Everyday Environmentalism: Creating an Urban Political Ecology - Softcover

Loftus, Alex

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816665729 ISBN 13: 9780816665723

Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2012

Synopsis

Everyday Environmentalism develops a conversation between marxist theories of everyday life and recent work in urban political ecology, arguing for a philosophy of praxis in relation to the politics of urban environments. Grounding its theoretical debate in empirical studies of struggles to obtain water in the informal settlements of Durban, South Africa, as well as in the creative acts of insurgent art activists in London, Alex Loftus builds on the work of key marxist thinkers to redefine “environmental politics.”

A marxist philosophy of praxis—that world-changing ideas emerge from the acts of everyday people—undergirds the book. Our daily reality, writes Loftus, is woven out of the entanglements of social and natural relations, and as such a kind of environmental politics is automatically incorporated into our lives. Nevertheless, one effect of the public recognition of global environmental change, asserts Loftus, has been a resurgence of dualistic understandings of the world: for example, that nature is inflicting revenge on arrogant human societies.

This ambitious work reformulates—with the assistance of such philosophers as Lukács, Gramsci, Lefebvre, and others—a politics of the environment in which everyday subjectivity is at the heart of a revolutionary politics.

About this title

About the Author

Alex Loftus is a lecturer in geography at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816665729
• ISBN 13: 9780816665723
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208