Open Conference Systems, Nordic Geographers Meeting 2011

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The multi-topological spatiality of transnational environmental governance (TEG)
Jarmo Kortelainen

Last modified: 2011-01-26

Abstract


Environmental governance has become an increasingly transnational and hybrid matter. Spatially, this process has been seen as a shift from regionally bound governmental policies to borderless networks of governance. The paper seeks to go beyond the dual opposition between regional and network imaginations and utilizes concepts developed in the discipline of science, technology and society (STS). In STS, spatiality is associated with a concept of topological space which is not a fixed order of things but emerges in relations and has multiple simultaneous appearances. John Law and Annemarie Mol have identified four such spatial forms; regional, network-, fluid and fire spaces. With help of empirical examples of forest governance in Russia and Finland, the paper aims to show that the multi-topological approach offers important building blocks for understanding the spatiality of TEG. It gives no priority to either regional or network spatialities but treats them in symmetrical terms. Furthermore, it goes beyond dual spatiality and introduces fluid and fire topologies. From a multi-topological perspective, it is necessary for TEG to appear in several topological forms in order to exist. First, TEG networks and practises have to locate somewhere and take account of territorial boundaries in regional space. Second, in order to act in various parts of the globe, TEG has to operate through stable systems and standards which possess the immutable properties of network spatiality. Third, in fluid space, the standards have to transform themselves to variable definitions and interpretations which make them mutable mobiles. Fourth, fire spatiality shows the vulnerability of transnational networks. There TEG is a mutable immobile which stays in place and has a star-like shape supported or endangered by various absent others.