The Sustainable Development Goals as Discursive Frame: Potential for Glocal Change

Dr. Rosalind Warner Okanagan College ~ rowarner@okanagan.bc.ca

@rwarner23 Rozwarner.com

Abstract

This paper explores the potential contribution of the Sustainable Development Goals as a discursive framework for communicating environmental, ethical, and social justice values to multiple diverse local audiences. To what degree have the SDGs been effective in communicating a universal, indivisible, and aspirational agenda with the potential to inspire impactful changes on social and individual behaviours? Findings suggest that the two somewhat conflictual discourses that are often identified within the SDGs, Global Environmental Management and Populism, are expressed in a more ambiguous and complex way at the local level. Through an examination of civil society initiatives to communicate and gain public support for the Goals, especially the BC2030 campaign of the BC Council for International Cooperation, the paper will analyze the interplay of the discourses locally. A third discourse, that of Glocal Partnerships, is proposed as a way of understanding how local audiences are engaging with the Goals in Canada in political, social and economic fora. The conclusions have the potential to impact efforts to inspire change toward these important goals, by helping groups develop more effective strategies to better communicate their importance to the wider public.

Please do not cite or quote without permission. ©Rosalind Warner

Introduction This paper explores the potential contribution of the Sustainable Development Goals as a discursive framework for communicating environmental, ethical, and social justice values to multiple diverse local audiences. The paper will achieve these purposes through 1) an analytical introduction to the Goals, their background and origins, especially their functions as communicative tools, 2) a review of relevant research on discursive framings of problems, and their application to the SDGs as communication tools, 3) an exploration of the specific application of the SDGs as an organizing discursive framework for local collaborative change, and 4) some conclusions regarding the applicability and effectiveness of the SDGs as a discursive frame for activating social, environmental and political change. Findings suggest that the two somewhat conflictual discourses that are often identified within the SDGs, Global Environmental Management and Populism, are expressed in a more ambiguous and complex way at the local level. Through an examination of civil society initiatives to communicate and gain public support for the Goals, especially the BC2030 campaign of the BC Council for International Cooperation, the paper will analyze the interplay of the discourses locally. A third discourse, that of Glocal Partnerships, is proposed as a way of understanding how local audiences are engaging with the Goals in Canada in political, social and economic fora. Background: Origins of the SDGs

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals represent a global agenda with substantial legitimacy and authority, both in their content and in the process by which they have been asserted. The Goals are distinctive from other past initiatives by being universally applicable, integrated and indivisible, as well as representing an aspirational agenda that “challenges humanity to move beyond business-as-usual and to pursue transformative change (BC Council for International Cooperation, 2016, p. 1).” The agenda of the Global Goals has its origins in a series of United Nations Conferences throughout the 1990s by the UNDP and other United Nations departments, the OECD and the World Bank (Dodds, 2017, p. 6). Through these processes, the precursors to the SDGs, the Millennium Development Goals, were proposed by the members of the international community. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set down 8 central goals to set the world along a path toward addressing problems of poverty, access to education, and the elimination of HIV/AIDs. The MDGs were focused on extreme poverty and basic needs, and were narrowly focused on the developing countries. The Millennium Development Goals came under criticism for their top-down donor-driven character (Fox & Stoett, 2016, p. 560), for lacking strong enough indicators, and for being overly focused at times on the ‘symptoms’ rather than the causes of poverty (Ziai, 2016, p. 194). In addition, the MDGs were notable for what was left out: inequality, human rights, unemployment, financial crises, etc. (Fukuda-Parr, 2016, p. 44,46).

