Deus ex mitigata

Denaturalizing the discursive power of Solar India

Bibliographic Data

ID4991069
AuthorsRyan Stock (0000-0002-6218-3725, Northern Michigan University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume4
Issue2
Pages354-382
Publication date2021-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/2514848620908166
OpenAlexW3010226248
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited100

Post-Paris Agreement, India is swiftly transitioning to low-carbon electricity generation through solar park development. Despite exceeding emissions reduction targets, many social development claims remain unrealized. This paper addresses the following questions: (1) What discourses do state institutions utilize to justify solar park development in rural spaces? (2) What sociopolitical effects do these discourses have at the local scale? I conducted a critical discourse analysis of technical and policy documents focusing on knowledge production to influence social power and the political economy. I also draw on eight months of fieldwork, including semi-structured interviews of residents, bureaucrats, and solar employees in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and New Delhi. This paper argues that solar parks are rationalized via discursive formations of the climate crisis, economic development, and ecological modernization. These discursive formations are stitched together into story-lines and circulated by public and private institutions (Solar India), comprising a "deus ex mitigata," a deus ex machina set of discursive formations that rationalize greener capital accumulation in neoliberal India that does not address asymmetric power relations. The modalities by which this is accomplished dispossess peasants of land and livelihoods. As such, low-carbon electricity generation does not positively "transform the lives" of residents, a raison d'être for solar park development

Civil society · Ecological modernization · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Geography · Livelihood · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solar Power · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Energy and Environment Impacts · Law · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance

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