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Critical Studies in Education

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Sustaining the life-chance divide? Educationfor sustainable development and the globalbiopolitical regime

Sofie Hellberg & Beniamin Knutsson

To cite this article: Sofie Hellberg & Beniamin Knutsson (2016): Sustaining the life-chancedivide? Education for sustainable development and the global biopolitical regime, CriticalStudies in Education, DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2016.1176064

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1176064

Published online: 29 Apr 2016.

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Sustaining the life-chance divide? Education for sustainabledevelopment and the global biopolitical regimeSofie Hellberga and Beniamin Knutssonb

aSchool of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; bDepartment of Pedagogical, Curricular andProfessional Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

ABSTRACTWhat is being sustained in education for sustainable development(ESD)? Drawing on biopolitical theory, this article puts forth thehypothesis that it is in fact the very life-chance gulf that separateswealthy ‘sustainable’ mass consumers from poor ‘sustainable’ sub-sistence-level populations. Hence, in sharp contrast to the cosmo-politan buzz that characterizes the international policy discourseon ESD, it is argued that ESD feeds into the global life-chancedivide as it prepares different populations for entirely differentlives and lifestyles. In previous research that has dealt with globalaspects of ESD, a dividing line can be drawn between scholarswho emphasize tendencies towards neoliberal homogenizationand those who highlight contingency, local re-articulations andspaces of contestation. This paper offers a third theoretical posi-tion that while sharing a deep unease with global neoliberalgovernment is primarily concerned with its ‘will to divide’. As acorollary of this biopolitical perspective, the paper makes a casefor critical empirical research that can lay bare the cracks andcontradictions in the grand narrative of ESD as a cosmopolitanethical enterprise.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 29 September 2015Accepted 5 April 2016

KEYWORDSBiopolitics; education forsustainable development;global; life(style); life-chances; neoliberalism;subjectivity

Introduction

It has become commonplace to talk about education for sustainable development(ESD) as a cosmopolitan ethical enterprise. The bulk of the countless policy docu-ments, reports and leaflets that have been circulated globally during and after theUnited Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) pro-jects the idea that the world constitutes one single community and that we, in orderto create a more sustainable and just society for all, must integrate the valuesinherent in sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning(e.g. UNESCO, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2012). But not everybody accepts this policydiscourse at face value. A number of politically engaged scholars have, for example,issued warnings that ESD is running serious risk of being co-opted by a globalneoliberal agenda that seeks to impose an economistic ‘one-size-fits-all’ frame ofreference upon the world (Jickling & Wals, 2008; McKenzie, 2012; Sauvé, Brunelle,

CONTACT Beniamin Knutsson Beniamin.knutsson@ped.gu.seBoth authors are first authors.

CRITICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION, 2016http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1176064

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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& Berryman, 2005; Sumner, 2008). However, such concerns about homogenizingtendencies in ESD have also been called into question by researchers who emphasizecontingency, local re-articulations and spaces of contestation (Bengtsson & Östman,2013; 2016; see also Gough, 2013). This paper proposes a third theoretical positionwhich, while sharing a deep unease with global neoliberal governance in ESD,seriously disputes that homogenization was ever its goal. Thus, rather than attempt-ing to invoke homogenous ‘sustainable’ rationalities, values, lifestyles and subjectiv-ities across the globe, the paper suggests that global neoliberal governance in thefield of ESD has strong differentiating effects and it is argued that much moreattention ought to be paid to the neoliberal ‘will to divide’ (Walters, 2004). Hence,the paper challenges contemporary concerns about homogenizing tendencies in ESDby suggesting that what is in fact produced in ESD is a distinction between differentpopulations and lifestyles.

The article has two basic intentions. First, drawing its inspiration from contemporarybiopolitical theory, the paper argues that ESD, albeit often framed as a cosmopolitanethical enterprise, forms part of a global biopolitical regime that consolidates distinc-tions between different forms of life. Hence, rather than challenging the grossly unfair,and far from cosmopolitan, distribution of life-chances around the world, ESD tends tofeed into the global life-chance divide as it prepares different populations for entirelydifferent lives and lifestyles. Second, based upon this argument, the paper makes a casefor critical biopolitical research that can expose the neoliberal ‘will to divide’ withinglobal ESD practices and, potentially, provide a foundation for discussing more radicalpolitical alternatives. As such, the paper primarily lines up with recent poststructuralist(Dahlbeck, 2014; Ideland & Malmberg, 2014; 2015) and biopolitical (Knutsson, 2013;Skoglund & Börjesson, 2014) critiques of ESD. Yet, on a more general level, the papercould also be viewed as a contribution to the broader field of educational researchinformed by biopolitical theory (e.g. Bacon, 2015; Ball, 2012; Lingard, Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2013; Peters, 2007; Simons, 2006). This literature has brought attention tobiopolitical features of education, for example, how it strives to optimize the capacitiesof different ‘populations’ and mould particular forms of subjectivity through pedago-gical techniques. Moreover, this literature examines how such interventions are inti-mately tied up with certain forms of knowledge and calculative representations of thosewho are to be governed. In a similar vein, this paper will highlight some significantbiopolitical functions of ESD.

