Date of Award

Spring 2022

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Historical & Political Studies; College of Arts & Sciences

First Advisor

Dr. Jennifer Riggan

Abstract

The urgency of the climate crisis requires an immediate revisioning of our society in order to mitigate the worst environmental consequences. This paper explores one possible climate mitigation strategy, bioregionalism, a theoretical vision of re-localizing economies and defining their reach by natural boundaries (Curtis 2003; Cato 2011). This idea of relocalization emerges from an understanding that globalized capitalism has exacerbated, if not engendered, the climate crisis. Local communities represent an alternative method of organizing in which people are more directly connected to the land that they live on. One major critique of bioregionalism, made by Albo (2007) and Hahnel (2007), is that bioregionalism falls short in offering a governing strategy to accompany its economy or what it will take to get there. However, case studies such as the Cascadia Bioregion and the Terran Collective reveal that bioregionalism in practice is less about challenging the socio-economic system of capitalism, and more about taking accountability for environmental practices in their local areas. This paper argues that bioregionalism can not be the revolutionary framework that emerges in a post-capitalist world, but it can be an organizing philosophy that mobilizes people to practice accountability to the land they live on.

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In My Backyard: Bioregional Communities as a Climate Mitigation Strategy

The urgency of the climate crisis requires an immediate revisioning of our society in order to mitigate the worst environmental consequences. This paper explores one possible climate mitigation strategy, bioregionalism, a theoretical vision of re-localizing economies and defining their reach by natural boundaries (Curtis 2003; Cato 2011). This idea of relocalization emerges from an understanding that globalized capitalism has exacerbated, if not engendered, the climate crisis. Local communities represent an alternative method of organizing in which people are more directly connected to the land that they live on. One major critique of bioregionalism, made by Albo (2007) and Hahnel (2007), is that bioregionalism falls short in offering a governing strategy to accompany its economy or what it will take to get there. However, case studies such as the Cascadia Bioregion and the Terran Collective reveal that bioregionalism in practice is less about challenging the socio-economic system of capitalism, and more about taking accountability for environmental practices in their local areas. This paper argues that bioregionalism can not be the revolutionary framework that emerges in a post-capitalist world, but it can be an organizing philosophy that mobilizes people to practice accountability to the land they live on.