(Geo-)Politics of Restoration

Punctuated by decolonization, environmental movements, and the oil shocks, the 1970s were marked by what David Harvey called the “crisis of overaccumulation” (Harvey 1990, 180). No more an open frontier to be exploited by capitalists, the conception of nature as a resource value to be exploited has imploded. Through the politics of neoliberal capitalism, nature has been increasingly “re-valued” through politics of conservation. In this new era of climate urgency, politics of restoration is now intimately (geo-)political. The term geopolitics does not only foreground conservation practices in the spaces of politics and power struggles, but it also invokes that restoration is now a matter to be understood at the global scale. Despite having been scaled up, socio-economic impacts of restoration remain local.

 

In her project, Anna Pederzini imagines an alternative restoration for an abandoned industrial wasteland and the spontaneous vegetation that accumulates on the edifice in Rovereto, Italy. Zahaan Khan, in his project, analyzes restoration priorities for different projects that were designated by global and local agencies. Finally, Egemen Mercanlıoğlu unfolds complexities in an EU-funded wetland restoration project called LIFE Mires of Estonia.