doreen Massey (1944–2016) was one of the most influential geographers of the late twentieth and e... more Doreen Massey (1944–2016) was one of the most influential geographers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Her ideas on space, region, identity, ethics, and capital transformed the field itself, while also attracting a wide audience in sociology, planning, political economy, cultural studies, gender studies, and beyond. The significance of her contributions is difficult to overstate. Massey established both scholarly substance and political salience for the claim that “geography matters,” not as a dry defense of disciplinary turf but as a rallying cry. This collection of Massey’s writings brings together for the first time her formative contributions, showcasing the continuing relevance of her ideas to current debates on financialization, globalization, immigration, and nationalism, among other topics. With introductions and explanatory notes from the editors, the collection provides an unrivaled introduction to the range and depth of Massey’s contributions, which are sure to remain an essential touchstone for social theory and critical geography for generations to come
Doreen Massey was a creative scholar, inspiring teacher and restless activist. Her path-breaking ... more Doreen Massey was a creative scholar, inspiring teacher and restless activist. Her path-breaking thinking about space, place, politics and economy changed not only geography but the critical social sciences, initiating new ways of seeing, understanding and indeed transforming the world. This collection of commissioned essays, including from Doreen Massey’s long-time interlocutors and collaborators, explores both the generative sources and the continuing potential of her remarkably wide-ranging and influential body of work. It provides an unparalleled assessment of the political and social context that gave rise to many of Massey’s key ideas and contributions – such as spatial divisions of labour, power-geometries and the global sense of place – and how they subsequently travelled, and were translated and transformed, both within and outside of academia. Looking forward, rather than merely backward, the collection also highlights the many ways in which Massey’s formulations and frameworks provide a basis for new interventions in contemporary debates over immigration, financialization, macroeconomic crises, political engagement beyond academia, and more. Doreen Massey: Critical Dialogues is a testament to the continuing relevance of Doreen Massey’s work across a wide range of fields, serving as an invaluable companion to the new collection of Massey's own writings, The Doreen Massey Reader, published simultaneously and also compiled by the editors.
Market-based approaches to environmental conservation have been increasingly prevalent since the ... more Market-based approaches to environmental conservation have been increasingly prevalent since the early 1990s. The goal of these markets is to reduce environmental harm not by preventing it, but by pricing it. A housing development on land threaded with streams, for example, can divert them into underground pipes if the developer pays to restore streams elsewhere. But does this increasingly common approach actually improve environmental well-being? In Streams of Revenue, Rebecca Lave and Martin Doyle answer this question by analyzing the history, implementation, and environmental outcomes of one of these markets: stream mitigation banking. In stream mitigation banking, an entrepreneur speculatively restores a stream, generating “stream credits” that can be purchased by a developer to fulfill regulatory requirements of the Clean Water Act. Tracing mitigation banking from conceptual beginnings to implementation, the authors find that in practice it is very difficult to establish equivalence between the ecosystems harmed and those that are restored, and to cope with the many sources of uncertainty that make positive restoration outcomes unlikely. Lave and Doyle argue that market-based approaches have failed to deliver on conservation goals and call for a radical reconfiguration of the process.
Abstract Habitat banking has gained traction in recent years as a means to compensate for the una... more Abstract Habitat banking has gained traction in recent years as a means to compensate for the unavoidable environmental impacts of development projects through the exchange of so-called biodiversity offsets. Analyses of the ideological foundations and operational challenges of habitat banking exist, but there has been far less scholarship on the policy processes leading to the establishment of such schemes. Habitat banking is a controversial policy instrument, which has encountered opponents and proponents in most places where it has been implemented. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observation conducted from 2014 to 2018, we analyse the development of habitat banking policy in Spain. We show who was included or excluded from the policy making process, and we highlight the arguments put forward by different actors to contest or support habitat banking more generally. We show that the process was opaque and non-inclusive, driven by a small constituency of actors who sought to create investment opportunities for biodiversity conservation on private lands, and was grounded on a false social consensus which concealed alternative understandings of how environmental impacts should be addressed. We also demonstrate that the current delay in producing the guidelines can be explained by three circumstances. First, habitat banking was challenged by many civil society groups on the grounds of its market-based character. Second, necessary data was not available or accurate enough to devise effective habitat banks, with ecological metrics involved in quantifying offsets seen as too subjective. And third, key implementation actors lacked capacity and political will. The Spanish standstill highlights the struggles and difficulties that even well-resourced states can face when establishing rules for habitat banking and the trade in biodiversity offsets.
