The paper deals with the significance of infrastructure for tackling the climate crisis. Firstly, I will critically examine the individualisation of the climate crisis as a question of personal lifestyle. Instead, I will use the Corona pandemic to highlight how decisive a society's infrastructure is for handling existential risks. I will then refer to the programme of a "foundational economy", which emphasises the importance of material and providential infrastructures and regulatory state activities for social and ecological change. In a further step, I discuss the status of infrastructure in current sociological theory criticising actor-network-theory and posthumanism for decoupling the shaping of the material world from any politics. My own suggestion is the concept of a "public sphere of things", concluding with some remarks on the necessity of "symbiotic transformations" (Erik Olin Wright) for any socio-ecological change.
The paper deals with the significance of infrastructure for tackling the climate crisis. Firstly, I will critically examine the individualisation of the climate crisis as a question of personal lifestyle. Instead, I will use the Corona pandemic to highlight how decisive a society's infrastructure is for handling existential risks. I will then refer to the programme of a "foundational economy", which emphasises the importance of material and providential infrastructures and regulatory state activities for social and ecological change. In a further step, I discuss the status of infrastructure in current sociological theory criticising actor-network-theory and posthumanism for decoupling the shaping of the material world from any politics. My own suggestion is the concept of a "public sphere of things", concluding with some remarks on the necessity of "symbiotic transformations" (Erik Olin Wright) for any socio-ecological change.
The paper deals with the significance of infrastructure for tackling the climate crisis. Firstly, I will critically examine the individualisation of the climate crisis as a question of personal lifestyle. Instead, I will use the Corona pandemic to highlight how decisive a society's infrastructure is for handling existential risks. I will then refer to the programme of a "foundational economy", which emphasises the importance of material and providential infrastructures and regulatory state activities for social and ecological change. In a further step, I discuss the status of infrastructure in current sociological theory criticising actor-network-theory and posthumanism for decoupling the shaping of the material world from any politics. My own suggestion is the concept of a "public sphere of things", concluding with some remarks on the necessity of "symbiotic transformations" (Erik Olin Wright) for any socio-ecological change.
Keywords
Climate Crisis
Commons
Foundational Economy
Infrastructure
