Overview
Current debates on sustainability are largely building on a problematic assumption that increasing technology use and advancement are a desired phenomenon, creating positive change in human organizations. This kind of techno-optimism prevails particularly in the discourses of ecological modernization and green growth, as well as in the attempts to design sustainable modes of production and consumption within growth-driven capitalism. This transdisciplinary book investigates the philosophical underpinnings of technology, presents a culturally sensitive critique to technology, and outlines feasible alternatives for sustainability beyond technology. It draws on a variety of scholarly disciplines, including the humanities (philosophy and environmental history), social sciences (ecological economics, political economy, and ecology) and natural sciences (geology and thermodynamics) to contribute to sustainability theory and policy. By examining the conflicts and contradictions between technology and sustainability in human organization, the book develops a novel way to conceptualize, confront, and change technology in modern society.
Full Product Details
Author: Pasi Heikkurinen (Senior Lecturer in Management, Senior Lecturer in Management, University of Helsinki) ,
Toni Ruuska (Postdoctoral Researcher, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 16.00cm
, Height: 2.60cm
, Length: 24.00cm
Weight: 0.598kg
ISBN: 9780198864929
ISBN 10: 0198864922
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 29 March 2021
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Sustainability beyond Technology offers a new philosophical perspective within the quickly growing field of philosophy of sustainable development. While philosophers of technology traditionally do not take environmental issues into account, such an uncritical stance is no longer possible in the age of global warming. The authors of this volume open a new and critical perspective on the great acceleration accompanying technological progress and fill a major gap in our understanding of sustainable technology and innovation. The book is a must read for philosophers of technology who are interested in the opportunities and limitations of 'Earthing Technology' in the Anthropocene. * Vincent Blok, Associate Professor in Philosophy of Technology and Responsible Innovation, Wageningen University * This timely volume brings together the latest work by an international group of experts on the role of technology in sustainability. It critically examines the connections between technology and sustainability from the viewpoint of different scholarly traditions to offer a synthesis on to what extent technology can alleviate adverse environmental and social impacts in the Anthropocene. It challenges the conventional understanding of technology as a mere set of tools, instruments and systems, and that it is 'the solution' to prevailing problems, suggesting that technology must also be examined as undesired and biased. It will be a definitive source on technology and sustainability in the new decade. * Jouni Paavola, Professor of Environmental Social Science, University of Leeds *
This is a thoughtful collection of essays that offer a much needed transdisciplinary critique of technological quick fixes to the challenges of sustainability. The authors provide some compelling insights into theories and practices of sustainability. * Bobby Banerjee, Professor of Management, City, University of London * There is much written about sustainability and business and capitalism, but too little about the interface of sustainability and technology. Yet, technology may hold the key to our collective future prosperity or failure. This important volume raises important and provocative issues. It is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the philosophical underpinnings of the relationship between sustainability and technology. * Pratima Bansal, Canada Research Chair in Business Sustainability, Ivey Business School * Sustainability beyond Technology offers a new philosophical perspective within the quickly growing field of philosophy of sustainable development. While philosophers of technology traditionally do not take environmental issues into account, such an uncritical stance is no longer possible in the age of global warming. The authors of this volume open a new and critical perspective on the great acceleration accompanying technological progress and fill a major gap in our understanding of sustainable technology and innovation. The book is a must read for philosophers of technology who are interested in the opportunities and limitations of 'Earthing Technology' in the Anthropocene. * Vincent Blok, Associate Professor in Philosophy of Technology and Responsible Innovation, Wageningen University * Humanity is facing a range of sustainability challenges, from climate change to biodiversity loss, health pandemics to food insecurity. New technology is often portrayed as the silver bullet solution to these challenges: geoengineering, vaccines, lab-grown food, etc.; the list of technological innovations that promise to save the planet and humanity is long. Sustainability Beyond Technology critically engages with these debates, putting today's technological hopes into their philosophical and historical contexts. The authors are able to unpack the blinding optimism that is often connected with technology without being luddites. The book puts forward a critical evaluation of technological progress, offering its readers alternative pathways to the sustainability transition. * Steffen Boehm, Professor in Organisation and Sustainability, University of Exeter * In varied ways, the authors attune the reader to how technology organizes and mediates human action and thought, often in ways that continue to belittle and degrade the wider environments upon which they have been dependent for continued life. Whether framed as parasitical, ignorant, or arrogant, the essays tease out the paradoxical and problematic nature of this long-sedimented, one-way relationship, and they do so in provocative ways. Humanity has been augmented through technology, to a point of indistinction. As the effects of this technological mediation have spread, the question these essays then ask is whether there is anything like an 'exterior' left to colonize. Does the technological-industrial complex by which all human activity and thought is now governed find itself at a point of collapse, given there is now very little 'out there' to which it might relate? * Robin Holt, Professor, Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School * Technology is at the centre of debates about sustainability, but paradoxically is a term that is severely undertheorized. Not anymore. This excellent volume offers profound thinking, from different angles, on the question of technology-what it is, what it does, and its role in sustainability transitions. * Giorgos Kallis, ICREA Professor at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, author of Limits, and The Case for Degrowth * This timely volume brings together the latest work by an international group of experts on the role of technology in sustainability. It critically examines the connections between technology and sustainability from the viewpoint of different scholarly traditions to offer a synthesis on to what extent technology can alleviate adverse environmental and social impacts in the Anthropocene. It challenges the conventional understanding of technology as a mere set of tools, instruments and systems, and that it is 'the solution' to prevailing problems, suggesting that technology must also be examined as undesired and biased. It will be a definitive source on technology and sustainability in the new decade. * Jouni Paavola, Professor of Environmental Social Science, University of Leeds * These crystal-clear essays prime us for the political debate over technology and ecological sustainability-long overdue, now urgent in 2021. Among many other contributions, Pasi Heikkurinen's and Toni Ruuska's taxonomy of philosophic perspectives on technology provides an invaluable orientation to a diverse and nuanced intellectual terrain. * Ariel Salleh, activist and author of Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice, and Pluriverse *
Author Information
Pasi Heikkurinen is Senior Lecturer in Management at the University of Helsinki, Visiting Lecturer in Business and Sustainable Change at the University of Leeds, and Adjunct Professor in Sustainability and Organizations at Aalto University School of Business. He is the co-editor of Strongly Sustainable Societies: Organising Human Activities on a Hot and Full Earth (Routledge, 2019) (together with Professor Karl Johan Bonnedahl) and editor of Sustainability and Peaceful Coexistence for the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2017). His research has been published in the leading journals in the field of sustainable organizations, including Business Strategy and the Environment; Ecological Economics; Environment and Planning; Journal of Business Ethics; and Organization & Environment. Toni Ruuska is Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki. He is the author of Reproduction Revisited: Capitalism, Higher Education and Ecological Crisis (MayFly, 2018). His research has been published in leading journals in the field of sustainable organizations, including Ecological Economics; Philosophy of Management; Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization; Journal of Cleaner Production, and Sustainability.
