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Calculation, Technology, and Discourse in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica

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Calculation, Technology, and Discourse in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica The Spaces of Carbon: Calculation, Technology, and Discourse in the Production of Carbon Forestry Offsets in Costa Rica Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By David Matthew Lansing, M.A. Graduate Program in Geography The Ohio State University 2009 Dissertation Committee: Kendra McSweeney, Advisor Kevin R. Cox Becky Mansfield Joel D. Wainwright Copyright by David Matthew Lansing 2009 Abstract In this dissertation I present an analysis of the practices of calculation needed to create carbon forestry offsets in Costa Rica, with special attention to the spaces that are produced through such practices. Carbon forestry offsets are a mechanism by which a person, nation, or corporation can offset the climactic impact of their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing a credit, which funds a forestry project that sequesters an equivalent amount of carbon. To produce such an offset, a significant amount of scientific and technical work is required to render the spaces of a forest as a carbon equivalent, and I explore the function and effects of this work in a variety of ways. First, I examine the relation between calculation and space in the production of offsets, where I argue that the calculations needed to bring a carbon forestry offset into being as a commodity is a process that results in the co-constitution of relational space, absolute Cartesian spaces, and the bounded territory of the nation-state. I develop this argument by drawing on Martin Heidegger’s writings on calculation, technology, and the question of being, and examine the spaces that result from an example of the state’s efforts to develop carbon offset calculations in Costa Rica. Central to my argument is the idea that the practices of calculation are productive of a technological metaphysics, where the ii world becomes disclosed to us as an object of orderability. This ontological orientation allows for the objects and subjects of the world, in this case carbon commodities as well as producers and consumers of carbon offsets, to become relationally embedded in the world through the production of bounded Cartesian space. Second, through an investigation of the bodily performances needed to maintain such spaces as spaces of carbon sequestration. I do so by examining the transitive movement between the abstract and the material that ultimately produces the spaces of the forest as a commodified forestry offset. I argue that this oscillation is the part of the performance of the space of an offset. Through this performative oscillation between the abstract and the material, the commodity-object and the “carbon market” itself, are mutually emergent and sustained. An analytic approach that focuses on the performative emergence of the economic and its objects highlights the often hidden points of instability and precariousness of neoliberal projects more generally. In addition to focusing on the performative materiality of carbon offsets, I also examine the discursive practices that are necessary for the spaces of commodified carbon storage to emerge. Through a historical-discursive analysis of the spaces of the indigenous body in the 19th and early 20th century, I argue that carbon offsets in indigenous communities in Costa Rica today occur within a spatial and territorial frame that is an effect of the transitive position of the indigenous body – where it is at once part iii of the Costa Rican nation yet outside of its normalized spaces of accumulation – a position that became hegemonic in the early 20th century. Practices of calculating carbon do not play out on an aspatial tabula rasa, but rather, are embedded within previous discursive and material emergences of space, territory, and the body. Thus, a carbon offset’s geographic positioning in the Talamanca Indigenous Reserve is reflective of a historically embedded process of territorialization that itself is grounded in a history of discursive and material placements of indigenous bodies in space. Finally, I explore how the discursive conception of the indigenous body, and its spaces of agriculture has changed in the late 20th century, and how its new discursive emergence as a rational user of land and labor has allowed for carbon offsets to emerge as a solution to a specific socio-spatial development problematic: the ecologically unsustainable landscapes that are produced by economically rational actors. The use of cost-benefit calculations in the implementation of carbon offsets, however, results in new representations of agricultural space, which has contributed to the “opening up” of some