*Message sent from a system outside of UConn.* URBAN AFFAIRS ASSOCIATION (UAA), APRIL 24-27, 2024, NEW YORK, NY
CFP: Urban Geographies of ESG and Social Finance: Perils, Promises, Alternatives Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing, Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), social finance, and impact investing have gone from niche markets to mainstream preoccupations over the past decade (Langley, 2020). Some proponents of these investment techniques view them as tools to decarbonize and humanize markets by compelling corporations and investors to “account” for climate change and environmental destruction, labour and human rights abuses, gender-based and racialized discrimination (Harman & Ruiz, 2021; Hawley & Williams, 2000; Sullivan et al., 2019). Others raise concerns regarding the role of large-scale, private institutional capital in shaping social services, urban development and governance processes, and regarding the implications of applying market logics to systems of redistribution and mutual aid (e.g. Christophers, 2023; Nethercote et al, 2023; Skerrett et al 2017). In particular, this raises the crucial question of alternatives. To what extent does the speed, scale, and urban “solutionism” (Montero, 2020) of institutionally driven ESG overwhelm the capacity of workers, citizens and communities to imagine and pursue other modes of investment? Green and climate finance instruments such as green bonds, sustainability ratings and resilience financing, for example, have been critiqued for their extractivist nature, transforming urban space and infrastructure into “new resource frontiers” (Knuth, 2016). Under structural pressures of neoliberalism governments have pursued a range of “de-risking” strategies to attract institutional capital, precipitating new urban forms and patterns of structural adjustment and uneven development (Bigger & Millington, 2020; Gabor, 2021; Hilbrandt & Grafe, 2023; Long & Rice, 2021). The application of quantification and “measurementality” to complex social problems has raised ethical questions around surveillance and the redefinition of social outcomes (Baker et al., 2020; Berndt & Wirth, 2018; Elgert, 2018; Lilley et al., 2020; Roseman, 2018). Activists, trade unionists, and civil society groups are also generating their own critiques and alliances vis-a-vis financialization and institutional investment (Mendell & Neatman, 2021; Parish, 2023). Yet despite this considerable interest in climate and social finance, institutional investment, and the financialization of cities, distinctly urban scholarship on ESG, SRI and impact investing has been limited. This panel therefore seeks place-based and urban focused contributions that engage with the promises, perils, and alternatives to ESG, SRI and social finance within and across cities globally. A place-based lens is especially needed given the growing focus on the urban scale by asset managers, pension funds and financial institutions such as the World Bank (Bigger & Webber, 2021), and the implementation of place-based considerations by impact investors (Rosenman, 2023). It is likewise urgent considering ongoing uneven investment and its role in exacerbating gentrification, climate injustice, socio-ecological and financial violence (Castán Broto & Robin, 2021; Silver, 2018; Lewis, 2022; Rice et al., 2021; Taylor & Aalbers, 2022). We seek empirical and/or theoretical contributions from any methodological or disciplinary approach that have a distinct urban focus. Topics may include but are not limited to: * The urban politics of ESG, SRI, or impact investing: questions of risk, governance, responsibilization, public vs private finance * Geographic considerations: spatial and scalar processes in ESG, SRI or impact investment * Mapping, analysing, and quantifying the scale of ESG and impact investment in cities * Ontological and epistemological distinctions between “E”, “S”, and “G”: what are the stakes for cities and urban inhabitants in defining and contesting “social”, “environment”, or “good governance”? * Measurement and quantification in ESG, SRI, or impact investing * Unions, workers and/or urban social movements and ESG, SRI, or impact investing * Gender and social reproduction in ESG, SRI, or impact investing * The relationship between ESG, SRI, or impact investing and processes of gentrification * Global political economy of ESG, SRI or impact investing: Emerging urban markets, urban networks of investors, investees, and intermediaries, cities on and off the map * Extractivism, colonialism, racial capital and ESG, SRI, or impact investing * Questions of subjectivity, agency, or resistance in ESG and impact investing at the individual and institutional scales * Morals/ethics/ethopolitics of urban ESG, SRI, or impact investing: Who is “responsible”? For what? * ESG, SRI, or impact investing and community-based finance or philanthropy * Histories and genealogies of concepts and practices of ESG, SRI, or impact investing and their relationship to the urban Instructions: Paper proposals should be sent to Jessica Parish (jessica.par...@dmu.ac.uk<mailto:jessica.par...@dmu.ac.uk>), Yinnon Geva (y.g...@utoronto.ca<mailto:y.g...@utoronto.ca>) and Jessa Loomis (jessa.loo...@newcastle.ac.uk<mailto:jessa.loo...@newcastle.ac.uk>) by September 18, 2023. Please make sure your proposal fits UAA’s requirements for individual paper proposals<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fdocument%2Fd%2F1emC14_kqc9hicbvDCReyXFeo8L4YZaui%2Fedit&data=05%7C01%7CECONOMICGEOGRAPHY-L%40listserv.uconn.edu%7Cabc6a5cfa622406142ad08dbb3a974a6%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C638301312646658942%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=SLWuQ65CGjWSfBeL5rfH4RAssiXh9K2hm2WaLyVP0hI%3D&reserved=0>. We will respond with a decision by September 27, 2023, thereby allowing all participants to apply individually by the conference’s general deadline. Works Cited Baker, T., Evans, J., & Hennigan, B. (2020). Investable poverty: Social investment states and the geographies of poverty management. 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