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Losing the Edge of the Translation: Gated or Green; Shrinking or Degrowth

Urbanists Claire Doussard and Emmanuèle Cunningham Sabot offered stories from their international research that shone light on the political uses of urban ecological transition terminology, and how these are deployed to stigmatize and oppress people and parts of cities and impose narrow development logics that are not fit to their context. The French term «  » has been employed systematically throughout France, according to national policy directives, process checkpoints and evaluation frameworks. The 鳦´Ç±ç³Ü²¹°ù³Ù¾±±ð°ùs that result take on predictable qualities in urban and landscape design, built environment and social planning, typically accommodating 50% or more social or affordable housing. However, the label when applied in other countries can be something different entirely. This can be observed in cities in Brazil, where private sector-led ecodevelopments are in fact luxury « gated communities » that omit entirely urban questions of social mixing, social inclusion, participation and the open city. It can also be observed differently in Cameroon, where the application of French 鳦´Ç±ç³Ü²¹°ù³Ù¾±±ð°ù policies has resulted in housing projects that bear no resemblance to what is taking shape in France –and where their residents have no notable interest or awareness of the relevance of living in an 鳦´Ç±ç³Ü²¹°ù³Ù¾±±ð°ù to their lives.

The English term « shrinking cities » struck Cunningham Sabot as a problematic and stigmatizing way of referring to the phenomenon that she studies in cities in Germany and France. What social harms, including stigmatization, blame, and immobilization, are done by referring to cities experiencing decreasing jobs and population as shrinking, in a world in which growth is hegemonically considered good? The contrast is clear when the term is juxtaposed with the term degrowth or décroissance, which drives a bottom-up social ecological movement of opposing the faulty pro-growth logic in a world of ecological limits and overshoot. The implications for urban habitability, offered by the one terminology, versus the permission to abandon, demolish and destroy implied by the other, are stark.

These and other threads of our shared co-lab effort all underscore our appreciation of language as a limitless source of human inspiration and inquiry into the human possibility spaces for urban ecological transition, across our numerous perspectives. The effort of translanguaging to build understanding in these situations is effort to examine local and Indigenous languages in the context under study, and the social, political and ecological contents of environmental communications, hand in hand. Our evolving, shared goal is to seek and refine more culturally-appropriate interpretations and translations, through processes that demand more inclusive research and urban development practices, in place.

Words are instruments of mediation, coordination, and projection of meaning and intention; their social and political power can be better accounted for in research and action for sustainable development and ecological transition. Naming the ecological crisis and the complexity of conditions that exacerbate the crisis in cities and in daily habits that make up our public lives, is a key precusor to ecological transition. The SAGA research team is so grateful for the day of discovery and rediscovery of the values of language in sustainable cities and ecological transition. We look forward to carrying these stories forward, together.