{"title":"环境监管程序中的政治化时间:反对南非 Thabametsi 煤炭厂的斗争","authors":"Yaowen Deng","doi":"10.3828/whpge.63837646622483","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This study revisits the enduring question of temporality in environmental politics, drawing on prognostic politics literature to identify temporality as the practice of making and enacting time claims within institutions at various scales. The research highlights the intersection of time, environmental governance and politicisation within the procedural aspects of environmental impact assessments (EIA) during infrastructure development. The case of South Africa’s Thabametsi coal plant (2014–2017) is examined to understand how disputes over the duration of the Thabametsi EIA shaped interpretations and responses to potential environmental impacts. This case highlights a distinct politicisation of time marked by the strategic deployment of scale. While developers and regulators leveraged national-level legislation to expedite the EIA for uninterrupted project development, environmental activists, influenced by post-apartheid legal norms, enforced a more comprehensive and slow-paced EIA. By scaling down their legal arguments and focusing on project-specific regulations, the activists managed to induce significant delays in the coal plant’s realisation.","PeriodicalId":42763,"journal":{"name":"Global Environment","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Politicised Time in Environmental Regulatory Procedure: The Struggles Against the Thabametsi Coal Plant in South Africa\",\"authors\":\"Yaowen Deng\",\"doi\":\"10.3828/whpge.63837646622483\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"This study revisits the enduring question of temporality in environmental politics, drawing on prognostic politics literature to identify temporality as the practice of making and enacting time claims within institutions at various scales. The research highlights the intersection of time, environmental governance and politicisation within the procedural aspects of environmental impact assessments (EIA) during infrastructure development. The case of South Africa’s Thabametsi coal plant (2014–2017) is examined to understand how disputes over the duration of the Thabametsi EIA shaped interpretations and responses to potential environmental impacts. This case highlights a distinct politicisation of time marked by the strategic deployment of scale. While developers and regulators leveraged national-level legislation to expedite the EIA for uninterrupted project development, environmental activists, influenced by post-apartheid legal norms, enforced a more comprehensive and slow-paced EIA. By scaling down their legal arguments and focusing on project-specific regulations, the activists managed to induce significant delays in the coal plant’s realisation.\",\"PeriodicalId\":42763,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Global Environment\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.3000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-02-26\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Global Environment\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.3828/whpge.63837646622483\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q4\",\"JCRName\":\"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Global Environment","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3828/whpge.63837646622483","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Politicised Time in Environmental Regulatory Procedure: The Struggles Against the Thabametsi Coal Plant in South Africa
This study revisits the enduring question of temporality in environmental politics, drawing on prognostic politics literature to identify temporality as the practice of making and enacting time claims within institutions at various scales. The research highlights the intersection of time, environmental governance and politicisation within the procedural aspects of environmental impact assessments (EIA) during infrastructure development. The case of South Africa’s Thabametsi coal plant (2014–2017) is examined to understand how disputes over the duration of the Thabametsi EIA shaped interpretations and responses to potential environmental impacts. This case highlights a distinct politicisation of time marked by the strategic deployment of scale. While developers and regulators leveraged national-level legislation to expedite the EIA for uninterrupted project development, environmental activists, influenced by post-apartheid legal norms, enforced a more comprehensive and slow-paced EIA. By scaling down their legal arguments and focusing on project-specific regulations, the activists managed to induce significant delays in the coal plant’s realisation.
期刊介绍:
The half-yearly journal Global Environment: A Journal of History and Natural and Social Sciences acts as a forum and echo chamber for ongoing studies on the environment and world history, with special focus on modern and contemporary topics. Our intent is to gather and stimulate scholarship that, despite a diversity of approaches and themes, shares an environmental perspective on world history in its various facets, including economic development, social relations, production government, and international relations. One of the journal’s main commitments is to bring together different areas of expertise in both the natural and the social sciences to facilitate a common language and a common perspective in the study of history. This commitment is fulfilled by way of peer-reviewed research articles and also by interviews and other special features. Global Environment strives to transcend the western-centric and ‘developist’ bias that has dominated international environmental historiography so far and to favour the emergence of spatially and culturally diversified points of view. It seeks to replace the notion of ‘hierarchy’ with those of ‘relationship’ and ‘exchange’ – between continents, states, regions, cities, central zones and peripheral areas – in studying the construction or destruction of environments and ecosystems.