The paper is organized in six sections. The first section provides a backdrop forthe article’s general argument by presenting two ‘snapshots’ of ESD in Sweden andRwanda. The second section offers a few conceptual clarifications. The thirdsection provides a brief outline of contemporary biopolitical scholarship on ‘sus-tainable development’ as a tool for governing ‘surplus’ life. The fourth sectionargues that such a biopolitical perspective could, with some additions and con-textual adaptations, lend itself well to critical studies of ESD. The fifth sectionsketches the basic contours of such a critical biopolitical approach. The finalsection concludes.

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‘Sustainable’ mass consumption and life beyond its borders: snapshots ofESD in Sweden and Rwanda

Picture the following two scenes:(1) Students and teachers at a ‘sustainability’ awarded school in a Swedish munici-

pality are making preparations for a sustainability day in the school assembly hall.There is intense activity. On the agenda is a fashion show with fair trade and eco-friendly clothes, fair trade chocolate testing, eco-friendly skin and hair treatment and aguest lecture by a representative of a sustainable lifestyle magazine. The objective of theevent is to encourage, and promote learning about, sustainable lifestyles. Thesustainability day is a recurrent event at the school and it forms an important part ofthe school’s activities in the area of ESD.

(2) Students and teachers at a school in a Rwandan municipality are gathering on theschoolyard. As part of a school greening programme they will today, under theguidance and supervision of a donor-funded Rwandan non-governmental organization(NGO), engage in hands-on learning for sustainable development. They will buildrainwater harvesting tanks and plant a fruit and vegetable garden at the school. Theobjective of the school greening programme is to improve sanitation and nutrition andto promote learning about water conservation and sustainable farming techniques. TheNGO is one among several civil society organizations that are actively engaged inRwanda’s ESD strategy and action plan (RoR, 2010).1

Whether these two snapshots reflect a broader global pattern can of course bedebated. The basic hypothesis of this paper is that they do not merely represent randomincidents, but this is an empirical matter that requires further scrutiny. Nevertheless,these two de facto examples inevitably raise a number of concerns. First of all it shouldbe noted that both of these educational interventions are carried out with explicitreference to ESD and that both of the implementing institutions have received officialrecognition for their work. Undeniably, these are also two well-intended interventions.They both aim to invoke a sense of responsibility and care for the natural environmentamong the students, and they attempt to capacitate and prepare them for a moresustainable way of life, and thus, for a brighter future. Both of the interventions arefurther carried out in accordance with the ideals of learner-centred, practical andparticipatory pedagogical approaches. However, be that as it may, it is very hard toignore the simple fact that these educational interventions involve completely differentassumptions about the life trajectories of the students involved, and that this, in turn,affects the ways in which the two populations are being approached. In the firstexample, the students are targeted as potential bearers of a global mass consumerlifestyle. The assumption is that they, in the future (if not already), via their purchasingpower, will be able to constitute themselves as ‘sustainable’ and responsible massconsumers. In the second example, the students are approached as people beyond theborders of mass consumption. The assumption is that they, in the future, will have tosettle for petty consumption and become ‘sustainable’ through self-reliant, environ-ment-friendly and subsistence-level farming. It is further, quite frankly, very difficult tosee that these interventions challenge the current order in any significant way.2 Rather,adaptation to prevailing circumstances appears to be the norm.

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So, what do the two educational interventions described above tell us about ESD?Are the differences between the way that the pupils are approached and trained,products of randomness or coincidence? In this article we argue that they are not,nor that they are compatible with the notion of ESD as a ‘cosmopolitan’ ethicalenterprise. Rather, we argue that these two interventions are a manifestation of some-thing that is central to the concept of sustainable development and that might becaptured by applying a biopolitical lens. As we will see, from this perspective, some-thing highly problematic is sustained in ESD: a separation of different forms of lives andlifestyles. The remainder of the article will discuss how ESD can be approached andproblematized from the perspective of contemporary biopolitical theory. We start witha few conceptual clarifications.

