Hesse, Arielle and Bresnihan, Patrick and White, James
(2023)
The data treadmill: water governance and the politics of pollution in rural Ireland.
Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability.
pp. 1-17.
ISSN 1354-9839
Abstract
This paper draws on fieldwork in rural Ireland to argue that environmental
data can reinforce knowledge systems that shield structural problems and
blunt efforts to rethink the role of community engagement in
environmental governance. It offers a cautionary reading of how data
has been instrumentalised by the EU and Irish State by showing how
data diffuses responsibility and depoliticises environmental activism in
cycles of funding and data collection. Since the 2000 Water Framework
Directive, water governance in the European Union has increasingly
relied upon extensive scientific, evidence-based decision-making and
community and stakeholder involvement. We explore how these
changes shape efforts to document and remediate water pollution. We
expand upon Shapiro et al.’s (2018)’s “data treadmill” to understand
how data rescales responsibility for pollution and its effects. The “data
treadmill” gives name to cycles of data and funding that propel logics
and strategies of environmental governance. We show how the data
treadmill operates by perpetuating a narrative that effective action
requires more precise data and evidence and solves questions of
responsibility through bespoke approaches to environmental pollution.
The data treadmill constrains communities through prevailing logics
that surround data and environmental governance: communities
become tied into European funding programmes that require, on one
hand, the expertise of various professionals and consultants, on the
other, place-based knowledge and social relationships to deliver
innovative responses to structural problems. We offer a critical analysis
of current institutional and policy in the EU and Ireland to highlight
perils and contradictions of data-centric environmental governance as
practiced.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Environmental governance;
environmental data justice;
public participation;
environmental policy;
uncertainty; responsibility; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography |
| Item ID: |
16906 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2023.2169668 |
| Depositing User: |
Patrick Bresnihan
|
| Date Deposited: |
31 Jan 2023 16:32 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability |
| Publisher: |
Taylor & Francis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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