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The Spaces of Carbon: Calculation,Technology, and Discourse in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica

Lansing, David M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1250637819

Abstract Details

2009, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Geography.
In this dissertation I present an analysis of the practices of calculation needed to create carbon forestry offsets in Costa Rica, with special attention to the spaces that are produced through such practices. Carbon forestry offsets are a mechanism by which a person, nation, or corporation can offset the climactic impact of their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing a credit, which funds a forestry project that sequesters an equivalent amount of carbon. I explore the function and effects of the scientific and technical work that is undertaken so that carbon may be rendered as a source of value. Drawing on the writings of Martin Heidegger, I argue that the calculations needed to bring a carbon forestry offset into being as a commodity is a process that is grounded in a technological metaphysics, where the world becomes disclosed to us as an object of orderability. This ontological orientation allows for the objects and subjects of the world – carbon commodities as well as producers and consumers of carbon offsets – to become relationally embedded in the world through the production of bounded Cartesian space. Building on this argument about the ontological grounds of carbon offsets, I also investigate the bodily performances needed to maintain spaces of carbon sequestration. I do so by examining the transitive movement between the abstract and the material that ultimately produces the spaces of the forest as a commodified forestry offset. I argue that this oscillation is part of the performance of the space of an offset. Through the performative oscillation between the abstract and the material, the commodity-object and the “carbon market” itself, are mutually emergent and sustained. In addition to focusing on the performative materiality of carbon offsets, I also examine the discursive practices that are necessary for the spaces of commodified carbon storage to emerge. Through a historical-discursive analysis of the spaces of the indigenous body in the 19th and early 20th century, I argue that carbon offsets in indigenous communities in Costa Rica today occur within a spatial and territorial frame that is an effect of the transitive position of the indigenous body as a discursive object – where it is at once part of the Costa Rican nation yet outside of its normalized spaces of accumulation – a position that became hegemonic in the early 20th century. Finally, I explore how the discursive conception of the indigenous body, and its spaces of agriculture has changed in the late 20th century, where its contemporary discursive status as a rational user of land and labor has allowed for carbon offsets to emerge as a solution to a specific socio-spatial development problematic: “fixing” the ecologically unsustainable landscapes that are produced by economically rational actors. The use of cost-benefit calculations in the implementation of carbon offsets, however, results in new representations of agricultural space, which has contributed to the “opening up” of some spaces for receiving commodified carbon, while foreclosing on others.
Kendra McSweeney, PhD (Advisor)
Kevin Cox, PhD (Committee Member)
Becky Mansfield, PhD (Committee Member)
Joel Wainwright, PhD (Committee Member)
221 p.
Geography
climate change; calculation; carbon offsets; Costa Rica; development; ontologies of space; territory; value; use value; being

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Lansing, D. M. (2009). The Spaces of Carbon: Calculation,Technology, and Discourse in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1250637819

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Lansing, David. The Spaces of Carbon: Calculation,Technology, and Discourse in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica. 2009. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1250637819.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Lansing, David. "The Spaces of Carbon: Calculation,Technology, and Discourse in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1250637819

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2009, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.