ABSTRACT
We argue that mainstream attempts to respond to climate change are fundamentally limited because they do not directly confront the hegemonic conditions under which science dominates climate change politics. We are imagining a notion of “hegemony” here to be closely aligned with Gramsci (1971) but also Williams (1977) and Hall (1986). Swyngedouw (2010, 228-29) argues that a truly political politics “requires foregrounding and naming different socioenvironmental futures and recognizing conflict, difference and struggle over the naming and trajectories of these futures.” Climate politics urgently needs to be repoliticized to include more democratic debate and argument based in a wider discussion of values, norms, and experiences. This requires, among other things, a discussion of the politics of knowledge underpinning our current political condition.