(Neo)liberal biopolitics

In order to grasp the overall arguments of this article, some familiarity with a fewconcepts derived from the Foucauldian tradition is needed (e.g. Dean, 1999; Foucault,1976/1998, 2007, 2008; Lemke, 2001, 2011; Peters, 2007). Foucault’s notion of biopoliticsis critical. It refers to a form of politics concerned with administering and regulating theconditions of life at the aggregated level of populations (Dean, 1999; Foucault, 1976/1998). Using his genealogical approach, Foucault located the birth of biopolitics ineighteenth-century Europe (Foucault, 2007, 2008). According to Foucault, politicalpower in European societies had traditionally centred on sovereignty. This form ofrule was based on transcendent juridical principles and exercised through punitive andviolent practices in order to maintain control over subjects within a given territory.Characteristic of sovereign power was thus ‘deduction’ of goods, services, labour andtime, and it had its ultimate manifestation in the king’s right to kill those whodisobeyed his law. However, somewhere around the eighteenth century, this politicalparadigm became challenged and supplemented by ‘a new form of power that seeks toadminister, secure, develop and foster life’ (Lemke, 2011, p. 35), that is, a form of ruleconcerned with augmenting human life rather than controlling legal subjects within acertain territory. This new ‘bio-power’ took two basic forms, disciplining of theindividual body and biopolitics of the population (Foucault, 1976/1998, p. 139). Ourconcern here is foremost with the latter. In biopolitics, the ‘population’ is conceived ofboth as an epistemic and political object, whose properties can be known throughscientific calculation and shaped, at a distance, through regulatory interventions. Suchinterventions, aiming to optimize the capacity of various populations, are made in arange of areas such as education, health, habitation, working life etc. Hence, biopoliticsis a calculated and rather sophisticated mechanism of power, concerned with thewelfare, longevity and productivity of populations (Dean, 1999; Foucault, 1976/1998;Lemke, 2011). However, at the same time, biopolitics is inevitably premised upon, andtends to consolidate, distinctions between different populations (e.g. Bacon, 2015;Duffield, 2007; Reid, 2013; see also Agamben, 1998).

The concept of liberalism is likewise important. While this term conventionally refersto a political ideology or an economic theory, scholars in the Foucauldian traditionconceive of liberalism as an ‘art of government’ that uses the agency of free subjects as ameans to achieve its goals (Dean, 1999; Foucault, 2008; Lemke, 2001; Peters, 2007). The

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liberal art of government, which also emerged in the eighteenth century, relied upon abelief in the spontaneous self-regulation of the market and it grew out of a critique ofsovereign attempts to intervene in ‘natural’ economic processes. Liberalism thus wantedto secure a sphere, beyond the state apparatus, where the dynamics of the market andthe initiatives of enterprising people could operate freely. Yet, this did not preventadvocates of liberalism from wanting to shape the capacities of these economic actorsthrough various biopolitical measures, for example, education and health. In otherwords, biopolitics and liberalism are different things but the former constitutes ‘anecessary condition’ for the functioning of the latter (Dean, 1999, p. 113). A liberalproblematic of government thus essentially revolves around how to govern withoutgoverning ‘too much’ (Foucault, 2008, p. 319).

Unlike liberalism, which tried to safeguard the market place from too much govern-ment intervention, its descendent, neoliberalism, operated in accordance with a differ-ent logic. Neoliberalism is based upon the assumption that markets have to be activelyconstituted and nurtured through government intervention. It turns the principles ofthe market into a kind of model for all forms of government and it attempts to cultivateentrepreneurial life forms throughout all spheres of society (Dean, 1999; Lemke, 2001;Peters, 2007; Simons, 2006). Hence, rather than laissez-faire, neoliberal governmentactually involves large-scale intervention in the name of non-intervention.Neoliberalism further seeks to shift responsibility from the state onto individuals,minor collectives and populations through technologies of responsibilization (Dean,1999; Hansson, 2015; Lemke, 2001; Knutsson, 2016). This involves, for example,measures to produce subjects that accept responsibility for their own livelihoods bytrying to become economically self-sufficient (Lemke, 2001) and subjects that canconduct themselves responsibly in relation to the natural environment by engaging ina ‘greening of the self’ (Hellberg, 2015, cf. Macy, 1991).

