Finite world and sustainable action-as-politics: On the ecological transformation of society

在全球环境危机之后，出现了对环境负责任的个人行为和社会合作的新形式：一些个人和团体现在的目标是通过可持续行动直接作出贡献，以解决有限的生态问题。在一定程度上，这也可能是对一个经常被诊断或被认为是政府在寻找生态增长极限的政治解决方案方面的失败的反应。起带头作用的三种具体形式的可持续行动是城市园艺、社区可再生能源和社区支持农业。这三种形式涉及有限的关键要素，即粮食生产和能源。本项目旨在分析这些形式的可持续行动。在第一步，该项目将用政治社会学的方法调查选定的倡议。目标是确定处理有限体验的个人和集体策略，这可以从社会实践和社会合作中推断出来。更具体地说，应分析所涉行为者的工作方法和政治自我形象。在第二步，该项目将采用政治理论方法，根据政治实质和政治潜力对这些形式的可持续行动进行分类。关键问题是，这些形式的行为是否仍在个人道德的范围内，或者它们是否更愿意被理解为真正的政治行为。如果事实证明是后者，将进一步询问这些行动形式背后的政治理解是什么，以及它们是否可能构成对政治事务的“规则”的新形式。

In the wake of the global environmental crisis, new forms of environmentally responsible individual conduct and social cooperation have emerged: some individuals and groups now aim to make a direct contribution – via sustainable action – to solve the ecological problem of finiteness. Partly, this may also be a reaction to an often diagnosed or perceived government failure in terms of finding political solutions to the ecological limits of growth. Three specific forms of sustainable action that take a lead role are urban gardening, community renewable energy, and community supported agriculture. These three forms concern key elements of finiteness, namely food production and energy.This project aims to analyse these forms of sustainable action. In a first step, the project will investigate selected initiatives with political-sociological methods. The goal is to identify individual and collective strategies of dealing with the experience of finiteness, which may be inferred from social practices and social cooperation. More specifically, the work methods and political self-images of the involved actors shall be analysed. In a second step, the project will employ a political-theoretical approach to classify these forms of sustainable action in terms of their political substance and their political potential. The key question is whether these forms of action remain within the confines of individual ethics or whether they may rather be understood as genuinely political behaviour. If the latter proves to be the case, it will be further inquired what understandings of politics are underlying these forms of action and whether they perhaps constitute new forms in the “regulation” of matters political.