Securitising Sustainability? Questioning the 'Water, Energy and Food-Security Nexus'
The water, energy and food-security nexus approach put forward by the Bonn2011 Conference highlights the need for an integrative approach towards issues of water, energy and food, and puts them under a general framework of security. While acknowledging the need for urgent solutions in terms of susta...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Water Alternatives Association
2015-02-01
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| Series: | Water Alternatives |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol8/v8issue1/272-a8-1-5/file |
| Summary: | The water, energy and food-security nexus approach put forward by the Bonn2011 Conference highlights the need for an integrative approach towards issues of water, energy and food, and puts them under a general framework of security. While acknowledging the need for urgent solutions in terms of sustainability, the nexus approach, at the same time, makes a normative claim to tackle the needs of the poorest parts of the world population. A closer look at the underlying rationales and proposed policy instruments, however, suggests that the primary scope of the conference proceedings is not a normative one, but one that reframes the conflict between distributional justice and the needs of the world economy under the paradigm of security. Reading this slightly shifted perspective through a Foucauldian lens, we propose that security is now put forward as the key mechanism to foster a new 'green' economy, and that the needs of the poorest are, if anything at all, a secondary effect of the proposed nexus approach. |
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| ISSN: | 1965-0175 1965-0175 |