Abstract We present results from a Q-method survey on a key question in water governance and refl... more Abstract We present results from a Q-method survey on a key question in water governance and reflect on Q-method as an approach that quantitatively distinguishes qualitative subject-positions. The survey was conducted with the Q-TIP platform, which we designed for the study and is now open to all researchers ( https://qtip.geography.wisc.edu/ ). Our study asked how stream restoration should be evaluated in state regulatory programs. Streams are dynamic and multi-scalar geomorphological, chemical, biological, as well as socio-cultural systems and it is not obvious what good restoration means or how it should be assessed. Across the stream restoration community we found four different priorities, each of which differently characterizes the feasibility of assessing outcomes. These four perspectives were that metrics of success should: (a) be rigorous and site-focused; (b) be simple and easy to implement in the field; (c) capture complexity; (d) reflect innovations in watershed planning, ecosystem functions, and stakeholder inclusion. These subject-positions on assessment do not, however, map cleanly onto informant profession or background, and a single informant can hold more than one view. Despite relatively limited uptake in geography, Q offers the promise of a critical quantitative approach to researching subjectivity in a way that is compatible with poststructural understandings of identity. We use our case material to show that methodological rules of thumb limit Q’s potential, but we demonstrate unconventional approaches. Drawing on the process and results of our survey of stream restoration practitioners, we argue that Q-method can help in the task of representing subjectivity while respecting its complexity.
Compensatory mitigation (also known as offsetting) is the practice of allowing harm to one ecosys... more Compensatory mitigation (also known as offsetting) is the practice of allowing harm to one ecosystem as long as a comparable ecosystem elsewhere is restored. This common practice is intended to balance the competing demands of economic development and environmental protection. Here, I explore compensatory mitigation through a focus on one particular type: stream mitigation banking in the United States under the Clean Water Act, a market-based form of environmental management. I explain the motivations for compensating for rather than preventing environmental damage more broadly, the practice of stream mitigation banking, and what we know about its environmental and social impacts. I conclude by calling out the stakes in offsetting more generally, and in stream mitigation banking in particular, arguing that neither market-based environmental management nor offsetting more generally may be serving us well.
The Trump administration has undertaken an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ... more The Trump administration has undertaken an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an agency critical to environmental health. This assault has precedents in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The early Reagan administration (1981-1983) launched an overt attack on the EPA, combining deregulation with budget and staff cuts, whereas the George W. Bush administration (2001-2008) adopted a subtler approach, undermining science-based policy. The current administration combines both these strategies and operates in a political context more favorable to its designs on the EPA. The Republican Party has shifted right and now controls the executive branch and both chambers of Congress. Wealthy donors, think tanks, and fossil fuel and chemical industries have become more influential in pushing deregulation. Among the public, political polarization has increased, the environment has become a partisan issue, and science and the mainstream media are distrusted....
Stream restoration is deeply shaped by social influences. A substantial body of literature has de... more Stream restoration is deeply shaped by social influences. A substantial body of literature has demonstrated the ways in which social dynamics shape myriad aspects of restoration practice. After illustrating these findings via brief reviews of existing research on public participation and environmental justice, I turn to the less commonly addressed influence of social dynamics on the practice and content of river science. I first review the approach and some of the key findings of Science and Technology Studies, a body of research that takes the practice of science as its empirical object of study. I then use the Rosgen Wars, a conflict that has strongly influenced the development of stream restoration science and practice in the United States, as a case study for examining the impacts of social dynamics on the practice of river scientists, the redistribution of scientific authority, and on fluvial landscapes more broadly. Given that is impossible to avoid social influences, I argue that it is crucial that we examine them, and that we choose research and implementation practices that reflect our ecological, scientific, and political commitments rather than passively accepting the existing commitments embedded in our work. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
Whether (and how) physical and human geography should be integrated is a longstanding debate in o... more Whether (and how) physical and human geography should be integrated is a longstanding debate in our field. I return here to two entries in this debate from the early years of Progress in Physical Geography. While John Thornes’ 1981 progress report on atmospheric science reads like an early call for critical physical geography, the focus of this special issue, Ron Johnston’s 1983 article emphatically asserts that no such synthesis is intellectually or practically necessary. I argue, however, that Johnston’s article, perhaps inadvertently, lays the groundwork for integrated research.