A neoliberal biopolitics can thus be understood as a form of government, operating atthe collective level of populations, that uses the agency of ‘free’ subjects as a means toproduce ‘responsible’ conduct, and that inevitably involves distinctions between differ-ent forms of life. As upcoming sections will show, a central argument of this article isthat sustainable development, and its companion ESD, can be understood as a biopo-litical regime that operates under the premise that different types of populations musttake on entirely different responsibilities.

Importantly however, taking note of these ideas does not mean that we know exactlywhat is going on in different geographical spaces. Rather, what we need to do is to usethe insights of Foucault and contemporary biopolitical scholarship as tools for askingquestions about the workings of ESD projects. This way of approaching questions ofESD will be developed further below.

Governing surplus life: sustainable development and the global biopoliticalregime

The Foucauldian concepts of biopolitics and (neo)liberalism have been employed in arange of critical studies of sustainable development. Mark Duffield’s work on theincreasing amalgamation of security and development in the post-Cold War develop-ment discourse is seminal in this context (e.g. Duffield, 2007, 2008, 2010). Duffield

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provides the intriguing argument that ‘sustainable development’ has, over the pastdecades, emerged as a central neoliberal technique of governing and containing lifethat is ‘surplus’ to the global economic system. In other words, while much research hasexplored development interventions as a series of attempts to improve the lives of thosedeemed to be underdeveloped, Duffield examines the role of these technologies in termsof how they function to ‘secure the western way of life’ (Duffield, 2007, p. 2). Heelaborates:

The acceptance of sustainable development marked a victory for the liberal counter-critique of nationalist modernization that had attended the process of decolonizationand independence. It marked an end to earlier assumptions that, through state-ledindustrialization, the underdeveloped world would pass through various stages beforecoming to resemble the developed. Demanding a more equitable sharing of the world’sresources in order to maintain the self-reliance of global surplus population, sustainabledevelopment breaks this aspirational goal. Its effect is to confirm a biopolitical distinctionbetween insured and non-insured peoples. Rather than reducing the life-chance gapbetween the developed and underdeveloped worlds, sustainable development is betterunderstood as a means of containing the latter. Poor and non-insured communities areexpected to live within their own powers of self-reliance. (Duffield, 2007, p. 68).

Placing focus on the way that sustainable development targets the poor, Duffield hasdescribed the entry of sustainable development in mainstream development thinkingand practise as a confirmation and ‘deepening of the biopolitical division in globalpopulation established during the period of decolonization’ (Duffield, 2007, p. 68).Hence, what we see is a global biopolitical separation between ‘insured’ populationsin the West and ‘non-insured’ surplus life beyond its borders. The lives of thesepopulations are valued differently, their life-chances differ dramatically and they aregoverned in different ways for entirely different life-trajectories. Moreover, according tothis perspective, placing responsibility on people themselves (rather than states) isintrinsic to governing rationales of sustainable development, a technology of govern-ment that becomes especially pertinent in relation to the poor.

Reid (2012, 2013) has further developed Duffield’s problematization of sustainabledevelopment and the focus on self-reliance through his work on the subject of neo-liberal governance. Reid contends that sustainable development governing strategies areproductive of a subject of resilience who is deprived of its politics:

The resilient subject is a subject which must permanently struggle to accommodate itself tothe world. Not a political subject which can conceive of changing the world, its structureand conditions of possibility […][b]ut a subject which accepts the disastrousness of theworld it lives in as a condition for partaking of that world and which accepts the necessityof the injunction to change itself in correspondence with the threats and dangers nowpresupposed as endemic (Reid, 2012, p. 74).

Of central importance here is the idea that sustainable development negatively affects(poor) people’s ability to think and act in relation to changing the world; rather, Reidsuggests, they have to change themselves in order to cope with uncertainty. In a recentpublication, Evans and Reid (2014) has further explored the relationship betweenresilience and poverty in what they call the ‘sustainable development-resiliencenexus’, and moreover, how the emphasis on resilience in neoliberal governmentalthinking works to neutralize political ambitions. Evans and Reid argue that in

