Neoliberalism and the Production of Environmental Knowledge

Abstract

In order for nature/society scholars to understand the dynamics of envi- ronmental appropriation, commercialization, and privatization, we must attend to the production of the environmental science that enables them. Case studies from anthro- pology, geography, history of science, science and technology studies, and sociology demonstrate that the neoliberal forces whose application we study and contest are also changing the production of environmental knowledge claims both inside and outside the university. Neoliberalism's core epistemological claim about the market's superior- ity as information processor has made restructuring the university a surprisingly cen- tral project. Further, because knowledge has become a key site of capital accumulation, the transformative reach of neoliberal science regimes extends outside the university into the various forms of extramural science, such as citizen science, crowdsourcing, indigenous knowledge, and local knowledge. Neoliberal science regimes' impacts on these forms of extramural science are strikingly similar, and quite diff erent from the most common consequences within academia.