The making of ' green ' capitalism in Europe ' s marginal regions : renewable energy production as territory grabbing for accumulation
type: CreativeWork
description: It is no mystery that we are living in times of multiple ecological crises. Not only are phenomena such as climate change, widespread pollution, biodiversity loss, and soil artificialisation threatening irreversibly the ‘natural’ world. They imperil human society too, for human society is part of nature. Taking a historical materialist perspective, this thesis understands those crises as originating in capitalist social relations, which maximise the exploitation of both human labour and the ecosystems. By the same token, the thesis maintains that mainstream responses to the crises are fully framed within the capitalist paradigm of perpetual and privatised ‘accumulation for accumulation’s sake’, only now legitimised through ‘green’ credentials. Building on theoretical and political approaches calling for the incorporation of an ‘ecological’ rationality within capitalist relations, these responses articulate faith in and commitment to the modernisation of productive cycles and governance systems, from which a more sustainable – ‘green’ – capitalist economy can apparently arise. Differently, this thesis interprets such a ‘green’ turn as capitalism’s adaptation and expansion in the context of the ecological crises, with the overarching purpose of furthering our understanding of these dynamics. More accurately, the thesis deploys and innovates a range of historical materialist categories to analyse the hitherto under-explored relationship between the ‘green’ as an accumulation opportunity and its leveraging as a legitimation framework. Empirically, the thesis investigates the accumulation of surplus value in and around renewable energy generation at the level of production areas, the enclosure and transformative processes it triggers, the class and factional cleavages it entails, and the regulatory mechanisms and legitimation narratives to which it is associated. Methodologically, it combines a comprehensive theoretical elaboration with case studies of two generation sys…
abstract: It is no mystery that we are living in times of multiple ecological crises. Not only are phenomena such as climate change, widespread pollution, biodiversity loss, and soil artificialisation threatening irreversibly the ‘natural’ world. They imperil human society too, for human society is part of nature. Taking a historical materialist perspective, this thesis understands those crises as originating in capitalist social relations, which maximise the exploitation of both human labour and the ecosystems. By the same token, the thesis maintains that mainstream responses to the crises are fully framed within the capitalist paradigm of perpetual and privatised ‘accumulation for accumulation’s sake’, only now legitimised through ‘green’ credentials. Building on theoretical and political approaches calling for the incorporation of an ‘ecological’ rationality within capitalist relations, these responses articulate faith in and commitment to the modernisation of productive cycles and governance systems, from which a more sustainable – ‘green’ – capitalist economy can apparently arise. Differently, this thesis interprets such a ‘green’ turn as capitalism’s adaptation and expansion in the context of the ecological crises, with the overarching purpose of furthering our understanding of these dynamics. More accurately, the thesis deploys and innovates a range of historical materialist categories to analyse the hitherto under-explored relationship between the ‘green’ as an accumulation opportunity and its leveraging as a legitimation framework. Empirically, the thesis investigates the accumulation of surplus value in and around renewable energy generation at the level of production areas, the enclosure and transformative processes it triggers, the class and factional cleavages it entails, and the regulatory mechanisms and legitimation narratives to which it is associated. Methodologically, it combines a comprehensive theoretical elaboration with case studies of two generation sys…
author: LIPARI, SAMADHI
language: eng
date published: 2021-11-22
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:35:22Z
provider: Università degli Studi di Catania
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Università degli studi di Catania

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11769/694833

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.5281/ZENODO.17899397