Marx’s “Species Being” as an Ontological Revolution Against the “Green City/Global City” Agenda: Two Possible Moments of Reclaiming “Species Life”

ABSTRACT

Cities are experiencing continuous growth in population and must straddle a delicate balance between nurturing nature and providing livelihood. In that context, the contemporary urban agenda of sustainability must find creative ways of meeting global environmental expectations and resolving issues of displacement and rehabilitation of the poor. First, I use Marx’s concept of species being and estrangement to understand how sustainability discourses commodify and externalize urban nature as “environment,” estranging urban citizens from a deep sensuous connection with nature. Second, I use Marx’s species being to demonstrate how globalization-induced displacement estranges labor from itself and spaces in which labor produces existence. I provide two empirical moments, green city-New Town, Kolkata and the globalizing city-Ahmedabad in India to explore how urban policy fails to fundamentally alter nature–society relationship or eradicate estrangement of labor from itself, labor from nature, and nature from itself. This article argues that cities are caught up in a nature–society paradox that puts society in contradiction with nature.

KEYWORDS:

• Species being
• green city
• nature
• estrangement

Acknowledgements

My gratitude, respect, and deep admiration for the competent, nurturing, and empathetic editorship of comrade Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, lovingly called, Saed. Saed is an alchemist, he transmutes dross, scattered ideas into pure gold, he did so by gently nudging me towards relevant literature, his critique was spot-on and intended to improve rather than put-down, therefore, my ideas that were half-baked acquired a bedrock of certainty under his deft mentorship. My shout out to two anonymous reviewers who worked hard to provide constructive criticisms rather than destructive nastiness, which is often the norm with blind reviews.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 100 crores is 1 billion US dollars.

2 1 crore is 10 million, 140,095 dollars approximately.

3 200 YouTube videos and 140 websites were studied. Content analysis was deployed to estimate the repetition of keywords like “sustainability,” “resilience,” and “green city.” Discourse analysis was used to extricate excerpts from speeches and deconstruct policy statements, understand the intentionality behind policy statements, and explain the ideological content of what was being said.

4 A Bengali is the resident of the state of West Bengal and bhadrolok is the genteel class of Bengali who are the class-cultural elite of the state and even the country, displaying with great pleasure their knowledge about literature, art, politics, and poetry. West Bengal is known for its literary renaissance (17th to the 19th century), and Bengali bhadrolok is a term used in popular parlance to denote the genteel, sophisticated, cultural elite that emerged from that renaissance and continued the cultural revolution/appreciation in periods beyond.

5 1 katha is 720 square feet

6 The Sabarmati case study is based on field research that included semi-structured interviews of 65 inhabitants along the banks of the river Sabarmati and 26 Ahmedabad Municipal corporation officials carried out in 2010.