Structural-metabolic relationalities

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Please find the discusion page for structural-metabolic relationalities HERE.

A range of scholars have drawn on Marxist political economy and/or structural political ecology to develop ‘structural-metabolic’ accounts of relational processes in sustainability transformations (e.g. Brand 2016; Pichler et al. 2017; Scoones et al. 2020; Bouzarovski 2022). Often motivated by a desire to provide more specific accounts of the ‘social drivers’ of the Anthropocene, this scholarship has portrayed the interlocking sustainability challenges of climate change, inequality, biodiversity loss, pollution, and poverty, as arising from the relations and contradictions inherent to capitalist economic systems (Haberl et al. 2011; Malm & Hornborg 2014; Asara et al. 2015). The unequal power relations exerted within capitalism and used to exploit both people and nature are central to structural-metabolic perspectives. For example, Brand (2016:514) writes that within their critical theory of social-ecological transformation, “what is being examined is not ‘the environment’ [...], ‘planetary boundaries’, or even the overuse of resources, ecosystems and sinks. Of interest are the capitalist, imperial and patriarchal forms of the appropriation of nature: i.e. the forms in which such basic needs as food and housing, mobility and communications, and health and reproduction are satisfied. Accordingly, access to and control over nature and/or ‘resources’ are decisive for societal relations.” Consequently, from structural-metabolic perspectives, transformations to sustainability will entail challenging and critiquing capitalist forms of appropriation - or “modes of production” - and supporting alternative societal relations with nature enacted through, for example, workers, citizen, peasant, and Indigenous movements (e.g. Görg et al. 2017; Bouzarovski 2022).

Human-nature connectedness

In Marxist political economy perspectives, labour is the central mechanism of human-nature interconnectedness: “when people mix their labour with the resources of the natural world to make a living, nature and society become bound together inextricably” (Robbins 2014:101). **The manner of this mixing or binding together is referred to as ‘social metabolism,’ defined by Haberl et al. (2011:3) as “the entire flow of materials and energy that are required to sustain all human economic activities.” As Pichler et al. (2017:33) note, “society not only acts upon its environment, it also reacts to this (changed) environment in a mutual, reiterative relationship.” Marxist-inspired approaches to transformation therefore retain separable concepts of ‘society’ and ‘nature’ and attempt to capture the continual flow or movement between them, an approach described by Sala & Torchio (2019:235) as dialectical thinking: “dialectical thinking seeks to capture a ‘moving totality’, where each ‘part’ is in internal relation with the ‘whole’: each part mediates the whole, and the whole mediates each part. For us, this is how a social-ecological system ultimately works.” Social metabolism can be organised and enacted in different ways, reflecting differing relations or modes of production. The concept of modes of production “focuses on structures and processes by means of which society organises its material foundations (i.e. its metabolism with nature), socioeconomically, politically, culturally, and subjectively” (Görg et al. 2017:14). Capitalist modes of production are driven predominantly by the accumulation imperative, or “the insatiable desire of capital to increase profit through more intensive or extensive strategies of investment” (Brand 2016:509).

Agency and leadership

The focus in Marxist-inspired approaches on structural flows of energy and resources tend to lead to an emphasis on the agency of states, corporate actors, and national and international social movements in driving sustainability transformations. Importantly, however, these are not understood as monolithic actors but as representing relational constellations and “structural patterns” of action (Brand 2016:512; Silvester & Fisker 2023). For example, Görg et al. (2017:10) consider the state as a “strategic field and process of intersecting power networks … [where] different societal and political forces try to promote their interests, norms and values.” Similarly, in developing a political economy perspective on sustainability transformations, Schmitz & Scoones (2019) highlight the role of “transformative alliances” between varying and shifting sets of actors and interests. **Bouzarovksi (2022:1012) develops a metabolic account of energy transformations in Europe, emphasising the agency of networked social movements such as the European Right to Energy Coalition - “a continent-wide movement uniting trade unions, anti-poverty organisations, social housing providers, environmental and health organisations, and energy cooperatives” - in enacting low-carbon futures. **Notably, while such perspectives seemingly emphasise human as opposed to nonhuman agency, the emphasis within Marxist-inspired thought on the inherently metabolic or “hybrid” nature of human socio-economic activity does enable greater consideration of the roles of non-human, ecological and material aspects of sustainability transformations (Moore 2015:47-48; Bouzarovksi 2022).