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contemporary neoliberal governance, resilience has shifted from being a property of thebiosphere to become a property of humanity. Simultaneously, the idea of ‘service’ hasshifted from being understood in relation to the economy to be conceived as a capacityof the biosphere. In these two parallel shifts, Evans and Reid argue, it is the poor thatare ‘crucified’, since resilience is demanded of poor populations and at the same timepoor populations are understood to degrade the capacity of ecosystem services (p. 35).According to Evans and Reid, this cynical policy logic can be summarized as follows:‘ensuring the resilience of the biosphere requires making the poor into more resilientkinds of subjects, and making the poor into more resilient subjects requires relievingthem of their ecological ignorance’ (ibid). They also note that women are a particulartarget population within the category ‘poor’ and argue that such categorization isimmanent to the logic of resilience as it works so as to ‘divide life into varioustaxonomical groupings of distinct vulnerability’ (ibid, p. 36). The idea that sustainabledevelopment has differentiating effects, through biopolitical distinctions between dif-ferent forms of lives, is central to this article, and it has also been the theme in otherscholar’s work (e.g. Cavanagh, 2014; Hellberg, 2014).

Based on the above, what we are after in this article is the distinction(s) that aremade between poor populations, often living on subsistence level, in what sustainabledevelopment documents and policies usually term ‘least developed countries’ or ‘devel-oping states’ and the richer populations in ‘developed states’, where most people enjoy amass consumer lifestyle and where systems of social security are (still) in place.3 Inscholarly work, the expressions ‘global North’ and ‘global South’ are often used in orderto place focus on these distinctions. This expression is problematic in the sense that itsimplifies the complex global political map – not least in relation to questions regardingsustainable development and the environment (Clémençon, 2012) – and the diversitywithin states. It is also productive of the very distinction that is often critiqued byauthors who use it (Eckl & Weber, 2007, cf. Knutsson & Lindberg, 2012). Hence, thisexpression is not something that we can take as ‘objectively given’ (Eckl & Weber, 2007,p. 6), but rather it is one of the ways in which the distinctions, that we want to placefocus on, come to the fore. Therefore, in the following text, we will use this expressionwhen the authors on whose work we draw on do so. The question of how distinctionsbetween different populations are made is however also an empirical question as theproposed framework directs attention to exactly that of how different populations arecategorized.

Sustainable development and the production of different forms of life and(green) subjectivities

As indicated above, biopolitical readings of sustainable development have providedindispensable inspiration to this article. Yet, for our purpose, these approaches have tobe supplemented on a few accounts.

The point that the above discussed literature makes about ‘sustainable development’as a biopolitical technique of governing surplus populations is critical. However, wewould like to add that ‘sustainable development’ also functions as a regime of govern-ment, albeit in entirely different ways, among the wealthy inhabitants of the planet.4

That is, in relation to what, for example, Skoglund (2014, p. 166) refers to as the

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‘overdeveloped Northern citizen’. ‘Sustainable development’ has a remarkable ability totranslate into different meanings and the immense success of this concept is of coursedue to this elasticity. This helps explain, we argue, why it is possible for governinginstitutions (be they schools, NGOs, private companies, UN agencies or any otherconcerned authority) to design completely different interventions for different popula-tions in the name of ‘sustainable development’. It also helps explain why differentpeople can – and are encouraged to – constitute themselves as responsible subjects invery different ways. The ‘sustainable’ resilient subsistence-level farmer and the ‘sustain-able’ mass consumer are thus both promoted subjectivities in the current globalbiopolitical regime of sustainable development. In a recent publication, Ove developsa developmentality approach in order to explore how we might conceive of howregulatory aspects of development in the global South can be connected to the con-struction of ethical identities in the North (Ove, 2013). Such a focus is central to thearguments of this article since what is produced in ESD is not merely a resilient subjectin the South but also particular forms of subjectivities in the North. There is a growingbody of critical studies of ESD that can be consulted here (e.g. Dahlbeck, 2014;Dahlbeck & De Lucia Dahlbeck, 2012; Ideland & Malmberg, 2014; 2015; Skoglund &Börjesson, 2014). Some very interesting work has also been conducted in other dis-ciplines (e.g. Kreuger & Gibbs, 2007; Swyngedouw, 2010). Thus, while accepting theproposition that sustainable development is of relevance to the formation of subjectiv-ities both in what is referred to as ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ states and regions of theworld, it is only when we start digging into how governing institutions constructdifferent types of populations as appropriate for particular forms of interventions thatwe can understand the full measure of the global biopolitics of (education for) sustain-able development (cf. Hellberg, 2014, 2015; Knutsson, 2013).

