Game of Thrones was arguably about climate change, but the HBO series turned this narrative around by presenting a last-minute technological solution as magically saving the day, the planet, and existence. 

!!! SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

Game of Thrones was arguably about climate change. George RR Martin himself confirmed that it is indeed “a great parallel”. Perhaps that is still the case in the books (we’ll have to wait until, or if, he completes his story), because the HBO series certainly shattered this narrative.

Presumably the message here is: no need to stop our petty squabbling in the face of a cataclysmic threat looming, a last-minute solution will magically turn up. While that might be an unfair bit of criticism to place on a show that indeed specialises in human squabbling, it is yet another example of pop culture reinforcing a dangerous idea. That whatever existential peril we may face as a species, we can solve through our real-world magic: technology!

This belief that eventually technological breakthroughs solve our problems is as powerful today as ever. How could it not? In the face of a problem like planetary collapse, which would require us to completely alter the way we exist as a society, it is easier to just passively hope for that inevitable bit of tech that will save economic growth!

One might imagine that this development in the show was forced due to the creators’ desire to move onto other projects. Because up to the point where the massive problem is instantly resolved, the show seemed to be building a narrative that relied on the humans getting their act together and making radical changes to their behaviour in order to survive. Thus, the opportunity to make a point to millions of people watching was sadly lost.

From Arya Stark’s dagger to personal computers and smartphones, technological artefacts reach users who often ignore the production history of those artefacts. Who produced them? At what social and environmental cost? How was nature transformed in the place where the materials of a certain technological artefact were found? The technologically-enabled abundance that a few people experience is linked to the scarcity experienced by many.

Ecomodernism argues that the issues of scarcity and environmental degradation can be addressed by using more efficient technologies. It has been a matter of debate in political ecology and in this blog. Ecomodernism overlooks the consequences of efficiency improvements. The Jevons Paradox is a finding attributed to the 19th century economist Stanley Jevons. It illustrates how efficiency improvements can lead to an absolute increase of resource use.

For example, the invention of more efficient train engines allowed for cheaper transportation that catalyzed the industrial revolution. However, this did not reduce the rate of fossil fuel use; rather, it increased it. More efficient technologies use less energy, and thus they cost less, which often encourages us to use them more—resulting in a net increase in energy use. Although since the 1970s technological advances have been significant, both global energy use and global material use have increased threefold.

In a famous quote, prolific writer Ursula K. Leguin says

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art…”.

Art, and especially science fiction and fantasy, has the power to challenge ingrained beliefs and explore radical imaginaries, which may inspire action. Sadly, however, the Game of Thrones series failed to deliver.

Vasilis Kostakis is a Professor at TalTech and a Faculty Associate at Harvard. He is coordinating the Cosmolocalism.eu project. Chris Giotitsas is a Research Fellow at TalTech and a core member of the P2P Lab.

Header image: CC Chapman/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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Researchers like Ana Margarida Esteves have looked at the inclusion/exclusion drivers of commoning projects and here she brings a study on how the Tamera ecovillage, originally attracting German counter-cultural expats, originally was not connected to the local context but has recently undertaken efforts to increase their local rootedness. As she writes: “In my article I also show how Tamera is overcoming that segregationalism through cultural mediation, institutionalization of dialogue and a special fund to support the participation of Portuguese people in their engagements. They are also becoming a very significant player in the Portuguese anti-fracking and anti-oil drilling movement. They are also participating in feminist and pro-Palestinian circles.”

The French researcher Genevieve Fontaine is looking into the commons as ‘commons of capabilities’ and has added 3 extra criteria to add to the 8 criterias of commons governance proposed by Ostrom. In effect, Genevieve Fontaine is looking at a synthesis between the commons and the capabilities approach. These and other avenues show that the inclusion agenda is coming to the attention of commoners and commons-researchers.

Abstract

This article sheds light on the exclusionary dynamics that emerge when the construction of commons-based alternative political ecologies does not take political economy considerations into account. It analyses the relationship between Tamera – Healing Biotope I, and the ecosystem, population and institutions of the region of southwestern Alentejo, Portugal, where this ecovillage is located. Tamera is based on a prefigurative process of “commoning”, transplanted from Central European counter-culture, which created a “borderland” that spatially segregates and at the same time creates a point of contact between two contrasting cultural, ecological and socio-economic realities. However, maintaining the “borderland” granted the community access to the resources needed to develop its vision, while countering existing regulations, although eventually involving the state in the development of a new regulatory framework. Since the mid- 2000s, Tamera has been engaging in cultural dialogue with the local population, with the support of the municipality. The analysis raises the question of how to develop regulatory and financial instruments that support ecovillages in promoting inclusive strategies of economic sustainability, integrating them in place-based dynamics of regional development. The specificities of their biophysical and social processes must be taken into account, as well as their vocation as “testfields” for sustainability.

