Link to Session Platform

Chairs(s):

Abigail Cooke, Chair of the Economic Geography Specialty Group

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Description:

This session will inaugurate a new Economic Geography Specialty Group Keynote Lecture. Showcasing research by emerging thought leaders, with engaged response from more established scholars, this Keynote calls the EGSG community in to important research directions. As an annual event, overtime we hope that this keynote will reflect not only the cutting edge of research but also the capaciousness of economic geography research today.

This year's keynote address will be given by Dr. Sage Ponder. The preliminary title of her talk is "Reimagining Public Finance for Climate and Racial Justice."

Abstract: In recent years projects geared toward promoting urban resilience have been at the forefront of innovations in climate change governance. Developing an appropriate financial ecosystem to support such projects and foreground climate justice has been a challenge, however. Public-private partnerships have failed to deliver equitable access to the benefits of sustainable communities, many philanthropic initiatives lack democratic accountability, and green bonds are not living up to expectations in terms of uptake by issuers or ecological results. Meanwhile, marginalized communities, who are themselves often at the ‘frontlines’ of climate change, continue to face differential treatment in bond markets due to the impacts of ongoing and historical racialization. Rather than continuing to lean on activities and innovations that are largely governed by the private financial sphere, this intervention proposes that achieving climate justice is only possible by reimagining the work and responsibilities of public finance, bending it towards reparative ends. Taking the two largest municipal bond market bankruptcies in US history as comparative case studies, Puerto Rico and Detroit, this talk illustrates how current frameworks of public finance reinscribe racialized conditions of crisis onto socio-economic and socio-ecological futures. It makes the case for expanding climate finance imaginaries through relational comparison, especially in terms of understanding spectacular technologies, like smart city designs and green bonds, in light of everyday landscapes of climactic and financial vulnerability. It concludes with a gentle ‘call-in’, or love letter, to the field of economic geography on disciplinary change and epistemological relevance in the current conjuncture of climate crisis and racial reckoning.

Non-Presenting Participants Agenda