Another aspect that is not fully explored is how people’s environmental conduct isgoverned.5 The primary concern for theorists such as Duffield is with economic aspectsof ‘sustainable development’. More precisely, how development agencies and their NGOcompanions, in the name of ‘sustainable development’, attempt to invoke petty entre-preneurial forms of economic self-reliance among the global poor. Yet, in the context ofthe critical study of ESD that we propose, this is not enough. For our purpose, moreemphasis has to be placed on the government of environmental behaviour. Plenty ofwork has of course been done in the field of environmental education but the broaderliterature on environmentality and green governmentality can also provide usefultheoretical inspiration (Agrawal, 2005; Luke, 1999; Rutherford, 2007; see also Luke,2001; Peters, 2001). However, what is of particular interest to us is to what extent, andhow, different environmentalities or green governmentalities are formed in relation todifferent types of populations and how they attempt to produce certain forms ofbehaviour and certain types of subjectivities.

As indicated above, contemporary biopolitical theory provides strong arguments forconceptualizing ‘sustainable development’ as a neoliberal technique of governing andcontaining surplus populations in developing countries. Contrary to conventionalwisdom, the function of this global biopolitical regime is not to alter the unfairdistribution of the world’s resources but rather to maintain and police the generic life-chance divide. In line with the modernist assumptions that underpinned Walt Rostow’sfamous stage-theory – highly influential in the advent of international development

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cooperation – it could of course be argued that poor communities will eventually‘catch-up’ and, accordingly, that the future will hold mass consumption for all.However, today many scholars – and arguably even international development institu-tions and other proponents of liberalism themselves – seriously dispute that thisscenario will ever materialize. There are several reasons for this. One is that capitalistdevelopment continuously manufactures ‘surplus’ populations through accumulationby dispossession, for example, global wholesale privatization of public goods, landgrabbing and patenting of indigenous knowledge (Duffield, 2007; Harvey, 2003).Another is that the laws of thermodynamics simply do not allow for mass consumptionfor all (Hornborg, 2011). Against the backdrop of these predicaments, the currentglobal biopolitical regime of sustainable development, which is premised on distinctionsbetween different forms of life and lifestyles, offers a liberal ‘solution’. At the individuallevel, there is, of course, always a chance of social mobility. Yet, at the level ofpopulations, the life-chance gulf remains a homeostatic condition. In this article wetake these arguments very seriously. However, we would still like to add that they needto be further qualified through empirical research. Works that use biopolitics as atheoretical lens largely remain in an abstract discussion about the governing of popula-tions and subjects. Our approach to this scholarship is therefore to use these ideas as aframework for asking certain questions about the workings of ESD. In our argument,more time and energy should be devoted to exploring how different subjects engagewith this regime of government. In other words, we propose that more attention shouldbe paid to biopolitical ‘effects’.

So what would the contours of an approach for studying ESD from a biopoliticalperspective be? What we are arguing for here is that in order to study the effects of ESDinterventions, we need to make empirical studies in different locations and settings bothin the so-called developed and developing regions of the world as well as among bothpoor and rich populations. When designing these studies, we can productively make useof scholarship focusing on (environmental) subjectivities and ideas about the ‘greeningof the self’. This brings us to the next section of the paper, which will outline ways inwhich we can approach questions of what global ESD practises produce.

Exploring global ESD practices biopolitically: the contours of a criticalapproach

In order to design studies for analysing global ESD practises and their effects, wesuggest below a few ways in which they can be approached from a critical biopoliticalperspective.

First, a critical biopolitical reading of ESD must bring attention to how differentgoverning institutions – be they schools, NGOs or other relevant actors – constructdifferent populations as appropriate for particular forms of ESD. As indicated above,biopolitics conceive of populations as epistemic objects whose properties can be knownand as political objects whose behaviour can be shaped (Dean, 1999; Foucault, 1976/1998; Lemke, 2011). Consequently, such research must uncover the kind of knowledgethat governing institutions (claim to) have, and the assumptions they make about thelives, lifestyles and life trajectories of particular populations (cf. Duffield, 2007; Reid,2013; Hellberg, 2014; see also Bacon, 2015; Lingard et al., 2013). How are different

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populations ‘thought’ and distinguished? What kind of information, assumptions,problematizations, rationalities and values underpin such constructions and distinc-tions? Particularly (and here we remain in the study of ESD at a global level), a criticalbiopolitical reading of ESD can focus on how different subjectivities are constructed inthe ways that ESD projects target individuals, both in relation to and in contrast witheach other and what such constructions tell us about how the global biopoliticalcommunity is envisioned.

