George Cusworth
Biographic Data
| ID | 1101632 |
|---|---|
| NAME | George Cusworth |
| GIVEN NAMES | George |
| FAMILY NAME | Cusworth |
| SIGNATURE | CUSWORTH G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oslo |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7623-938X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 89 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Planetary citizenship in a dynamic world: Posthuman cosmopolitanism
Socio-environmental crisis is changing how we think about the spatiality of sovereignty claims. It is also undermining the plausibility of territorial accounts premised on titles, ownership, and jurisdiction. The paper’s first aim is to conceptually codify these dynamic challenges to territorial theorisation. The second is to present an account of planetary citizenship that can withstand the territorial dynamism of socio-ecological crisis. This m…
Metabolo-politics: Bovine Metabolism and Environmental Biopower
More-than-human metabolic processes increasingly constitute the locus of contemporary biopower, often responding to industrially-altered biogeochemical cycles. We conceptualise ‘metabolo-politics’ to examine the targeting of bodies and populations via interventions in the biochemical surroundings and ecologies that shape them; and simultaneously, the administration and modulation of materials in the environment via interventions in the bodies and…
Environmental performativity: How natures are made
A range of things get made as natures are subject to programmes of management, measurement, regulation, subsidy, and commodification. Knowledge production practices stabilise dynamic environments into governable objects. Environmental management schemes materialise specific ecologies in particular places and create value for certain actors. Neoliberal governance mechanisms reproduce their own ideological foundations. This paper offers a conceptua…
Framing the Planetary and Calculating the Complex: The Controversies, Overflows, and Floods of the EAT-Lancet Planetary Diet
Data-intensive methods have become vital for getting epistemic purchase on global socioecological issues. Yet these methods are never fully insulated against contestation precisely because they seek to represent things that are so large and complex. This article is about these contestations and what they reveal about knowledge politics, today. It focuses on the EAT-Lancet report and its Planetary Diet. By promising to have comprehensively mapped …
Legitimacy in the making: Conservatism, additionality and natural capital accreditation in the UK's Woodland Carbon Code
This article critically examines the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC), the quality assurance test for UK woodland carbon credits. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with stakeholders in the Scottish land sector, we show how the WCC's finance allocation, additionality criteria, and carbon measurement systems create legitimacy for the code, the credits the code generates, and the market on which the credits are traded. The paper begins by t…
Farming for the patchy Anthropocene: The spatial imaginaries of regenerative agriculture
With its focus on the species level of the Anthropos, there is growing concern that the Anthropocene analytic lacks the conceptual nuance needed to grapple with the unevenly distributed harms and responsibilities tied up with issues of biodiversity loss, global warming, and land use change. Conceptual variants like the patchy Anthropocene have been proposed to better capture the justice implications of these socio-ecological crises, directing att…
On Disease Configurations, Black-Grass Blowback, and Probiotic Pest Management
This article explores approaches to managing pests that are being developed in response to the faltering effectiveness of antibiotic regimes of chemical control. It focuses on black-grass (Alopecurus myosuroides), an endemic plant in European agriculture that has emerged as a serious yield-robber with increasing levels of herbicidal resistance. Following farmers and agronomists who have developed "integrated" approaches to black-grass management,…
Metabolic agricultural ethics: Violence and care beyond the gate
A substantial body of scholarship now exists describing an agricultural ethics of care. This work has integrated insight from feminist ethicists into research on food production, human–nature relations, and agricultural land use. As scholars elsewhere in the humanities have discussed, though, there is often a violence committed in care's name. In the case of food production and farming, I argue that the focus on affect, local multispecies relatio…
When you wish upon a (GWP) star: Environmental governance and the reflexive performativity of global warming metrics
The metrics used in environmental management are performative. That is, the tools deployed to classify and measure the natural world interact with the things they were designed to observe. The idea of performativity also captures the way these interactions shape or distort the governance activities that metrics are used to inform. The performativity of metrics reveals how mundane practices of measurement and auditing are inscribed with substantia…
Green rebranding: Regenerative agriculture, future‐pasts, and the naturalisation of livestock
