Although nature is a dominant presence both in historical New Zealand literature and in New Zealand's current international image, literary critics observe a tendency on the part of young writers to neglect nature in favour of more human, urban and cultural themes. I write against this perception, basing my argument on the hypothesis that such urban-based literature may in fact be centrally concerned with the natural world and with human-nature relations. In locating nature within the urban fictional environment, I demonstrate a model of analysis that extends literary critical approaches to nature both within New Zealand literature and within the field of ecocriticism, both of which are largely consumed with analysing representations of sublime, non-urban nature. I test this urban ecocritical method of reading in my analysis of Catherine Chidgey's three novels, In a Fishbone Church, Golden Deeds and The Transformation, all of which adhere to the human-centred trend typical of contemporary New Zealand novels. I reveal within Chidgey's fiction a gradual progression away from archetypal representations of the sublime toward a more complex, fractured and rebellious variety of nature that co-exists alongside humans within urban space. Thus, while the characters in her first novel predominantly interact with nature as a sublime, non-urban entity, those in her second and third novels face the daily possibility of encountering "the wild" within domesticated settings that are apparently severed from any connection with the natural world. This kind of urbanised feral nature poses a significant threat to Chidgey's characters, overtly in the form of the powerful natural elements, and covertly through the myriad varieties of transformed nature with which they surround themselves. I read this portrayal of nature as a commentary on contemporary modernity's relationship with the natural environment, and I suggest that this kind of agentive, autonomous nature demands a new theory of environmentalism which will consider nature as an actor alongside humans.

This thesis examines Hannah Arendt’s phenomenological theory of action (vita activa) to assess its capacity to accommodate environmental politics within its conception of the public sphere. Critics have argued that vita activa’s triadic structure excludes social questions—in which Arendt includes environmental concerns—from political action. In fact, her writings explicitly seek to shield politics from social incursions—a phenomenon she terms “the rise of the social.” However, this criticism overlooks the distinction Arendt draws between politics and governance, politics being a manifestation of freedom and governance the management of necessity. By arguing for vita activa’s ability to accommodate contemporary environmental concerns, this reading seeks to promote Arendt’s conception of freedom within the emerging green political tradition, for her understanding of politics recognizes its existential function in creating identities for both communities and individuals. To pose an environmental challenge to Arendt’s thought, this thesis employs some of the key themes and conceptions from four prominent green theorists: John Dryzek, Robyn Eckersley, Andrew Dobson, and John Meyer. In relation to these theorists, it will be argued that vita activa’s form of politics carries the possibility of allowing environmentalism to appear within the public sphere’s political contents without contradicting its triadic boundaries. To develop an environmentally sustainable society, political communities must create new narratives for bridging the divide between their built and natural environments, a process that requires the existential power of Arendtian politics. / Graduate

During the last two decades the shore protection law [strandskyddslagen] in Sweden has undergone changes to make it easier for municipalities to infringe on protected areas. This paper offers a contribution to the understanding of the interplay between common environmental theory perspectives and the environmentality discourse, something that has been missing from the academic field. Earlier research has been dedicated to show how certain types of environmentality tend subjects to internalize certain norms that legitimizes a neoliberal order. This order fosters a development norm that stands in conflict with an ecocentric perspective.  Using a modified version of Bacchi and Evelines WPR-method, we found that the discourse among Swedish municipalities, Stockholm being an exception, interpret the part of the shore protection law which purpose is to protect animals and vegetation as a hindrance to development. This highlights the problematic relationship between environmental protection and economic growth.  By applying an ideal-type analysis on overview plans and consultation responses of ten Swedish municipalities we were able to identify a shallow, neoliberal perspective on nature which enables a neoliberal environmentality. The interplay between shallow perspectives on nature and neoliberal environmentality creates a hegemonic structure in which critical voices tend to be marginalized, resulting in a post-politization of beach protection discourse.