Facing a changed world after 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and a growing concern with climate change, the international community embarked on a plan to establish a new, more comprehensive international agenda. The proposal to replace the MDGs with a different set of universally-applicable goals emerged at the Rio Earth Summit in 2012, and after a years-long negotiation period, Agenda 2030 was adopted by the General Assembly in 2015 (Fox & Stoett, 2016). During the negotiations, the new agenda was met with resistance within the UN system. Poorer countries viewed the new initiative as a threat to aid transfers, while richer countries and donors were reluctant to change the structure of their programs, which had been based on the MDGs. The idea of universality, or that both rich and poor would be subject to the same goals, was also untenable for some (Dodds, 2017, p. 18). Still another issue was the question of discreteness: some countries favoured a clear distinction between social, economic, and

environmental goals. Others, on the other hand, including those in the General Assembly’s Open Working Group established in 2012 to develop the Goals, focused on “the need to function holistically instead of in silos. Ambassador Körösi several times observed that if a country implemented one goal, it would be indirectly implementing at least five others because of the inter- connectedness of the entire framework (Dodds, 2017, p. 35).” In this way, the SDGs would function as a network, connecting problems at multiple different levels instead of being confined to the international level alone.

The SDGs and the 2030 agenda that emerged in 2015 was also distinct from the MDGs

in in the way that they were developed. While originating in the UN’s international forum, consultations actively sought citizen engagement with the process. Business communities, civil society organizations and relevant stakeholders were involved in their development through Major Groups representation, building on the breakthrough Agenda 21 process which had pioneered broader civil society involvement at the Earth Summit in 1992. The High Level Panel established by the Secretary General to manage consultations heard inputs from a range of parties, from civil society organizations to farmers, seniors, people with disabilities, faith-based groups, womens’ groups and indigenous communities, among many others (Fox & Stoett, 2016, p. 562). Through social media, popular surveys, and consultations, citizen engagement was utilized much more extensively than had been the case in the past. In particular, the process utilized the My World Global Survey, the largest consultation ever held by the United Nations, which catalogued some 7.5 million responses. Respondents, who through the national consultation processes came from some of the most marginalized groups, were asked which issues should be part of the 2030 Agenda (Fox & Stoett, 2016, p. 564). Thus, in their purpose, content, and process, the SDGs marked a significant departure, and a more promising avenue toward transformational change, then their predecessors the MDGs (Fukuda-Parr, 2016, p. 44). To the degree that the consultation process built legitimacy, ownership and ‘buy-in’, the much higher degree of citizen participation in the SDGs process suggests that an increasingly robust norm of democratic accountability may be emerging in the system of global governance (Fox & Stoett, 2016, p. 559). If this is indeed the case, then the role of the SDGs as a type of discursive and communicative frame, able to shape people’s perceptions of their communities of action, would likely prove to be a critical factor in their success or failure. The SDGs as Discursive Frame

What are discursive frames and how might they operate when it comes to the SDGs? Is it possible to develop framings that have the greatest potential to elicit change? The SDGs can be framed in different ways: as measuring standards for progress, as a set of practical indicators, as a set of ethical imperatives, as a guide to policy and decision making, and even as a series of stories about life and well being.1 Discourses can be analyzed according to their messages, narrative structures and policy prescriptions (Adger, Benjaminsen, Brown, & Svarstad, 2001). While policy guidance and broad agreement was most likely topmost in the minds of the High Level Panel, additional layered meanings and stories accompanied the consultations and continue to develop as the Goals have become disseminated. During the consultation process, importantly, participants were invited to ‘write-in’ their preferred goals as well. Operating in a diversity of social, political, economic, and cultural contexts, these framings evolve in unexpected ways and in response to each other.

1 Adger et. al. summarize the approach to discourses as focused on homogeneity in message (shared knowledge and perception, expressive means (the way a message is communicated, as story, metaphor, etc.) and particularly they focus on narratives as the key dimension (Adger et al., 2001)

