Many authors claim that the paradigm of sustainable development has often not led to changes described as sustainable or developmental. Some claim that the problem is political will of decision-makers to implement sustainable development. Others suggest that the problem lies in the concept of sustainable development itself, namely, the uncertainty and complexity by which it is characterized. Others still downplay the importance of finding physical correlates of sustainability, suggesting that sustainable development is essentially a political, discursive construct.

Despite this, sustainable development has been increasingly depoliticized through discourses of globalization and evidence-based policy. These discourses have imbued sustainable development with a certain degree of utopian optimism about the possibilities of global political will and technical pragmatism. But critical appraisals reveal how they have been instrumental in the strengthening of the connection between environmental policy making and power through the fundamental basis of knowledge. While science and technology are rightfully understood to be powerful diagnostic and analytical instruments for sustainability planning, they also have the potential to cleanse environmental issues of politics, often leaving little room for those perspectives that do not reflect orthodox environmental science.

My research is based on two cases drawn from two years of fieldwork in Canindeyu, Paraguay, where private conservation initiatives, large scale industrial agriculture, and peasant and subsistence production have led to intense conflict between conservation and local and national development objectives. I analyze two cases, each representing more widely, a global and technical response to the reconciliation of these kinds of conflicts through the discourse of sustainability. The first is a case of technology transfer. I analyze the implementation of a software program used to project trade off scenarios in sustainable land use planning in the Mbaracayu – part of a project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency. The Mbaracayu is an ecologically important region, officially recognized by UNESCO as a Man and Biosphere Reserve and by Conservation International as a ‘Biodiversity Hotspot’. It is also a region that is increasingly under pressure from large and small scale agriculture. The second case is an international series of meetings aimed at the institutional development of global certification standards for ‘sustainable soy’. While the ‘Roundtable on Responsible Soy’ process is avidly supported by many international environmental NGOs, governments and corporations, it is vehemently opposed by several groups of small scale peasant agriculturalists.

Using discourse analysis, I examine the ‘local’ and ‘global’ dynamics of these approaches, and by integrating the findings of these analyses, draw conclusions about how policies can better incorporate technical expertise on the one hand, and participation on the other. I find that the apparent rationality and instrumentality of the technical approaches to achieving sustainability, through ‘sustainable land use’ and ‘sustainable commodity production’ are focused mainly on avoiding further deforestation linked to large scale agricultural production on the one hand, and shifting cultivation on the other. This is a worthy goal in and of itself. However, at the same time they confound local efforts to put other important and pressing issues on national and international sustainability agendas: historic inequality and state corruption, land distribution, pesticide use, and the lack of influence of regional political power.

Sustainable development needs to be re-politicized; decision-making about sustainable development pathways needs to be opened to a wider range of knowledge and perspectives than is currently the case. A way towards this is to explore how ‘global’ and ‘expert’ discourses can be used as political tools to curtail the possibility of dialogue in some strategic conceptual arenas, and to maintain power relations in society. Through deliberation, these discourses can be reconstructed alongside other validity claims and not to their exclusion.

Supervisors

Dr Tim Forsyth and Dr Stuart Corbridge

Research areas

Environmental Policy and Governance, Environment and Development, Expert Knowledge Systems and Science and Technology Studies (STS), Conservation, Land Use Planning and Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs), Latin America

CV/Resume

Read CV (PDF)

Languages

Spanish (3S, 3S)
French (1S, 1W)

1 = basic; 2 = intermediate; 3 = fluent

Fieldwork was supported by grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Central Research Fund, University of London.

Contact information

Development Studies Institute - DESTIN
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London, WC 2A 2AE
United Kingdom

Fax: +44 (0)20 7955 6844
Email: l.l.elgert@lse.ac.uk

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