Lewis, Pancho and Willis, Rebecca and Ainscough, Jacob and Clark, Nigel (2025) The politics of promise in a climate emergency : The case of West Cumbria. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
How do people’s attachments to (post)fossil-fuelled lives form and morph over time? What does this mean for the imperative of a ‘net zero’ transition? In this thesis, I critically examine these questions, offering novel contributions to a nascent line of inquiry which examines the politics of promise in a climate emergency. My focus is West Cumbria (WC), an English region which has been thrust into the centre of controversy because of plans to open a new coal mine in the area. By employing qualitative methodologies including interview and creative methods, I attune to how feelings and affects surface in my fieldwork site. I argue that attachments to high-carbon lives (re)form in material cultures wherein fossil fuel industries have the upper hand over renewable industries. Fossil capital can take advantage of these conditions to reproduce high-carbon development trajectories. In addition, people’s industrial attachments can render proposals for a net zero transition a ‘non-promise’, stymieing attempts to move away from environmentally deleterious ways of life. I simultaneously trace the shapeshifting nature of people’s attachments. This suggests that the promises which people become tethered to change, often at speed, opening opportunities to build sustainable futures. I offer the concept of ‘fluid hope’ to demonstrate people’s capacities to imagine post-carbon futures in the face of adversity. I open by introducing the thesis and its outline, setting out the research field my arguments are positioned within, and explaining my methodology. I then present a portfolio of papers. Paper 1 begins with a UK-wide focus. Papers 2 to 4 then zoom in to examine climate politics in West Cumbria. Throughout my papers, I shift between exploring political-affective dynamics in West Cumbria and examining their wider implications. I conclude by analysing the implications of my thesis to further explore the politics of promise in a climate crisis.