Discourses are by definition fluid and changeable, otherwise communication, and presumably society as a whole, would be impossible (Dryzek, 2013; Warner, 2005; Ziai, 2016, p. 10). The link between discourse and action, therefore, lies in the interplay of meanings that tend to preference one identity over another, or one action over another. Framings are inherently relational, and draw their meanings from the ongoing interaction between them, creating an ever-changing constellation of discursive meanings from which actors might draw to direct social projects. While differing interpretations can be a strength of a concept, there is potential as well for confusion, incoherence and excessive ambiguity to the point of arbitrariness. Evaluating discourses as measures and inspirations of action may be an onerous task if their meanings are illegible. While it is possible to tease out ‘action-implications’ of various discourses and thereby render them more consistent and coherent, it is not necessary and indeed can be detrimental if oversimplification occurs. For example, Christen and Schmidt have analyzed the sustainable development discourse with the goal of teasing out the various strands of meaning and creating a logical chain from concept to action (Christen & Schmidt, 2012). While a worthwhile exercise in clarifying and uncovering the ‘action-implications’ for various ethical premises, this response may limit action as much as it clarifies. In addition, as Fukuda-Parr has written, while analytical rigour is important, pursuing a rigid framework towards action might actually lead to an excess of “simplicity, concreteness and quantification” which may ultimately be counterproductive for action (Fukuda-Parr, 2016).

Another, different response is adopted in this paper, which is to explore the intersections

among various framings with a view to identifying those most likely to inspire transformative action or change. The format of the SDGs, which are intentionally silent on specific policy options or choices that might lead to the Goals, strengthens their broad appeal and potential to be activated in a wide diversity of local conditions. A certain ambiguity is accepted, even necessary for this process, and so the possibility of arbitrariness is less of a concern. What the SDGs do represent in common is that at their heart are shared global understandings of the possibility of progress on environmental, social and development problems, a feature characteristic of dialogue on global environmental and development since the 1980s (Adger et al., 2001, p. 682).

The SDGs are part of a broader social, political, and institutional mobilization among states, non-governmental organizations and the private sector to address global environmental challenges. In this context, the SDGs also constitute a discursive frame, or set of shared meanings, that help to give form and content to a global agenda for action. Discourses are sets of shared linguistic practices that “enable those who affirm it to understand and interpret themselves and their behavior (Warner, 2005, p. 16).” Similarly, Dryzek defines these as a “Shared ways of apprehending the world” that “enable those who subscribe to it to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent stories or accounts (Dryzek, 2013, pp. 9–10).” Another way of thinking about this is that discourses provide vocabularies for linking together behaviours with environmental outcomes, and for making cognitive associations, such as between taking the bus and saving polar bears in the Arctic (Warner, 2005, p. 18). Therefore, for example, a discourse makes actions to reduce one’s carbon footprint by riding a bike, or giving to a charity, become meaningful and motivational.

Adger et. al. set down three analytical elements of discourse analysis: analysis of regularities in expressions, analysis of the actors producing, reproducing and transforming discourses, and social impacts and policy outcomes of discourses (Adger et al., 2001, p. 684). This paper focuses on the latter dimension: the SDGs are formed explicitly as a global social project, they first and foremost form a language for environmental activism, resistance, advocacy, protection, planning and policy decision making (Warner, 2005, p. 18). The related

notion of a ‘problem frame’ describes sets of processes through which a problem becomes a dominant conception or focus for collective action: from identification, to analysis, to advocacy, and finally to dominance or hegemony (Warner, 2005, p. 8). The approach to discourse analysis used here borrows some of the facets of Foucauldian archeology and historical analysis, however a full history of the discursive emergence and development of discourses is beyond the reach of this work.2 The analysis is, however, in accordance with the methods of discourse analysis, based on the identification of the particular origins, evolutions, and shifts in discourses in order to uncover the specific contextual relations of power and knowledge that they represent. In this sense, discourses are understood as flexible and iterative, subject to change and evolution in line with changes in the underlying power relations of a given time and place. The main concern here is to understand these changes through the lens of the potential for glocal action, and to build on the premise that discursive change is an integral part of social change.

