The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability

Download or read book The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability written by John Barry and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-02-23 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the level of developing a progressive and critical theoretical understanding of unsustainability, it argues for the importance of integrating vulnerability, which has been largely neglected by both mainstream western political theory and analyses of the current global ecological crisis. It suggests that valuable insights into the causes of and alternatives to unsustainability can be found in a critical embracing of human vulnerability and dependency as both constitutive and ineliminable aspects of what it means to be human. Rather than seeing invulnerability as the appropriate response, the book defends resilience, and the ability to 'cope with' rather than 'solve' vulnerability, as more productive.