Shades of technocratic solutionism: A discursive-material political ecology approach to the analysis of the Swedish TV series Hållbart näringsliv ('Sustainable business'). Issue 2 (23rd December 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nicoletta, Gerardo Costabile; Carpentier, Nico
• Is Part Of: Empedocles. Volume 13:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 117
• Page End: 134
• Publication Date: 2022-12-23
• Subjects: climate crisis -- discourse theory -- green economy -- economic discourse -- dislocation -- media -- materiality; Communication -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; 302.201
• DOI: 10.1386/ejpc_00045_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1757-1952

Abstract

This article analyses the Swedish TV series Hållbart näringsliv ( HN ) to study hegemonic discursive formations over the meaning of the climate crisis. Combining new materialist approaches in discourse studies with a political ecology understanding of the socio-ecological entanglement, we propose the concept of technocratic solutionism to understand how the neo-liberal green economy secures instrumentalist discourses on nature in the Swedish context. The discourse-theoretical analysis of nine HN episodes identifies four nodal points which articulate the technocratic solutionist discourse: capital's leading role, Nordic exceptionalism, substitutionalism and long-termism. We argue that the climate crisis can be understood as a materiality that dislocates capitalist assemblages, which then, in response, deploy a techno-solutionism discourse to protect the core principles of economic growth and profitability while marginalizing potential radical alternatives.