Adger et. al., following (Hajer, 1995), set down a definition of ‘hegemonic’ discourses –

those that become translated into institutional arrangements, with weaker forms of hegemony constituting ‘dominant’ discourses (Adger et al., 2001, p. 685). To the extent that ‘sustainable development’ can be considered a ‘dominant’ discourse in this sense, even hegemonic (given its ubiquity in institutional arrangements), the SDGs can be considered an outgrowth or refinement of this ‘dominant’ discourse. As an expression of a broader historical project of sustainable development that can be traced to the 1980s, the SDGs are of course much more comprehensive and complex and so are difficult to reduce to a single discourse. However, since 2002 there has been a complexification of the dominant discourse rather than a simple reification of a (potentially and partially discredited) global ‘managerial’ concept of sustainable development. Nevertheless, the SDGs can be thought of as an evolution of sustainable development, and thus their utility and effectiveness with regards to communicating the need for change and progress can be seen in light of the clash of discursive frames within the agenda.

It is important to keep in mind as well that discourses change over time according to

local circumstances and evolving global and local knowledge and action. Discourses in themselves contain essential tensions and sometimes even contradictions that tend to play themselves out in the interplay between local and global. In an array of 17 SDGs, it is to be expected that goals considered in isolation without reference to their interrelationships will inevitably come into conflict. How to reconcile SDG 13 (Climate Action) with SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), when looked at from the perspective of an oil worker in the Canadian oil sands? Or from the perspective of a subsistence farmer in China? In addition, discursive framings of an issue or problem inevitably draw upon particular sets of values and ethics in order to selectively emphasize unique situations and complexities. From the range of possible problems and solutions that emerge, the SDGs highlight the inherent complexity of the system of governance. This complexity calls for innovative forms of multi-level adaptive approaches that are in alignment with ecological perspectives on social, political and economic issues.3 An ecopolitical approach that incorporates notions of complexity and multi-level adaptive governance is well suited to analysis of the SDGs, which operate at multiple levels and contexts.

2 For a full account of how ‘development’ has evolved as a discourse, through global history, see (Escobar, 2012; Ziai, 2016). 3 For more on how an ecopolitical approach utilizes complexity and adaptiveness to understand governance, see (Biermann, 2014; Stoett & Laferrière, 2006).

To summarize, by this definition, the SDGs can be considered discursive in the sense that they constitute a set of authoritative and shared understandings of the problem of sustainable development. As a discursive frame, they may contain conflicting meanings and interpretations which can hazard their effectiveness for communicative action. As such as well, they provide vocabularies for social and individual actions while not prescribing particular actions, and so create a constructive ambiguity that allows for flexible application in global and local contexts. The SDGs developed within an ongoing discourse of sustainable development, which has undergone shifts since its inception in the 1980s, and which has evolved into a global public project. The SDGs are a project of public collective authorities, as opposed to private, individual or internal ethico-political realms. Having said this, the public and the private, the collective and the individual, are linked up in important ways by actors in the processes of (re) interpreting and (re) constructing them in local contexts and specific sets of concerns. As primarily public and collective projects, therefore, a key question for discourse analysis is: to what degree do the SDGs as a discourse enable or obstruct necessary transformative changes across multiple levels? To what degree have the SDGs been effective in communicating a universal, indivisible, and aspirational agenda with the potential to inspire impactful changes on social and individual behaviours?

Hegemonic and Populism Discursive Frames and the SDGs In their work, Adger et. al. focus on two potentially oppositional and conflicting discursive frames: Global Environmental Management and a Popular Discourse. Populism discourses emerge as a response to the managerial and technocratic bias of the former. The discursive frame of Global Environmental Management (GEM), to adapt Adger et. al.’s terminology, has deep roots in Western cultural modernity. In a nutshell, managerialism is rooted in rational modernism, economic growth, commoditization, a belief in linear material advancement, a liberal Utopian mastery of nature based on knowledge and technology, and a strict separation between humans and nature rather than a sense of embeddedness (Harlow, Golub, & Allenby, 2013). Their conceptual roots can be traced to Adam Smith, Bacon, Rene Descartes and others.

