Time to change? Technologies of futuring and transformative change in Nepal’s climate change policy

ABSTRACT

This paper calls for a more critical analysis of implicit social values in time-based projections of transformative change in climate change policy in developing countries. The paper argues that transformative change is a form of socio-technical imaginary, in which contemporary visions of social order influence supposedly technical, and apolitical policies and timelines. To analyse these imaginaries, the paper applies the framework of ‘technologies of futuring’, or the processes in which projections about the future are imbued with implicit values, to different theories of change used to propose responses to climate change in Nepal. The paper shows that projections of future change are linked to assumptions about physical risks and social agency that reflect different, and contestable, worldviews. This chapter concludes that discussions about transformative change need to make assumptions about risk and society more transparent when proposing urgent deadlines based on assumptions about the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Transformative change
• socio-technical imaginary
• Nepal
• climate change
• STS and time

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-standards/DAC_List_ODA_Recipients2018to2020_flows_En.pdf

2 http://unfccc.int/national_reports/napa/items/2719.php

 

Additional information

Funding

This paper was produced from research for the project, ‘Resilience and access to sustainable growth in upland Nepal and Myanmar’, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Tim Forsyth

Tim Forsyth is professor of environment and development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has written on the governance of science and knowledge within environmental policy, and especially concerning development in rapidly transforming countries.