Market-based approaches to environmental conservation have been increasingly prevalent since the ... more Market-based approaches to environmental conservation have been increasingly prevalent since the early 1990s. The goal of these markets is to reduce environmental harm not by preventing it, but by pricing it. A housing development on land threaded with streams, for example, can divert them into underground pipes if the developer pays to restore streams elsewhere. But does this increasingly common approach actually improve environmental well-being? In Streams of Revenue, Rebecca Lave and Martin Doyle answer this question by analyzing the history, implementation, and environmental outcomes of one of these markets: stream mitigation banking.
In stream mitigation banking, an entrepreneur speculatively restores a stream, generating “stream credits” that can be purchased by a developer to fulfill regulatory requirements of the Clean Water Act. Tracing mitigation banking from conceptual beginnings to implementation, the authors find that in practice it is very difficult to establish equivalence between the ecosystems harmed and those that are restored, and to cope with the many sources of uncertainty that make positive restoration outcomes unlikely. Lave and Doyle argue that market-based approaches have failed to deliver on conservation goals and call for a radical reconfiguration of the process.
Doreen Massey (1944–2016) changed geography. Her ideas on space, region, labour, identity, ethics... more Doreen Massey (1944–2016) changed geography. Her ideas on space, region, labour, identity, ethics and capital transformed the field itself, while also attracting a wide audience in sociology, planning, political economy, cultural studies, gender studies and beyond. The significance of her contributions is difficult to overstate. Far from a dry defence of disciplinary turf, her claim that “geography matters” possessed both scholarly substance and political salience.
Through her most influential concepts – such as power-geometries and a “global sense of place” – she insisted on the active role of regions and places not simply in bearing the brunt of political-economic restructuring, but in reshaping the uneven geographies of global capitalism and the horizons of politics. In capturing how global forces articulated with the particularities of place, Massey’s work, right up until her death, was an inspiration for critical social sciences and political activists alike. It integrated theory and politics in the service of challenging and transforming both.
This collection of Massey’s writings brings together for the first time the full span of her formative contributions, showcasing the continuing relevance of her ideas to current debates on globalization, immigration, nationalism and neoliberalism, among other topics. With introductions from the editors, the collection represents an unrivalled distillation of the range and depth of Massey’s thinking. It is sure to remain an essential touchstone for social theory and critical geography for generations to come
Doreen Massey was a creative scholar, inspiring teacher and restless activist. Her path-breaking ... more Doreen Massey was a creative scholar, inspiring teacher and restless activist. Her path-breaking thinking about space, place, politics and economy changed not only geography but the critical social sciences, initiating new ways of seeing, understanding and indeed transforming the world.
This collection of commissioned essays, including from Doreen Massey’s long-time interlocutors and collaborators, explores both the generative sources and the continuing potential of her remarkably wide-ranging and influential body of work. It provides an unparalleled assessment of the political and social context that gave rise to many of Massey’s key ideas and contributions – such as spatial divisions of labour, power-geometries and the global sense of place – and how they subsequently travelled, and were translated and transformed, both within and outside of academia.
Looking forward, rather than merely backward, the collection also highlights the many ways in which Massey’s formulations and frameworks provide a basis for new interventions in contemporary debates over immigration, financialization, macroeconomic crises, political engagement beyond academia, and more.
Doreen Massey: Critical Dialogues is a testament to the continuing relevance of Doreen Massey’s work across a wide range of fields, serving as an invaluable companion to the new collection of Massey's own writings, The Doreen Massey Reader, published simultaneously and also compiled by the editors.