This GEM framing has been termed the ‘classical paradigm’ of development by (Ziai, 2016, p. 2). Ziai has set down the ‘continuing’ stories embedded within both the MDGs and the SDGs as the following:

1. A faith in deliberate planning and intervention in societies to bring about changes, 2. An assumption that growth and development will alleviate poverty, 3. A prescription to join the global economy as the preferred route to development, 4. The assumption that development is a technical rather than political problem (depoliticization) and 5. an uncritical acceptance of globalization, while acknowledging the need to spread its benefits more widely (Ziai, 2016, pp. 158–164). Embedded within this paradigm are distinct ontological assumptions about the power of

measurement using quantitative indicators, the ability to manage nature and societies, and the privileging of expert knowledge in the service of development (Ziai, 2016, p. 3). The main critique of this discourse comes from radical greens who argue it is little more than a mechanism for re-enacting Northern dominance over economic policies in the South. As Baker argues, critics charge that the net effect is to tame the agenda of environmental politics and so some have been led to reject the whole notion of sustainable development as flawed ‘managerialism’ (Baker, 2007, p. 302; Peet & Watts, 2004).

Countering this, a discourse of ‘Populism’ can be identified that can be characterized in

terms of critical and even revolutionary visions (also with their own Utopianism) that romanticize local resistance to globalized capitalism, small egalitarian communalism, an ethic of steady-state economics, a land ethic, and resistance to interventionist efforts to solve problems. These discursive strands can trace their roots to Marx and Rousseau (Harlow et al., 2013; Peet & Watts, 2004). In the next section, we will turn to the specific ways in which the SDGs have been communicated and are developing in Canada at different levels. The goal is to analyze the interplay between these different framings and discover how effectively these help to understand the communication of the SDGs in local contexts. The challenge for this discourse is to coordinate locals in ways that might ultimately have an impact on the global system in more transformative directions.

Communicating the SDGs in Canada: Multi-Level Discourses

In Canada, the SDGs are becoming disseminated at multiple levels and through multiple channels and actors. In this section, the form and content of the communication of the SDGs is analyzed through the lenses of discursive framings. A more fulsome dissection of how these various frames interact, and the implications for various framings for transformative action and change, is included in the section below. One important focus organization is the BC Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC), which is actively working to advance awareness and action around the SDGs at multiple governance levels, from local to national to global. The BC Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC) is a network of individuals and organizations which engages in capacity-building, public engagement, policy development, networking and research activities (BCCIC, 2017).

The SDGs have emerged among civil society and government in Canada as an important framing device for explicitly linking the local and global contexts. Over the past 4 years, organizations, institutions, and government have increasingly begun to refer to the SDGs and explicitly to link and orient their activities to the Global Goals in intentional ways. A sample of groups and organizations that are adopting and promoting the SDGs follows:

Alliance2030 is a national network of organizations, institutions, and individuals committed to achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the year 2030.

Canada2030 The Canada Towards 2030 Project (C2030) is a non-partisan and non-prescriptive foresight research initiative with multiple events and features.

Generation SDG Communiqué from SDG summit

Global Compact Network – corporate network in support of the UN’s SDGs

Community Foundations of Canada Vital Signs

IISD Community Indicator Systems (CIS) are online platforms that local actors can use to track issues that matter to their community.

A 2017 study commissioned by the UN Association in Canada found that only 11% of Canadians were aware of the SDGs, nevertheless, “once the 17 SDGs were described and explained to respondents, the vast majority expressed a favourable assessment of them. They found the Goals to be: inspiring (86%); innovative (83%); unifying (80%); and effective (78%). Most importantly, fully 72% felt they were achievable.” Young people (18-29) were more likely to be aware of and supportive of the Goals, and when asked whether “every person has a

responsibility to do what they can to help achieve the SDGs” some 82% of Canadians agree (pmnationtalk, 2017).

