Environmental performativity: How natures are made

• Published in: Progress in environmental geography Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 69 - 91
• Main Authors: Cusworth, George, Stanley, Theo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.03.2025
• Subjects: reflexive performativity; environmental governance; environmental metrics; neoliberal natures; ecosystem services; Performativity
• ISSN: 2753-9687; 2753-9687
• DOI: 10.1177/27539687251321503

A range of things get made as natures are subject to programmes of management, measurement, regulation, subsidy, and commodification. Knowledge production practices stabilise dynamic environments into governable objects. Environmental management schemes materialise specific ecologies in particular places and create value for certain actors. Neoliberal governance mechanisms reproduce their own ideological foundations. This paper offers a conceptual vocabulary to articulate the different performances and performative processes that drive these makings. Drawn together under the framework of environmental performativity, we show how objects, environments, and regimes all get made as natures are governed. Together, these terms disambiguate the diverging ways the concept of performativity gets used in the literature. They reveal how material, semiotic, ideological, and calculative forces exert their influence at different points in the design and delivery of environmental governance interventions. In describing these terms, we want to highlight the unique influence that human activities have in shaping the world without denying the agency of nonhuman actors and materialities. By drawing attention to the fact that alternative performances have the power to yield more just and sustainable environmental futures, we conclude the paper on a more optimistic note. We use the concept of reflexive performativity to discuss these political opportunities.