Diprose, K, Liu, C, Valentine, G et al. (2 more authors) (2019) Caring for the future: Climate change and intergenerational responsibility in China and the UK. Geoforum, 105. pp. 158-167. ISSN 0016-7185
Abstract
Debates about intergenerational fairness and resource-use are prominent in diverse international contexts, with a large number of social policy and environmental concerns characterised as having intergenerational dimensions. This includes concerns relating to synchronic equity (how resources are distributed between living generations) and diachronic equity (saving resources for future generations), with climate change being a high-profile example of an issue characterised in this way. In this paper we explore how urban residents perceive their responsibilities towards future generations in two cities based in countries that are major greenhouse gas emitters. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a cross-generational sample of 190 people living in Nanjing, China, and Sheffield, UK, we consider whose future and what aspects of the future people feel responsible for and at what scale. This discussion is situated within an emerging critique of generational discourses that conflate caring for the family and one’s own children with caring for the wider society and for the future. We argue that this has far-reaching implications for how people think about intergenerational responsibility and imagine appropriate courses of action, shaping a particular ‘timescape’ that privileges living generations in close proximity. We find that people in Sheffield tend to be more concerned about social and economic aspects of sustainable development than environmental degradation. People in Nanjing more readily discuss responsibility for environmental stewardship, in the wider political context of state-led and nationalist discourses of collective responsibility, but still appear to struggle with thinking about the future beyond their lifetimes and immediate descendants. We discuss these findings and their implications through the analytical framework of geographies of responsibility, exploring possibilities for a more spatially and temporally extensive scope of care.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Geoforum. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Intergenerationality; Intergenerational geographies; Climate change; Care; China; UK |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 23 Jul 2019 09:29 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jun 2021 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.05.019 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:148888 |
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Filename: Diprose et al 2019 Caring for the Future Accepted version.pdf
Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0