As stated above, the BCCIC is a central organization in advancing the Goals at different

levels, although focused on the province of British Columbia. The SDGs are core to its activities, and help to structure and inspire a variety of projects in place over the last couple of years. Several projects of the BCCIC speak to this activism, but two in particular stand out: a campaign to mobilize civil society around the 2030 agenda called BC2030, and the development of an online Movement Map designed to be a platform for cataloguing and connecting groups working on the Goals in BC and across Canada. The BCCIC is also involved in a youth SDG Bootcamp and the production of policy analysis reports aimed at facilitating policy decision making and community planning around the SDGs. On SDG indicators, the BCCIC has worked with community governments to help them align community planning with the associated international indicators. On the SDGs as a measurement standard, the Goals are used simultaneously as a community standard and as a temperature-taking exercise to gauge the level of awareness and engagement locally through the BC2030 campaign and accompanying publications. As ethical imperatives, BCCIC has mobilized the SDGs as an engagement device through sensing exercises like the SDG Yoga project. As a focus for inter-group collaborations, BCCIC has promoted the development of online tools, including the Movement Map, to advance common goals. Through the Map, BCCIC argues that:

“…organizations can become aware of each other and the national/global movement they make up, b) the general public can see the momentum that the SDGs can already draw on, that we are not starting from scratch and that there are tens of thousands of ways to get involved and support the SDGs, c) political leaders can see the size and scope of the organizations already contributing to the SDGs and the political statement that this represents (BCCIC Communication).”

The BC2030 Campaign began following the launch of the Goals to be a ‘listening tour’ to visit 7 regions in BC, meet with 412 individuals in 29 communities in 31 roundtable meetings to ask CSOs (Civil Society Organizations) how the goals relate to their work and whether they could be useful for strengthening their impact (BC Council for International Cooperation, 2016). The project report indicated that participants saw the Sustainable Development Goals as an opportunity to: 1) Achieve greater civil society collaboration and collective impact in BC 2) Generate greater public awareness and support for groups working on sustainable development in BC, and 3) Generate greater political support for sustainable development groups and initiatives in BC (BC Council for International Cooperation, 2016, p. 2).

During the BC2030 Roundtables organized by BCCIC, some 31 sessions were held with approximately 500 groups participating. Participants were asked to evaluate progress on the Goals in their local communities by selecting colour-coded tags for particular Goals. The results were then compiled into a report and summarized to provide a ‘snapshot’ of local communities based on the feedback provided (BC Council for International Cooperation, 2016). Later Roundtables refined the consultations to ask about the specific campaigns and activities in which groups were involved, inviting them to collaborate and consider orienting their goals to the SDGs. The results suggest that groups were interested in the potential of the SDGs to improve awareness, collaboration and political engagement (Harris, 2017). A summary report prepared following the meeting in Victoria in 2018 suggests that participants viewed the SDGs as a

unique opportunity to overcome isolation and a lack of communication among business, government, civil society and various communities (BCCIC, 2018).

Meetings in the Okanagan Valley were quite typical, however they indicate how the

mobilization happened in a unique context, and how that local context can influence the kinds of discursive framings that emerge. To begin with, the Valley is home to a dynamic society of local groups engaged with the SDGs already (approximately 300+ groups), something well noted in the outcome Report. As well, there is a critical mass of technologically sophisticated expertise in an emerging technology hub that is an important potential on-ramp for catalytic ideas and actors. New groups are emerging and interacting more often in common spaces, both in-person and online. From the local Volunteer Fair to the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association to the local School Districts, the SDG formulation for global problems is advancing rapidly. With growing awareness and support from the business community and the two major institutions of higher learning, UBC Okanagan and Okanagan College, these are strong indicators of increasing interest and awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals and their relevance to local community activities. At the same time, the valley remains largely conservative in political outlook, includes a disproportionately older demographic, and has significant rural-urban political divisions that have animated strongly contentious debates over urban planning and rapid development. By and large, priorities among the Goals in the Okanagan were similar to other communities, with the above factors going some way to explaining the Okanagan’s preference for SDG 15 (Life on Land).