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography lays out the scope and guiding principles of... more The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography lays out the scope and guiding principles of Critical Physical Geography research. It presents a carefully selected set of empirical work, demonstrating the range and intellectual strength of existing integrative work in geography research. This handbook is the first of its kind to cover this emerging discipline and will be of significant interest to students and academics across the fields of geography, the environment and sustainability.
A recent opinion piece rekindled debate as to whether geography's current interdisciplinary make-... more A recent opinion piece rekindled debate as to whether geography's current interdisciplinary make-up is a historical relic or an actual and potential source of intellectual vitality. Taking the latter position, we argue here for the benefits of sustained integration of physical and critical human geography. For reasons both political and pragmatic, we term this area of intermingled research and practice critical physical geography (CPG). CPG combines critical attention to power relations with deep knowledge of biophysical science or technology in the service of social and environmental transformation. We argue that whether practiced by individuals or teams, CPG research can improve the intellectual quality and expand the political relevance of both physical and critical human geography because it is increasingly impractical to separate analysis of natural and social systems: socio-biophysical landscapes are as much the product of unequal power relations, histories of colonialism, and racial and gender disparities as they are of hydrology, ecology, and climate change. Here, we review existing CPG work; discuss the primary benefits of critically engaged integrative research, teaching, and practice; and offer our collective thoughts on how to make CPG work.
Rebecca Lave, Thomas Bassett, Geoff Mann, Paul Robbins, Simon Batterbury, Nathan F. Sayre & Diana... more Rebecca Lave, Thomas Bassett, Geoff Mann, Paul Robbins, Simon Batterbury, Nathan F. Sayre & Diana K. Davis (2019) The Arid Lands: History, Power, Knowledge. Diana K. Davis; The Politics of Scale: A History of Rangeland Science. Nathan F. Sayre, The AAG Review of Books, 7:1, 35-46,
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Papers by Rebecca Lave
In stream mitigation banking, an entrepreneur speculatively restores a stream, generating “stream credits” that can be purchased by a developer to fulfill regulatory requirements of the Clean Water Act. Tracing mitigation banking from conceptual beginnings to implementation, the authors find that in practice it is very difficult to establish equivalence between the ecosystems harmed and those that are restored, and to cope with the many sources of uncertainty that make positive restoration outcomes unlikely. Lave and Doyle argue that market-based approaches have failed to deliver on conservation goals and call for a radical reconfiguration of the process.
Through her most influential concepts – such as power-geometries and a “global sense of place” – she insisted on the active role of regions and places not simply in bearing the brunt of political-economic restructuring, but in reshaping the uneven geographies of global capitalism and the horizons of politics. In capturing how global forces articulated with the particularities of place, Massey’s work, right up until her death, was an inspiration for critical social sciences and political activists alike. It integrated theory and politics in the service of challenging and transforming both.
This collection of Massey’s writings brings together for the first time the full span of her formative contributions, showcasing the continuing relevance of her ideas to current debates on globalization, immigration, nationalism and neoliberalism, among other topics. With introductions from the editors, the collection represents an unrivalled distillation of the range and depth of Massey’s thinking. It is sure to remain an essential touchstone for social theory and critical geography for generations to come
This collection of commissioned essays, including from Doreen Massey’s long-time interlocutors and collaborators, explores both the generative sources and the continuing potential of her remarkably wide-ranging and influential body of work. It provides an unparalleled assessment of the political and social context that gave rise to many of Massey’s key ideas and contributions – such as spatial divisions of labour, power-geometries and the global sense of place – and how they subsequently travelled, and were translated and transformed, both within and outside of academia.
Looking forward, rather than merely backward, the collection also highlights the many ways in which Massey’s formulations and frameworks provide a basis for new interventions in contemporary debates over immigration, financialization, macroeconomic crises, political engagement beyond academia, and more.
Doreen Massey: Critical Dialogues is a testament to the continuing relevance of Doreen Massey’s work across a wide range of fields, serving as an invaluable companion to the new collection of Massey's own writings, The Doreen Massey Reader, published simultaneously and also compiled by the editors.