Cultural dialogue and institutional mediation as antidotes to socioeconomic segregation in Ecovillage devel… shared by the P2P Foundation on Scribd

Published by the University of Arizona Journal of Political Ecology

Photo by Laura Pazo

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Humans do not control modern technology: the technological system has colonized their imagination and it shapes their activities and relations. This statement reflects the thought of influential degrowth scholars, like Jacques Ellul and Ivan Illich.

Ellul believed that humans may control individual technologies, but not technology broadly conceived as the whole complex of methods and tools that advance efficiency. Instead, technology has taken a life of its own. Society should be in constant flux so that humans can shape it up to an important degree. Ellul was afraid that technology suppresses this flux, creating a uniform, static and paralytic system.

Building on Ellul, Illich and Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, I argue that there are alternative trajectories of technology appropriation that encompass small-scale, decentralized, environmentally sound and locally autonomous application. The aim of this short essay is to shed light on seeds that may exemplify new or revitalized techno-economic trajectories for post-capitalist scenarios.

Design global, manufacture local

The confluence of the digital commons of knowledge, software and design with local manufacturing technologies (from three-dimensional printers and laser cutters to low-tech tools and crafts) give rise to new modes of production, as exemplified by the “design global, manufacture local” (DGML) model.

DGML describes the processes through which design is developed as a global digital commons, whereas manufacturing takes place locally, often through shared infrastructures and with local biophysical conditions in check. Three interlocked practices observed in DGML projects (from wind-turbines and farming machines to prosthetic robotic hands) seem to present interesting dynamics for political ecology: the incentives for design-embedded sustainability, the possibilities of on-demand production and the practices of sharing digital and physical productive infrastructures.

A visualization of the “design global, manufacture local” model. Image credits: Vasilis Kostakis, Nikos Exarchopoulos, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

DGML technologies have the potential to be low-cost, feasible for small-scale operations and adjustable to local needs utilizing human creativity. DGML and other commons-oriented initiatives strive for technological sovereignty, by enabling communities (from farmers and artists to computer engineers and designers) to become technologically more autonomous.

The small group dynamics can now scale-up

The increasing access to information and communication technologies enables the global scaling up of small group dynamics. Local communities and individuals can thus shape their technologies up to an important degree, while benefiting from digitally shared resources in tandem. This dynamic of relating tach other, as exemplified by Wikipedia and free/open-source software to DGML projects such as L’Atelier Paysan and Farmhack, has been called “peer-to-peer” (P2P).

What peer-to-peer and the commons are in a nutshell. Image source: Bauwens, M., Kostakis, V., Troncoso, S., & Utratel, A. (2017). Commons Transition and Peer-to-Peer: A Primer. (pp.8-9). Amsterdam: Transnational Institute.

P2P allows people to connect to each other, to communicate to each other and to organize around common value creation, which is enabled by socio-technical networks that avoid intermediaries and gatekeepers. In this capacity of freely-associated common value creation, P2P becomes a synonym for “commoning”. As used in the current context, P2P is related to the capacity to collectively create commons in open contributory networks.

Challenges from a political ecology perspective

In the Ellulian spirit, technological development could therefore be in a flux. However, these P2P developments present several challenges that have to be examined from various perspectives.

The DGML model, for example, presents limitations within its two main pillars, information and communication as well as local manufacturing technologies. These issues may pertain to resource extraction, exploitative labour, energy use or material flows. A thorough evaluation of such products and practices would need to take place from a political ecology perspective. For instance, what is the ecological footprint of a product that has been globally designed and locally manufactured? Or, up to which degree the users of such a product feel in control of the technology and knowledge necessary for its use and manipulation?

In 2017-19, one of the main goals of the research collective I am part of is to provide some answers to the questions above and, thus, to better understand the transition dynamics of such an alternative trajectory of technological development.

Cross-posted from Entitle Blog

Photo by lars hammar

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