Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. Jun2022, Vol. 47 Issue 2, p562-576. 15p.
Subjects
GOVERNMENTALITY, POSTINDUSTRIAL societies, FOSTER home care, INDUSTRIALIZATION, WALKING, TREADMILLS, and RHYTHM
Abstract
The idea and related practices of slowness have received global attention, as these have been viewed as reactions to and critiques of this "go‐faster" world. Celebration of slowness has been especially prominent in South Korea, which experienced an accelerated transition to a post‐industrial society. In line with recent power‐sensitive studies of slowness, this paper develops a governmentality approach that examines how slowness shapes particular bodily behaviours. Drawing on recent work on rhythmanalysis and governmentalities, this study examines how slowness is enrolled and enacts the rhythmic governing of "Olle" walking – the South Korean countryside walking experience. It specifically relates the analysis to the site‐specific experience of accelerated modernisation, where the legacy of state‐led industrial development persists in the prevailing neoliberal capitalism. First, it examines the ways in which slow rhythm is involved in walking practice, deploying and reproducing a specific rhythm, body, and the mode of biopower. It then looks at several ways through which the emerging slow rhythm of Olle walking and the fast rhythm of everyday life are negotiated. This paper argues that slow walking can serve as an affirmative mode of rhythmic governing that fosters care of the self and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Haarstad, Håvard, Grandin, Jakob, Kjærås, Kristin, and Johnson, Eleanor
Subjects
climate change, speed, sustainability, politics, environment, technology studies, Cities, Green transformation, Urgency, time, slowness, temporality, Justice, bic Book Industry Communication:R Earth sciences, geography, environment, planning:RN The environment:RNP Pollution & threats to the environment:RNPG Climate change, bic Book Industry Communication:J Society & social sciences:JF Society & culture: general:JFS Social groups:JFSG Urban communities, and bic Book Industry Communication:R Earth sciences, geography, environment, planning
Abstract
What does it mean politically to construct climate change as a matter of urgency? We are certainly running out of time to stop climate change. But perhaps this particular understanding of urgency could be at the heart of the problem. When in haste, we make more mistakes, we overlook things, we get tunnel vision. Here we make the case for a ‘slow politics of urgency’. Rather than rushing and speeding up, the sustainable future is arguably better served by us challenging the dominant framings through which we understand time and change in society. Transformation to meet the climate challenge requires multiple temporalities of change, speeding up certain types of change processes but also slowing things down. While recognizing the need for certain types of urgency in climate politics, Haste directs attention to the different and alternative temporalities at play in climate and sustainability politics. It addresses several key issues on climate urgency: How do we accommodate concerns that are undermined by the politics of urgency, such as participation and justice? How do we act upon the urgency of the climate challenge without reproducing the problems that speeding up of social processes has brought? What do the slow politics of urgency look like in practice? Divided into 23 short and accessible chapters, written by both established and emerging scholars from different disciplines, Haste tackles a major problem in contemporary climate change research and offers creative perspectives on pathways out of the climate emergency.
