Neoliberal and disciplinary environmentality and ‘sustainable seafood’ consumption: storying environmentally responsible action

Abstract

This article invokes a neoliberal and disciplinary governmentality lens in a political ecology of education framework to analyze educational programming at Long Beach, California’s Aquarium of the Pacific. I begin by briefly describing governmentality as Foucault and neo-Foucauldian scholars have theorized the concept, followed by a discussion of the emergence of green governmentality and environmentality in political ecology. Next, I invoke a political ecology of education framework informed by neoliberal and disciplinary environmentality to analyze institutional and teaching practice at the Aquarium. In this analysis, I demonstrate how the institution’s funding structure, placement within the entertainment markets of the southern California area, and commitment to ocean conservation education all influence how the Aquarium conceptualizes itself and its work. I focus on the case of the Blue Cavern Show and the Seafood for the Future program, which work in tandem to define a problem (declining fish stocks; possible seafood shortages) and then structure a neoliberal solution through the market (sustainable seafood consumption). I conclude by discussing the implications of this research for environmental education, which include unpacking how neoliberalism impacts teaching practice, especially as it relates to notions of framing environmentally responsible action.

Keywords:

• informal education
• neoliberalism
• political ecology
• zoos

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Teresa Lloro-Bidart is a political ecologist working at the intersections of animal studies and environmental/science education to understand how educational spaces and processes are inherently political and produce human–animal and human–nature relations within these political frameworks. She is an associate editor of the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences and serves on the editorial boards of the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education and the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Political of Ecology and Environment and Society: Advances in Research. She has a forthcoming publication in the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education

Notes

1. This analysis focuses explicitly on institutional and staff practice, not on the ways in which various visitors interpret such practice Though I interviewed 28 visitors at the end of their Aquarium visit, these interviews did not provide me enough data to make any specific conclusions about visitor behavior. Ethnographic analyses of visitors are difficult to conduct given the transient nature of visitor populations (Hein 1998; Macdonald 2002).

2. For comparison purposes, the 990 tax forms of other informal education institutions in the southern California area (publicly available online) indicate reliance on ‘Program Services’ revenue as follows, with the year of available data in parentheses: Cabrillo Aquarium (2012), 25%; Descanso Gardens (2012), 23.3%; Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (2012), 31.9%; Los Angeles Zoo (2012), 18.4%; Pacific Marine Mammal Center (2013), 5.4%; San Diego Zoo (2013), 62.8%. Each of these institutions has a vastly different operating budget and serves a diverse number of visitors each year, but the overall trend demonstrates that the Aquarium more significantly relies on Program Service revenue than most other institutions, with the exception of the San Diego Zoo. Staff have indicated the Aquarium competes with other corporate institutions, including Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Sea World.

3. ‘Crisis-framing’ and ‘innovators’ are quoted as these are terms staff utilize, i.e. these are not my terms.

4. While paid staff who give scripted shows tend to discuss the behavior modifications described above, which are embedded in the scripts, volunteer staff who give unscripted shows tend to favor sharing basic scientific facts about the animals and encouraging visitors to touch animals, where allowed. I focus on the role of science in Aquarium teaching practice elsewhere.

5. For brevity, I highlight one exhibit, but other examples of such neoliberal and disciplinary governance abound at the Aquarium. I could have also carried out a similar analysis of the Otter Show and the Aquarium’s neoliberal and market-based ‘Adopt a Sea Otter’ program.

6. See Kemmerly and Macfarlane (2009) for an analysis of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s (California) ‘Seafood Watch’ program, which suggests some positive changes to consumer habits.