spaces for receiving commodified carbon, while foreclosing on others. I argue that these calculations are reflective of the process of value generally, and specifically, the need for the spaces of carbon to acquire a use value. iv Dedicated to Stephanie v Acknowledgments The process of researching and writing this dissertation was made possible by the support of a number of people and institutions. Pre-dissertation research trips were funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and Ohio State University’s Office of International Affairs. Primary fieldwork for this project, undertaken from March 2007 to September 2008, was supported by a Fulbright Fellowship from the Institute of International Education as well as an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council. In addition, funding from the Department of Energy and Ohio State’s Climate, Water, and Carbon Program allowed for an extended fieldwork stay. I especially want to thank everyone in Costa Rica who gave of their time to hang out with me, listen to my questions, and answer them in good faith. In the Talamanca region I especially want to thank those who gave me a place to stay, companionship, and drink: Maricela Fernández, Felicia and Gerardo Villanueva, Hemias Zúñiga, Arnulfo Zúñiga, Marvin Uva, Nicolas Uva, Julia Reyes, Victor Reyes, Eusebio Morales, and all of the staff at the Finca Educativa. I also thank Felipe Carazo and Sandra Candela for their research assistance. I owe a great deal of intellectual debt and gratitude to the faculty and graduate students at OSU’s Department of Geography. My committee members – Kevin Cox, vi Becky Mansfield, and Joel Wainwright – have each had an important role in shaping my intellectual development, and I am lucky to have had all three on my committee. A special thanks to my adviser, Kendra McSweeney, for all of her efforts over the years, which I believe has made me a better fieldworker, scholar, and writer. Most importantly, I thank her for making this process a sane and enjoyable one. In addition, I also thank Timothy Choy. Many of the ideas that eventually formed this dissertation had their start in his “Complex Ethnographies” seminar at Ohio State. In addition, a number of ideas for this dissertation came from my participation in the “Performing Markets” workshop put on by the University of Frankfurt. Thanks to Peter Lindner, Christian Brannstrom, and Marc Boeckler for putting on, and inviting me to, such a great workshop. I have been lucky to study at Ohio State with an intellectually stimulating, and all around great group of fellow graduate students. Special thanks to Kevin Grove, Rohit Negi, Theresa Wong, Michael Ewers, Veronica Crossa, Michael Niedzielski, Jeff Olson, Suzanna Klaf, Delphine Ancien, Alistair Fraser, Trevor Birkenholtz, Eveily Freeman, Amanda Nahlik, and Blanca Bernal for various forms of intellectual support and friendship. I am also in debt to David Hansen, whose early support of my work in Costa Rica made this dissertation possible. In addition, I am grateful for institutional support from OSU’s International Programs in Agriculture, and the College of Natural Resources and the Environment, especially the efforts of Pat Rigby. In addition, Jay Martin deserves vii special acknowledgment for stepping in at timely moments to help me secure funding, and for getting me to join the initial OSU-EARTH collaboration that provided the initial seed for this project. At EARTH University I thank Jane Yeomans, Pedro Bidegaray, and Bert Kohlmann for their friendship and support. The folks at CATIE - especially Eduardo Somarriba, Marilyn Villalobos, Hernán Andrade, Milena Segura, and Zenia Salinas - were especially open, welcoming, and helpful. I am also in debt to an extended network of family members and in-laws who have always supported me, and often pitched in to give me the gift of time. I am especially grateful for my parents, Ray and Dorothy Lansing, for everything they have done over the years. I also thank Larry and Nina Lipe, who have been a wonderful set of second parents. As I write this, I can hear the sounds of my three-year-old daughter, Quinn, and my baby son, Gavin, getting ready to start their day. Such a scene, with me writing at the computer and someone else watching my children, has been essential for getting this dissertation done. My research and writing would not have been possible without the help of a number of people. Sameena Hussein, Heicel Quiros, Dayana Hernández, Ninoska DeBleeker, and Antonia Carrasco, have all, at one time or another, served as caregivers for my children. Your work was essential for my own. Thank you. Finally, Stephanie Lansing has meant so much to me, and has done more for me than I can possibly begin to acknowledge here. So I won’t. viii Ha. Just kidding. I could not have done this without you
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