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Alf Hornborg

Bio: Alf Hornborg is an academic researcher from Lund University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Unequal exchange & Fetishism. The author has an hindex of 31, co-authored 163 publications receiving 4504 citations. Previous affiliations of Alf Hornborg include Uppsala University & Trinity University.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
07 Jan 2014
TL;DR: The authors argue that the use of the species category in the Anthropocene narrative is analytically flawed, as well as inimical to action, and argue that intra-species inequalities are part and parcel of the current ecological crisis and cannot be ignored in attempts to understand it.
Abstract: The Anthropocene narrative portrays humanity as a species ascending to power over the rest of the Earth System. In the crucial field of climate change, this entails the attribution of fossil fuel combustion to properties acquired during human evolution, notably the ability to manipulate fire. But the fossil economy was not created nor is it upheld by humankind in general. This intervention questions the use of the species category in the Anthropocene narrative and argues that it is analytically flawed, as well as inimical to action. Intra-species inequalities are part and parcel of the current ecological crisis and cannot be ignored in attempts to understand it.

683 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a research agenda that advances the methodological and theoretical understanding of what sustainability science can be, how it can be pursued and what it can contribute, and the key focus is on knowledge structuring.
Abstract: It is urgent in science and society to address climate change and other sustainability challenges such as biodiversity loss, deforestation, depletion of marine fish stocks, global ill-health, land degradation, land use change and water scarcity. Sustainability science (SS) is an attempt to bridge the natural and social sciences for seeking creative solutions to these complex challenges. In this article, we propose a research agenda that advances the methodological and theoretical understanding of what SS can be, how it can be pursued and what it can contribute. The key focus is on knowledge structuring. For that purpose, we designed a generic research platform organised as a three-dimensional matrix comprising three components: core themes (scientific understanding, sustainability goals, sustainability pathways); cross-cutting critical and problem-solving approaches; and any combination of the sustainability challenges above. As an example, we insert four sustainability challenges into the matrix (biodiversity loss, climate change, land use changes, water scarcity). Based on the matrix with the four challenges, we discuss three issues for advancing theory and methodology in SS: how new synergies across natural and social sciences can be created; how integrated theories for understanding and responding to complex sustainability issues can be developed; and how theories and concepts in economics, gender studies, geography, political science and sociology can be applied in SS. The generic research platform serves to structure and create new knowledge in SS and is a tool for exploring any set of sustainability challenges. The combined critical and problem-solving approach is essential.

424 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Alf Hornborg1
TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that unequal exchange emerges from a kind of inverse relationship between productive potential and economic value, where the notion of a reasonable market price conceals the fact that what is being exchanged are intact resources for products representing resources already spent.

362 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Alf Hornborg1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss various ways in which conventional discourse on sustainability fails to acknowledge the distributive, political, and cultural dimensions of global environmental problems, and identify five interconnected illusions currently postponing systemic crisis and obstructing rational societal negotiations that acknowledge the political dimension of global ecology.
Abstract: This article discusses various ways in which conventional discourse on sustainability fails to acknowledge the distributive, political, and cultural dimensions of global environmental problems. It traces some lineages of critical thinking on environmental load displacement and ecologically unequal exchange, arguing that such acknowledgement of a global environmental `zero-sum game' is essential to recognizing the extent to which cornucopian perceptions of `development' represent an illusion. It identifies five interconnected illusions currently postponing systemic crisis and obstructing rational societal negotiations that acknowledge the political dimensions of global ecology: 1) The fragmentation of scientific perspectives into bounded categories such as `technology', `economy', and `ecology'. 2) The assumption that the operation of market prices is tantamount to reciprocity. 3) The illusion of machine fetishism, that is, that the technological capacity of a given population is independent of that popula...

346 citations

Book
09 Oct 2001
TL;DR: The author examines the relationship between technology, culture, Modernity, and Power, and the Relevance of Anthropology in the 21st Century through the lens of a contextualist lens.
Abstract: Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction: The Machine as Emperor Part 3 Part 1: Technology and Unequal Exchange Chapter 4 Chapter 1: Technology and Economics: The Interfusion of the Social and the Material Chapter 5 Chapter 2: Cornucopia or Zero-Sum Game: The Epistemology of Sustainability Chapter 6 Chapter 3: The Thermodynamics of Imperialism: Towards an Ecological Theory of Unequal Exchange Chapter 7 Chapter 4: Ecosystems, World Systems, and Environmental Justice Chapter 8 Chapter 5: Conceptualizing Accumulation from Spondylus Shells to Fossil Fuels Chapter 9 Chapter 6: Use Value, Energy, and the Image of Unlimited Good Chapter 10 Chapter 7: Language and the Material: Probing our Categories Chapter 11 Chapter 8: Symbolic Technologies: Machines and the Marxian Notion of Fetishism Part 12 Part 2: Money, Modernity and Personhood Chapter 13 Chapter 9: Money, Reflexivity, and the Semiotics of Modernity Chapter 14 Chapter 10: Ecology as Semiotics: A Contextualist Manifesto Chapter 15 Chapter 11: Exchange, Personhood, and Human Ecology Chapter 16 Chapter 12: The Abstraction of Discourse and Identity: A Case Study Chapter 17 Afterword: Culture, Modernity, and Power: The Relevance of Anthropology Chapter 18 References Chapter 19 Index