Second, at the core of a biopolitical approach is a focus on the pedagogic techniquesthrough which these populations and individuals are governed (e.g. Ball, 2012;Knutsson, 2016). Hence, we should pay close attention to the mundane instrumentsand tools that render ESD practically operable in different contexts, for example,educational policies; curricula; school (‘greening’) programmes; ESD ‘experts’ andpersonnel; didactic devices; learning materials; examinations, diplomas and other per-formance indicators; assessment criteria; ‘sustainable school’ awards or similar certifica-tions etc. Previous work on biopolitics has further taught us the importance of payingattention to how people’s agency and freedom can be used in order to secure ‘the endsof government’ (Dean, 1999, p. 15; Miller & Rose, 2008) through processes of responsi-blilization (Dean, 1999; Hansson, 2015; Lemke, 2001; Knutsson, 2016). This raises anumber of questions in relation to ESD. In what ways are pedagogic techniques put towork so as to conduct people’s conduct? How is the ‘freedom’ and agency of subjectsshaped and employed in these educational processes? How is knowledge of the abstractnotion of ‘sustainable development’ structured, recontextualized and translated to ‘fit’particular populations? How do technologies of (individual) responsibilization play apart in constructing particular ideas of the good and sustainable society, the good life aswell as the good (global) citizen/subject? And how do such technologies of responsibi-lization relate to larger (bio)political imperatives and distinctions?

Third, a critical biopolitical approach, we argue, ought to pay more attention to theeffects of ESD interventions in different places and locations in line with whatRutherford suggests (2007). Such a focus should include not only constructions of thegood society/life/subject at a general level but also how the individual subjects them-selves engage with such governing interventions through conduct, practice, compliance,negotiation, resistance and identity formation (e.g. Gupta, 2012; Hansson, Hellberg, &Stern, 2015; Knutsson, 2014). Such a research endeavour places emphasis on theuncertainty of governing and requires rich empirical studies in different local contexts.Such studies can, for example, focus on the creation of subjectivities and how theyrelate to material effects. We know, for example, from environmental psychology andstudies of the materiality of environmental ethics that we cannot assume that (changed)values necessarily result in (changed) practises. This last point includes paying attentionto the agency of those who are governed (Hansson et al., 2015) and the different ways inwhich they engage with and/or resist governing rationales of ESD. How do the studentsrelate to the notion of sustainable development or to sustainable lifestyles? How do theyrelate to their own and others’ ways of life? To poverty and wealth? To the good/desirable life? To responsible and sustainable ways of life? Where do they locateresponsibility? How do they understand class, race and gender in relation to sustainabledevelopment? To whom (or what) do they ascribe agency? In what ways do the studentsconstruct themselves as active shapers of outcomes or as powerless?

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Conclusion

Appearances can be deceptive. When seen in isolation, most ESD interventions arelikely to be perceived as well intentioned and benign. It is only when we broaden ourfield of vision, and start to compare how different populations across the globe arebeing constructed and intervened upon under the banner of ESD, that a more proble-matic picture is allowed to emerge. This paper has, by building on contemporarybiopolitical theory, put forth the argument that global ESD practices work to (re)produce, and further consolidate, distinctions between different forms of life. Sincedifferent populations are prepared for entirely different lives and lifestyles, ESD actuallyhelps to sustain the generic life-chance gulf that separates wealthy mass consumersfrom poor subsistence level populations. Thus ultimately, we suggest, this is what isbeing sustained in ESD.

Such a perspective is clearly in stark contrast to the policy buzz about ESD as acosmopolitan ethical enterprise. Yet, it also challenges some of the more criticallyoriented scholarship that has dealt with global aspects of ESD. Hence, in our argument,a biopolitical lens can help us illuminate some important features that have gone largelyunnoticed in previous research. While we share the concerns raised by some scholarsabout neoliberal governance in ESD (Jickling & Wals, 2008; McKenzie, 2012; Sauvéet al., 2005; Sumner, 2008), we are not as worried about homogenization.Differentiating effects seem to be a much more urgent problem and in our argumenta biopolitical perspective can help us to expose this neoliberal ‘will to divide’ (Walters,2004). Other scholars within the field have opposed the idea about global neoliberalhomogenization by stressing contingency and by arguing that ESD is re-articulated inentirely different ways in different socio-cultural and geographical contexts (Bengtsson& Östman, 2013; 2016; see also Gough, 2013). We completely share these researchers’scepticism about homogenization and we certainly recognize the merits of their work.Still, in our argument, their perspective does not allow us to recognize that ESD isintimately tied up with a global biopolitical pattern of distinctions between differentforms of life. In other words, while we fully acknowledge the importance of previousresearch on global aspects of ESD, we still maintain that a biopolitical approach offersan important ‘third position’ that can provide significant contributions to the field.

