Restorative Nodes of Governance in the Anthropocene: Iran's Kashaf River

Abstract

Environmental collapse along the Kashaf River in Iran is about desertification, climate change and heavy metal pollution. The river concentrates a nest of intertwined crises about urban squatters, drugs, crime, public health, marginalization, state and city planning and threats to the legitimacy and survival of the state itself. Five Clifford Shearing ideas are woven into the theoretical fabric of the article: nodal governance; regulatory culture as a storybook (rather than a rulebook); justice as a better future; and AMP – networked discovery of Awareness, Motivation and Pathways for transformation; and a green ethic of care to guide transformation. These microdynamics arise in a Kashaf River imaginary that different societies might learn from. They involve nodes of local governance organized by front-line workers who restoried intertwined problems with an ethic of care. The challenge is that restorative micro-strategies proved promising when steering powerless actors, but frayed when faced with factory owners. More aggressive strategies of policycentric governance are needed for responsive escalation to confront privilege. Yet they too may be more creatively escalated nodes of conversational regulation.