188 citations


Cited by
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Journal Article
Aaron Pollack1
TL;DR: This article argued that the British Empire was a " liberal" empire that upheld international law, kept the seas open and free, and ultimately benefited everyone by ensuring the free flow of trade.
Abstract: From a world history perspective, the most noticeable trend in the history of the late 19th century was the domination of Europeans over Non­Europeans. This domination took many forms ranging from economic penetration to outright annexation. No area of the globe, however remote from Europe, was free of European merchants, adventurers, explorers or western missionaries. Was colonialism good for either the imperialist or the peoples of the globe who found themselves subjects of one empire or another? A few decades ago, the answer would have been a resounding no. Now, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the more or less widespread discrediting of Marxist and Leninist analysis, and the end of the Cold War, political scientists and historians seem willing to take a more positive look at Nineteenth Century Imperialism. One noted current historian, Niall Ferguson has argued that the British Empire probably accomplished more positive good for the world than the last generation of historians, poisoned by Marxism, could or would concede. Ferguson has argued that the British Empire was a \" liberal \" empire that upheld international law, kept the seas open and free, and ultimately benefited everyone by ensuring the free flow of trade. In other words, Ferguson would find little reason to contradict the young Winston Churchill's assertion that the aim of British imperialism was to: give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to place the earliest seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain. It should come as no surprise that Ferguson regards the United States current position in the world as the natural successor to the British Empire and that the greatest danger the U.S. represents is that the world will not get enough American Imperialism because U.S. leaders often have short attention spans and tend to pull back troops when intervention becomes unpopular. It will be very interesting to check back into the debate on Imperialism about ten years from now and see how Niall Ferguson's point of view has fared! The other great school of thought about Imperialism is, of course, Marxist. For example, Marxist historians like E.J. Hobsbawm argue that if we look at the l9th century as a great competition for the world's wealth and …

2,001 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
16 Jan 2015
TL;DR: The "Great Acceleration" graphs as mentioned in this paper, originally published in 2004 to show socio-economic and Earth System trends from 1750 to 2000, have now been updated to 2010 and the dominant feature of the socioeconomic trends is that the economic activity of the human enterprise continues to grow at a rapid rate.
Abstract: The ‘Great Acceleration’ graphs, originally published in 2004 to show socio-economic and Earth System trends from 1750 to 2000, have now been updated to 2010. In the graphs of socio-economic trends, where the data permit, the activity of the wealthy (OECD) countries, those countries with emerging economies, and the rest of the world have now been differentiated. The dominant feature of the socio-economic trends is that the economic activity of the human enterprise continues to grow at a rapid rate. However, the differentiated graphs clearly show that strong equity issues are masked by considering global aggregates only. Most of the population growth since 1950 has been in the non-OECD world but the world’s economy (GDP), and hence consumption, is still strongly dominated by the OECD world. The Earth System indicators, in general, continued their long-term, post-industrial rise, although a few, such as atmospheric methane concentration and stratospheric ozone loss, showed a slowing or apparent stabilisation over the past decade. The post-1950 acceleration in the Earth System indicators remains clear. Only beyond the mid-20th century is there clear evidence for fundamental shifts in the state and functioning of the Earth System that are beyond the range of variability of the Holocene and driven by human activities. Thus, of all the candidates for a start date for the Anthropocene, the beginning of the Great Acceleration is by far the most convincing from an Earth System science perspective.

1,975 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a conceptual model of an ideal-typical transdisciplinary research process is synthesized and structures such a set of principles from various strands of the literature and empirical experiences, looking at challenges and coping strategies as experienced in transdisciplinary sustainability projects in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia.
Abstract: There is emerging agreement that sustainability challenges require new ways of knowledge production and decision-making. One key aspect of sustainability science, therefore, is the involvement of actors from outside academia into the research process in order to integrate the best available knowledge, reconcile values and preferences, as well as create ownership for problems and solution options. Transdisciplinary, community-based, interactive, or participatory research approaches are often suggested as appropriate means to meet both the requirements posed by real-world problems as well as the goals of sustainability science as a transformational scientific field. Dispersed literature on these approaches and a variety of empirical projects applying them make it difficult for interested researchers and practitioners to review and become familiar with key components and design principles of how to do transdisciplinary sustainability research. Starting from a conceptual model of an ideal–typical transdisciplinary research process, this article synthesizes and structures such a set of principles from various strands of the literature and empirical experiences. We then elaborate on them, looking at challenges and some coping strategies as experienced in transdisciplinary sustainability projects in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The article concludes with future research needed in order to further enhance the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability research.

1,927 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 2016-Ntm
TL;DR: It is argued that the debate about the “Age of Humans” is a timely opportunity both to rethink the nature-culture relation and to re-assess the narratives that historians of science, technology, and the environment have written until now.
Abstract: In 2000, when atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen and limnologist Eugene F. Stoermer proposed to introduce a new geological era, the Anthropocene, they could not have foreseen the remarkable career of the new term. Within a few years, the geological community began to investigate the scientific evidence for the concept and established the Anthropocene Working Group. While the Working Group has started to examine possible markers and periodizations of the new epoch, scholars from numerous other disciplines have taken up the Anthropocene as a cultural concept. In addition, the media have developed a deep interest in the Anthropocene's broader societal ramifications. The article sheds light on the controversial debate about the Anthropocene and discusses its inextricably linked dual careers, first as a geological term and second as a cultural term. Third, it argues that the debate about the "Age of Humans" is a timely opportunity both to rethink the nature-culture relation and to re-assess the narratives that historians of science, technology, and the environment have written until now. Specifically, it examines both the heuristic and analytical power of the concept. It discusses new histories, new ideas to understand historical change, and new temporalities shaped by scholars who have taken up the challenge of the Anthropocene as a cultural concept that has the ability to question established stories and narratives. Fourth, it ends by stressing the potential of the Anthropocene concept to blur established epistemological boundaries and to stimulate cross-disciplinary collaborations between the sciences and the humanities.

1,891 citations