Laboratory for Sustainable Land Use and Ecosystem Services

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Beyond the binary: from probable to plausible futures in dense green urbanism

Publication . Vidal, Diogo Guedes

This article posits that the tension between density and greening is an ontopoliticalchallenge (Blaser, 2013; Cadena, 2015). Ontopolitics differs from the sociology ofimagination in that it does not primarily concern how futures are envisioned, but howrealities are constituted (Blaser, 2010). While urban political ecology interrogates thepolitical-economic production of socio-natures (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003), it oftenretains a shared ontology of “nature” and “society” as analytical categories. An ontopoliticalapproach instead foregrounds conflicts over the very existence and status of entities withinurban governance, asking not merely who controls green space, but whether green space isunderstood as infrastructure, commons, habitat, or political subject. This ontological shifthas material consequences for planning instruments, institutional design, and regulatoryframeworks. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to insert plants into high-rises, which isa practice that often devolves into “greenwashing,” but mostly to fundamentally reconfigureour relationship with the biosphere. We must shift from a paradigm of domination andmanagement to one of cohabitation and resonance (Rosa, 2021), and in doing so, movefrom merely “probable” futures to genuinely transformative “possible” ones.

2026-03-31Artigo científico

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Palavras-chave

Sustainable Land products and services,Circular economy in Land products processing,Socioecological systems and territories,Environmental health, Agricultural sciences

Entidade financiadora

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P.

Programa de financiamento

Concurso para Atribuição do Estatuto e Financiamento de Laboratórios Associados (LA)

Número da atribuição

LA/P/0092/2020