Anxieties around the relationship between livestock agriculture and the environmental crisis are driving sustained discussions about the place of beef and dairy farming in a sustainable food system. Proposed solutions range from 'clean-cow' sustainable intensification to 'no-cow', animal free futures, both of which encourage a disruptive break with past practice. This paper reviews the alternative proposition of regenerative agriculture that natu…
Immaterial animals and financialized forests: Asset manager capitalism, ESG integration and the politics of livestock
This article uses interviews with responsible investment professionals to examine the extent to which institutional equity investors, and specifically 'universal owners' with highly diversified shareholdings, engage with public issues associated with livestock agriculture. As share ownership becomes increasingly concentrated, and the market for Environmental, Social and Governance investment products grows, these investors are increasingly involv…
Legume dreams: The contested futures of sustainable plant-based food systems in Europe
With the intensification of agriculture, the simplification of crop rotations, and the rise in demand for meat, dairy and cereal products, legume production and consumption are at an historic low in Europe. But as the environmental consequences of agriculture (biodiversity loss, high greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution) and the health outcomes of modern diets (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity) become better known, so great and varie…
Using the ‘good farmer’ concept to explore agricultural attitudes to the provision of public goods. A case study of participants in an English agri-environment scheme
Across the European Union, the receipt of agricultural subsidisation is increasingly being predicated on the delivery of public goods. In the English context, in particular, these changes can be seen in the redirection of money to the new Environmental Land Management scheme. Such shifts reflect the changed expectations that society is placing on agriculture—from something that provides one good (food) to something that supplies many (food, acces…
Agroecological break out: Legumes, crop diversification and the regenerative futures of UK agriculture
Falling short of being the ‘good farmer’: Losses of social and cultural capital incurred through environmental mismanagement, and the long-term impacts agri-environment scheme participation
Green rebranding: Regenerative agriculture, future‐pasts, and the naturalisation of livestock
Anxieties around the relationship between livestock agriculture and the environmental crisis are driving sustained discussions about the place of beef and dairy farming in a sustainable food system. Proposed solutions range from 'clean-cow' sustainable intensification to 'no-cow', animal free futures, both of which encourage a disruptive break with past practice. This paper reviews the alternative proposition of regenerative agriculture that natu…
Falling short of being the ‘good farmer’: Losses of social and cultural capital incurred through environmental mismanagement, and the long-term impacts agri-environment scheme participation
Metabolic agricultural ethics: Violence and care beyond the gate
A substantial body of scholarship now exists describing an agricultural ethics of care. This work has integrated insight from feminist ethicists into research on food production, human–nature relations, and agricultural land use. As scholars elsewhere in the humanities have discussed, though, there is often a violence committed in care's name. In the case of food production and farming, I argue that the focus on affect, local multispecies relatio…
Legume dreams: The contested futures of sustainable plant-based food systems in Europe
With the intensification of agriculture, the simplification of crop rotations, and the rise in demand for meat, dairy and cereal products, legume production and consumption are at an historic low in Europe. But as the environmental consequences of agriculture (biodiversity loss, high greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution) and the health outcomes of modern diets (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity) become better known, so great and varie…
Agroecological break out: Legumes, crop diversification and the regenerative futures of UK agriculture
When you wish upon a (GWP) star: Environmental governance and the reflexive performativity of global warming metrics
The metrics used in environmental management are performative. That is, the tools deployed to classify and measure the natural world interact with the things they were designed to observe. The idea of performativity also captures the way these interactions shape or distort the governance activities that metrics are used to inform. The performativity of metrics reveals how mundane practices of measurement and auditing are inscribed with substantia…
Environmental performativity: How natures are made
A range of things get made as natures are subject to programmes of management, measurement, regulation, subsidy, and commodification. Knowledge production practices stabilise dynamic environments into governable objects. Environmental management schemes materialise specific ecologies in particular places and create value for certain actors. Neoliberal governance mechanisms reproduce their own ideological foundations. This paper offers a conceptua…