Scale and scaling

Following on from the networked conceptions of agency above, Marxist approaches to transformations tend to focus on what might conventionally be considered as “broad” or “large-scale” processes of change. **In developing an integrative approach to social-ecological transformations drawing on the social and political ecology of the Vienna School, Görg et al. (2017:5) adopt a multi-scale perspective where the national scale is “considered dominant due to the density of the national political systems (compared to the international one) and the dominance of strategies of competitiveness that are mainly pursued at the national scale.” This echoes Harvey’s (1999) identification of the ‘spatial fix’ of capitalism, whereby the accumulative logic of capitalism necessitates the spread of social and environmental exploitation around the world. **Nevertheless, Bouzarovski & Haarstad (2019:261) argue that relational approaches in both structural political ecology and poststructuralist human geography demand a reconceptualisation of the very notions of scale and scaling in sustainability transformations, writing that: “Non-relational thinking often sees scales as discrete units that are nested on top of one another in a linear fashion, like steps on a ladder. In contrast, relational thinking on scale sees scales as produced through relationships that actors engage and negotiate from the contexts in which they are embedded.” They then proceed to develop a three-stage relational conception of scaling in energy transformations involving (i) politicisation (the disruption of existing power relations in an immediate location), (ii) enrolment (the co-articulation of concerns with actors in different places and networks), and (iii) hybridisation (engagement with and restructuring of material energy infrastructures).

Time and change

Structural-metabolic approaches often hold a long-term view of transformation (captured in the concept of ‘historical materialism’), with Haberl et al. (2011) identifying three “socio-metabolic regimes” with distinct patterns of material and energy use: hunter-gatherer, agrarian, and industrial. Drawing on Polanyi’s notion of ‘The Great Transformation,’ they argue that a transformation to sustainability will be just as substantial. The processes that drive transformations between regimes are driven by the internal contradictions and relational or ‘dialectical’ movement within the modes of production central to each regime. For example, Robbins (2014:103-104) highlights that the accumulative logic that drives the capitalist mode of production - requiring ever more profit and economic growth - generates two contradictions that contain the seed for transformations. The first contradiction refers to the tendency of capitalism to exploit workers in pursuit of profit through, for instance, the reduction of wages and security, to such an extent that the conditions for making profit are undermined and resistance movements grow. **The second contradiction describes the tendency of capitalism to degrade environmental conditions to such an extent that it can no longer operate and alternatives gain traction. **Consequently, from structural-metabolic perspectives, change, movement, and transformation are always occurring, with the challenge being to shape them in pursuit of sustainability (Görg et al. 2017:15).

Knowledge and action

Marxist-inspired structural-metabolic approaches have often critiqued mainstream transformations research for embracing the very capitalist mechanisms of enclosure and commodification they hold responsible for causing sustainability challenges in the first place, for example through mechanisms such as REDD+ and ecosystem services (Pichler et al. 2017:34). By contrast, structural-metabolic approaches progress visions of transformations that directly challenge existing power relations and forms of domination and enact alternatives to capitalist logics and practices (Brand 2016; Bouzarovski 2022). For Haberl et al. (2011) such alternatives include the degrowth movement and Transition Towns in the Global North, and the Chipko movement in India, Chico Mendes in Brazil, and Ogoni and Ijaw movements in the Niger Delta in the Global South. **Görg et al. (2017:9-14) argue for the importance of transdisciplinary research as essential to link the strategic-political, analytical, and normative dimensions of sustainability transformations, and to contribute to broader societal questioning of capitalist modes of production in a “democratisation of political and social life.” **Brand (2016:517), however, highlights the challenge and contradiction that “a new - sustainable, democratic, just, and free - world must be realised on the terrain of existing forms of societal (re)production and domination, and must transcend them.” **Indeed, Bouzarovski (2022:1012) notes a growing strategic awareness among many energy and climate activists, whereby active resistance is combined with efforts to change the decision-making of established institutions: “this kind of political work transcends traditional binaries between disruption and accommodation in the articulation of just transitions, while operating across multiple scales of governance and advocacy.”

References

Asara, V., Otero, I., Demaria, F., & Corbera, E. 2015. Socially sustainable degrowth as a social-ecological transformation: repoliticizing sustainability. Sustainability Science 10:375-384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-015-0321-9

Bouzarovski, S. 2022. Just Transitions: A Political Ecology Critique. Antipode 54(4):1003-1020. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12823

Bouzarovski, S. & Haarstad, H. 2019. Rescaling low-carbon transformations: Towards a relational ontology. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 44(2):256-269. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12275

Görg, C., Brand, U., Haberl, H., Hummel, D., Jahn, T., & Liehr, S. 2017. Challenges for Social-Ecological Transformations: Contributions from Social and Political Ecology. Sustainability 9(1045):1-21. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071045