[pt] Emancipação socioambiental: por uma Teoria Crítica Ambiental busca discutir hermeneuticamente os contrastes da emancipação social oriunda da tradição marxista da Escola de Frankfurt em suas duas versões, sistematizadas por Theodor Adorno e Max Horkheimer - a primeira radicada no materialismo interdisciplinar e a segunda balizada pelo contexto da razão instrumental - e dos teóricos-críticos contemporâneos, como Boaventura Souza Santos. A começar pela análise analítico-descritiva, desenvolve-se o tema apresentando o status quo da emancipação social desde a conceituação da racionalidade instrumental como efetivo paradigma do sistema capitalista. Em seguida, estudam-se as influências dessa modalidade racional a partir dos pressupostos ético-políticos que a consubstanciam, a saber, os Direitos Humanos, a dignidade da pessoa humana e os modelos democráticos hegemônicos, a fim de se constatar os limites da emancipação social no enredo desenvolvimentista-liberal. Uma vez estruturado o contexto crítico da emancipação social pelas contingências teóricas e críticas, desvela-se a crise ambiental proveniente do modo de produção capitalista, fundamentado na instrumentalidade técnico-científica, a fim de se descobrir o socioambientalismo como novo interlocutor da ação política no que se refere à emancipação socioambiental. Para tanto, o texto projeta-se dialeticamente nas perspectivas emancipatórias presentes na racionalidade socioambiental, em oposição à racionalidade instrumental, e se serve da análise descritiva das ferramentas de cooptação economicista ambiental para justificar que a crise ecológica hodierna, parametrizada pela cientificidade capitalista e seus derivados - sobretudo a desigualdade dos atores sociais, o aumento da pobreza e a degradação ambiental -, tem consistentes pontos convergentes e demanda politicamente novos saberes. O modelo de ação política em que se situa o texto está referenciado pelo ecossocialismo, posicionando a ecologia política como precursora de uma nova cultura social e ambiental lastreada pelo conceito coletivista do modo de existir com os outros - humanos e não-humanos. À guisa de conclusão, tem-se a atualização do pressuposto da Teoria Crítica no que se refere à sua dimensão principiológica: a emancipação socioambiental como possibilidade de se compreender as complexidades do tempo presente e de ser capaz de reinterpretar e resignificar, a partir de matrizes políticas, sociais e ambientais, a racionalidade socioambiental como pressuposto de uma configuração da relação homem-natureza. / [en] Social-Environmental Emancipation: for a Critical Environmental Theory tries to hermeneutically discuss the contrasts of social emancipation from the Marxist tradition of the Frankfurt School in its two versions, systematized by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer - the first one taking root in the interdisciplinary materialism and the second one marked by the context of the instrumental reason -, and of the contemporary theoretical-critical ones such as Boaventura Souza Santos. Starting from the analytical-descriptive assessment, the subject is developed by presenting the status quo of social emancipation from the conceptualization of instrumental rationality as an effective paradigm of the capitalist system. Then, the influences of this rational modality are studied from the ethical-political assumptions that substantiate it, that is, Human Rights, the dignity of the human being and the hegemonic democratic models, in order to define the limits of social emancipation in the developmental-liberal scenario. Once the critical context of social emancipation through theoretical and critical contingencies has been structured, the environmental crisis from the capitalist production mode, based on the technical-scientific instrumentality, is unveiled so that the social environmentalism is discovered as a new interlocutor of the political action in what regards the social-environmental emancipation. On that purpose, the text dialectically projects itself in the emancipatory perspectives found in the social-environmental rationality, as opposed to the instrumental rationality, and uses the descriptive analysis of the environmental economicsbased co-optation tools to justify the fact that the current ecological crisis, parameterized by the capitalist scientificity and its derivatives – especially the inequality of the social actors, increasing poverty and environmental degradation - has consistent convergent points and politically demands new knowledge. The political action model in which the text is located is referred by ecosocialism, positioning political ecology as precursor of a new social and environmental culture based on the collectivist concept of the way of existing with the others - human and non-human.To conclude, the Critical Theory assumption is updated in what regards its principiologic dimension: the social-environmental emancipation as a possibility to understand the complexities of the present times and to be able to reinterpret and give a new meaning, from political, social and environmental matrixes, to the social-environmental rationality as an assumption for a configuration of the man-nature relationship.