On Disease Configurations, Black-Grass Blowback, and Probiotic Pest Management
This article explores approaches to managing pests that are being developed in response to the faltering effectiveness of antibiotic regimes of chemical control. It focuses on black-grass (Alopecurus myosuroides), an endemic plant in European agriculture that has emerged as a serious yield-robber with increasing levels of herbicidal resistance. Following farmers and agronomists who have developed "integrated" approaches to black-grass management,…
Using the ‘good farmer’ concept to explore agricultural attitudes to the provision of public goods. A case study of participants in an English agri-environment scheme
Across the European Union, the receipt of agricultural subsidisation is increasingly being predicated on the delivery of public goods. In the English context, in particular, these changes can be seen in the redirection of money to the new Environmental Land Management scheme. Such shifts reflect the changed expectations that society is placing on agriculture—from something that provides one good (food) to something that supplies many (food, acces…
Farming for the patchy Anthropocene: The spatial imaginaries of regenerative agriculture
With its focus on the species level of the Anthropos, there is growing concern that the Anthropocene analytic lacks the conceptual nuance needed to grapple with the unevenly distributed harms and responsibilities tied up with issues of biodiversity loss, global warming, and land use change. Conceptual variants like the patchy Anthropocene have been proposed to better capture the justice implications of these socio-ecological crises, directing att…
Immaterial animals and financialized forests: Asset manager capitalism, ESG integration and the politics of livestock
This article uses interviews with responsible investment professionals to examine the extent to which institutional equity investors, and specifically 'universal owners' with highly diversified shareholdings, engage with public issues associated with livestock agriculture. As share ownership becomes increasingly concentrated, and the market for Environmental, Social and Governance investment products grows, these investors are increasingly involv…
Legitimacy in the making: Conservatism, additionality and natural capital accreditation in the UK's Woodland Carbon Code
This article critically examines the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC), the quality assurance test for UK woodland carbon credits. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with stakeholders in the Scottish land sector, we show how the WCC's finance allocation, additionality criteria, and carbon measurement systems create legitimacy for the code, the credits the code generates, and the market on which the credits are traded. The paper begins by t…
Falling short of being the ‘good farmer’: Losses of social and cultural capital incurred through environmental mismanagement, and the long-term impacts agri-environment scheme participation
Legume dreams: The contested futures of sustainable plant-based food systems in Europe
With the intensification of agriculture, the simplification of crop rotations, and the rise in demand for meat, dairy and cereal products, legume production and consumption are at an historic low in Europe. But as the environmental consequences of agriculture (biodiversity loss, high greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution) and the health outcomes of modern diets (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity) become better known, so great and varie…
Using the ‘good farmer’ concept to explore agricultural attitudes to the provision of public goods. A case study of participants in an English agri-environment scheme
Across the European Union, the receipt of agricultural subsidisation is increasingly being predicated on the delivery of public goods. In the English context, in particular, these changes can be seen in the redirection of money to the new Environmental Land Management scheme. Such shifts reflect the changed expectations that society is placing on agriculture—from something that provides one good (food) to something that supplies many (food, acces…
Agroecological break out: Legumes, crop diversification and the regenerative futures of UK agriculture
When you wish upon a (GWP) star: Environmental governance and the reflexive performativity of global warming metrics
The metrics used in environmental management are performative. That is, the tools deployed to classify and measure the natural world interact with the things they were designed to observe. The idea of performativity also captures the way these interactions shape or distort the governance activities that metrics are used to inform. The performativity of metrics reveals how mundane practices of measurement and auditing are inscribed with substantia…
Green rebranding: Regenerative agriculture, future‐pasts, and the naturalisation of livestock
Anxieties around the relationship between livestock agriculture and the environmental crisis are driving sustained discussions about the place of beef and dairy farming in a sustainable food system. Proposed solutions range from 'clean-cow' sustainable intensification to 'no-cow', animal free futures, both of which encourage a disruptive break with past practice. This paper reviews the alternative proposition of regenerative agriculture that natu…
