Across Europe and the OECD, the bioeconomy is promoted as that which will succeed the carbon economy: an economy based in ‘the bio’ that will be innovative, sustainable, responsible and environmentally friendly. Yet how to critically approach an economy justified not only by its accumulative potentials but also its ability to do and be good?
The paper «‘The good economy’: a conceptual and empirical move for investigating how economies and versions of the good are entangled», published in September 2021, suggests the concept of ‘the good economy’ as an analytical tool for investigating how economic practice is entangled in versions of the good. Building upon the classic contributions of Weber, Thompson and Foucault in combination with valuation studies, this paper shows how the good economy concept can be employed to examine how the economic and the good are intertwined. Empirically, the paper teases out how what is made to be good in the bioeconomy is radically different than in economies of the recent past. While ‘the good economy’ of the early oil and aquaculture economy concerned how to insert this economy into society in a good manner, society is surprisingly absent in the contemporary bioeconomy. The bioeconomy is enacted as an expert issue, pursued by the tools of economic valuation, and based in the unquestioned idea that ‘the bio’ makes any economy good.
On December 1, Kristin Asdal presented the paper at the Science+Design Atelier 21, organized by the Graduate Program in Strategic Design and Management at School of Design Strategies, Parsons, The New School. From the speculative design perspective, the atelier took a more pragmatic stance asking «how to make economies better?». Leading the seminar was economic sociologist Koray Çalişkan, author of Market Threads: How Cotton Farmers and Traders Create a Global Commodity. Also participating was critical designer Anthony Dunne, who popularized the term «speculative design» together with artist Fiona Raby.
The article can be found here. Read more about the event here.