A critical analysis of mainstreaming youth volunteering in environmental governance of Pakistan: a multi-level approach

With Mohsen Gul, University of Nottingham.

All seminars online. Please contact sue.davis@nottingham.ac.uk for the link. Subject to change.

Part of the Environment and Society Seminar Series.

Abstract

The overall aim of the study was to critically analyse how volunteerism as a mode of youth engagement in environmental governance in Pakistan was shaped by geographical contexts, policy and governance frameworks, and volunteer engagement practices at multiple governance levels (international, national, provincial, and local levels).  There were many ways this analysis could have been approached. I chose to use the concept of multiple environmentalities inspired by Michel Foucault's writings on techniques and rationalities involved in both governing the self and governing others. I used the critical lens of identifying both complementing and conflicting environmentalities, (sovereign, disciplinary, neo-liberal, according to truth and communal) coming together to form un-interrogated assumptions, taken-for-granted truths, rationales, and technologies that, in diffuse and complex ways, control mainstreaming of youth volunteerism in environmental governance structures across multiple geographical levels.