Immaterial animals and financialized forests: Asset manager capitalism, ESG integration and the politics of livestock
This article uses interviews with responsible investment professionals to examine the extent to which institutional equity investors, and specifically 'universal owners' with highly diversified shareholdings, engage with public issues associated with livestock agriculture. As share ownership becomes increasingly concentrated, and the market for Environmental, Social and Governance investment products grows, these investors are increasingly involv…
Metabolic agricultural ethics: Violence and care beyond the gate
A substantial body of scholarship now exists describing an agricultural ethics of care. This work has integrated insight from feminist ethicists into research on food production, human–nature relations, and agricultural land use. As scholars elsewhere in the humanities have discussed, though, there is often a violence committed in care's name. In the case of food production and farming, I argue that the focus on affect, local multispecies relatio…
Farming for the patchy Anthropocene: The spatial imaginaries of regenerative agriculture
With its focus on the species level of the Anthropos, there is growing concern that the Anthropocene analytic lacks the conceptual nuance needed to grapple with the unevenly distributed harms and responsibilities tied up with issues of biodiversity loss, global warming, and land use change. Conceptual variants like the patchy Anthropocene have been proposed to better capture the justice implications of these socio-ecological crises, directing att…
On Disease Configurations, Black-Grass Blowback, and Probiotic Pest Management
This article explores approaches to managing pests that are being developed in response to the faltering effectiveness of antibiotic regimes of chemical control. It focuses on black-grass (Alopecurus myosuroides), an endemic plant in European agriculture that has emerged as a serious yield-robber with increasing levels of herbicidal resistance. Following farmers and agronomists who have developed "integrated" approaches to black-grass management,…
Environmental performativity: How natures are made
A range of things get made as natures are subject to programmes of management, measurement, regulation, subsidy, and commodification. Knowledge production practices stabilise dynamic environments into governable objects. Environmental management schemes materialise specific ecologies in particular places and create value for certain actors. Neoliberal governance mechanisms reproduce their own ideological foundations. This paper offers a conceptua…
Framing the Planetary and Calculating the Complex: The Controversies, Overflows, and Floods of the EAT-Lancet Planetary Diet
Data-intensive methods have become vital for getting epistemic purchase on global socioecological issues. Yet these methods are never fully insulated against contestation precisely because they seek to represent things that are so large and complex. This article is about these contestations and what they reveal about knowledge politics, today. It focuses on the EAT-Lancet report and its Planetary Diet. By promising to have comprehensively mapped …
Legitimacy in the making: Conservatism, additionality and natural capital accreditation in the UK's Woodland Carbon Code
This article critically examines the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC), the quality assurance test for UK woodland carbon credits. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with stakeholders in the Scottish land sector, we show how the WCC's finance allocation, additionality criteria, and carbon measurement systems create legitimacy for the code, the credits the code generates, and the market on which the credits are traded. The paper begins by t…
Planetary citizenship in a dynamic world: Posthuman cosmopolitanism
Socio-environmental crisis is changing how we think about the spatiality of sovereignty claims. It is also undermining the plausibility of territorial accounts premised on titles, ownership, and jurisdiction. The paper’s first aim is to conceptually codify these dynamic challenges to territorial theorisation. The second is to present an account of planetary citizenship that can withstand the territorial dynamism of socio-ecological crisis. This m…
Metabolo-politics: Bovine Metabolism and Environmental Biopower
More-than-human metabolic processes increasingly constitute the locus of contemporary biopower, often responding to industrially-altered biogeochemical cycles. We conceptualise ‘metabolo-politics’ to examine the targeting of bodies and populations via interventions in the biochemical surroundings and ecologies that shape them; and simultaneously, the administration and modulation of materials in the environment via interventions in the bodies and…
Agriculture (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact (6 works) · Business (6 works) · Ecology (6 works) · Economics (6 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (6 works) · Biology (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (4 works)