TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wiegleb, Viviana
A1  - Bruns, Antje
A2  - Engel-Cox, Jill A.
T1  - What is driving the Water-Energy-Food Nexus? Discourses, knowledge and politics of an emerging resource governance concept
T2  - Frontiers in Environmental Science
N2  - In the context of accelerated global socio-environmental change, the Water-Energy-Food Nexus has received increasing attention within science and international politics by promoting integrated resource governance. This study explores the scientific nexus debates from a discourse analytical perspective to reveal knowledge and power relations as well as geographical settings of nexus research. We also investigate approaches to socio-nature relations that influence nexus research and subsequent political implications. Our findings suggest that the leading nexus discourse is dominated by natural scientific perspectives and a neo-Malthusian framing of environmental challenges. Accordingly, the promoted cross-sectoral nexus approach to resource governance emphasizes efficiency, security, future sustainability, and poverty reduction. Water, energy, and food are conceived as global trade goods that require close monitoring, management and control, to be achieved via quantitative assessments and technological interventions. Within the less visible discourse, social scientific perspectives engage with the social, political, and normative elements of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. These perspectives criticize the dominant nexus representation for itsmanagerial, neoliberal, and utilitarian approach to resource governance. The managerial framing is critiqued for masking power relations and social inequalities, while alternative framings acknowledge the political nature of resource governance and socio-nature relations. The spatial dimensions of the nexus debate are also discussed. Notably, the nexus is largely shaped by western knowledge, yet applied mainly in specific regions of the Global South. In order for the nexus to achieve integrative solutions for sustainability, the debate needs to overcome its current discursive and spatial separations. To this end, we need to engage more closely with alternative nexus discourses, embrace epistemic pluralism and encourage multi-perspective debates about the socio-nature relations we actually intend to promote.
KW  - discourse analysis
KW  - geography of knowledge
KW  - resource governance
KW  - socio-nature relations
KW  - sustainability
KW  - Wasser
KW  - Energie
KW  - Nahrung
KW  - Ressourcenpolitik
KW  - Diskursanalyse
KW  - Nachhaltigkeit
Y1  - 2018
UR  - https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1002
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:385-1-10023
VL  - 2018
IS  - 6
ER  -