Yet, it is important to be humble and recognize that this is conjecture, based on alimited number of empirical examples, alongside the findings from previous biopo-litical scholarship on sustainable development. Hence, we certainly do not claim toknow exactly what is going on in different geographical spaces, and as argued above,here we can take note of work on ESD that highlights contingency and local re-articulations (Bengtsson & Östman, 2013, 2016). Rather, this is a call for empiricalresearch that not only takes our concerns seriously but also makes them subject tocritical examination. As a corollary, the article has sketched the contours of whatsuch a critical biopolitical study of ESD might entail. We have stressed the impor-tance of exploring how different populations are constructed as appropriate forparticular forms of ESD. Moreover, we suggest that researchers ought to pay closeattention to the pedagogic techniques through which these different populations areapproached, governed and responsibilized. We have also emphasized the significanceof bringing much more attention to the ‘effects’ of these biopolitical interventions

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not only in terms of how the good society/life/subject is constructed at a generallevel but also in terms of how individual subjects engage with these governingtechniques.

Finally, in relation to the last point, it is important to keep in mind that just becauseglobal neoliberal ESD practices are premised upon distinctions between different popula-tions, and attempt to responsibilize them in entirely different ways, this does not mean thatthese efforts are necessarily ‘successful’. Governing is uncertain. As argued by Miller andRose, governmentalities are ‘eternally optimistic, but government is a congenitally failingoperation’ (Miller & Rose, 2008, p. 17). Hence, critical study of ESD must not restrict itselfto exploring attempts to divide, govern and responsibilize. It must also explore the fullmeasure of what such interventions invoke including resisting subjectivities among dif-ferent populations. If we are seriously interested in alternatives to the prevailing globalorder, it seems more reasonable to pin faith to such deviant voices or instances of parrhesia(Foucault, 2001; Peters, 2003) rather than to current manifestations of ESD.

Notes

1. As we want to protect the identity of the actors in these two examples, they are presentedanonymously. The first example is derived from the empirical fieldwork that one of theauthors conducted for his PhD thesis. The second example is derived from the annualreport, and website, of a Rwandan NGO.

2. The students in the first example are of course being informed about the negativeenvironmental effects of, and the unfair treatment of labourers in, the current internationaltrade regime. This is certainly important. Yet, the only real alternative that is offered tothem appears to be an ‘appropriate’ mass consumer lifestyle. They are not exposed to anydiscussions about the possibility of an entirely different political economy.

3. Our point here is not that populations in ‘developed states’ are homogenous. We acknowl-edge that vast inequalities exist within these societies. These differences are however notthe main focus of this article.

4. As his conceptual distinction ‘insured’/‘non-insured’ life demonstrates Duffield certainlyrecognizes that ‘we are all of the community of the governed’ (Foucault quoted in Duffield,2007, p. 232) albeit in different ways. Yet, in spite of this, Duffield exclusively focuses on‘sustainable development’ as a tool for governing ‘non-insured’ surplus populations.

5 Reid and Evans are concerned with environmental aspects of government. However, theirdiscussions are foremost theoretical and primarily revolve around how ecological reasonhas been appropriated by neoliberal economic rationality through the new doctrine ofresilience (Evans & Reid, 2014; Reid, 2012, 2013).

Notes on contributors

Sofie Hellberg is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. Herareas of interest include the politics of water, environmental and resource governance, (green)governmentality, biopolitics, power and agency, as well as research methodology. She is pub-lished in Geoforum and she is co-editor and author, together with Stina Hansson and MariaStern, of the Routledge volume Studying the Agency of Being Governed. She has extensiveresearch experience from South Africa. She has also conducted research in Sweden.

Beniamin Knutsson is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Pedagogical, Curricular andProfessional Studies, University of Gothenburg. Most of his work is informed by Foucauldianand post-Marxist theory. His research interest includes education, globalisation, international

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development cooperation and so-called education for sustainable development. He has recentlypublished in Third World Quarterly; Globalisation, Societies and Education; Globalizations; andDevelopment and Change. He has extensive fieldwork experience from Rwanda and Sweden. Hehas also conducted research in Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania.

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