BC2030 meetings held in the region over the last couple of years, oriented around

provincial, municipal and federal elections revealed a key theme: a desire for more organizational collaboration and mutual support for the activities of groups working toward the Goals, especially online tools. In addition, communities identified interesting weaknesses in the SDG framework: a tension in the growth models for sustainable development, particularly SDG 8, a concern with the focus on wealth and poverty (although it’s unclear how or why this was a concern, aside from issues with the ‘current growth model’), and finally an expressed need for more attention to qualitative ‘quality of life’ indicators that might capture nontangible factors of social development (BC Council for International Cooperation, 2016, p. 8).

These local developments mirror activities taking place nationally and internationally,

including the Agenda 2030 national initiative following on from Canada 150, and of course the huge variety of United Nations sponsored activities to grow interest in the SDGs at many levels. These developments signal that there is a growing movement locally, nationally and internationally and the various levels are converging around common narratives and messages regarding the SDGs. In the Okanagan, as in Victoria and other locations throughout the province, the consultations indicated a strong desire for increasingly active groups to reach for a common language and basis for cooperation on common projects. Interestingly, the theme for many of the roundtables was a need for local collaborations and communications, rather than linkage with regional, national or global agendas.

The emergent framing of the Goals that most seemed to animate the consultations was

their capacity to cast problems into a common language by which to discuss and measure progress, share and compare ideas, and more effectively collaborate, which is ostensibly the goal of SDG17. For example, the BC Poverty Coalition may be most animated by Goal 1, while also recognizing the benefits of linking their concerns with those of Goal 11, Sustainable Communities, and working on issues of affordable housing and accessibility. The possibilities for comparing and linking the goals was a feature that most captivated local communities participating in the Roundtables. While governmental discourse remains focused on metrics,

reporting, and broad engagement with the Goals, an alternative ‘counter’ discourse from civil society, business and other stakeholders has emerged to recommend recalibration with marginalized peoples, especially indigenous peoples (especially through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action and the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), LGBTQ+ communities, youth and women (BC Council for International Cooperation, 2016; Runnalls, 2017, p. 9). As well, while the managerial focus of policy, measurement and progress remains most prominent nationally, civil society actors representing a vocal ‘counter-consensus’ (Pratt, 1983) are focused on the local level, and on local action. For example, a media initiative launched at the Generation SDG Advisory Group called The Discourse is set to focus on SDG issues with a strongly local focus for reporting. SDGs as Discursive and Communicative Frame

These examples of SDG discourse in Canada, although somewhat limited in the conclusions that can be made, demonstrate at least one way in which the SDGs have manifested at the glocal level and so can inform our understanding of the SDGs and the discursive framing that they represent. It also demonstrates that a fuller picture of the discursive and communicative role of the SDGs should go beyond the textual analysis to incorporate the ways in which the Goals are cycling through local contexts. A deeper analysis can explore the ways in which agents on the ground develop and articulate their own distinctive meanings in ways that complicate the overly-simplistic dichotomy between GEM discourses on the one hand, and Populism or critical discourses on the other hand. Even GEM discourses that are hegemonic, or that have disproportionate power, are not necessarily uniform or consistent over time. Critics such as Ziai argue that the technocratic managerial and neoliberal framing of problems embedded within the SDGs is dominant and pervasive, implying that the SDGs are little more than a reiteration of classical growth theories and neoclassical economic assumptions, with all of their accompanying negative implications for alternative models of development and critical political movements.

In contrast to the analysis of Ziai that the SDGs represent a continuity and persistence of

uniformly consistent (and potentially destructive and silencing) development discourses over time, this analysis suggests quite the opposite. Analysts should view with caution the claims that the SDGs are little more than a reiteration and reconstruction of age-old development tropes that have persisted since the Truman Doctrine was first described in the 1940s. As Adger et al argue, we should instead “point to striking discrepancies between discursive simplifications and the diversity of situations within local contexts (Adger et al., 2001, p. 709).” Instead of retreating to discursive oppositions, a sophisticated discursive analysis of the SDGs is more likely to recognize the transformative potential in ambiguities that emerge in a multi-level context, and take seriously “the richness, diversity, and complexity of real-world situations and builds on the knowledge, insights, and ideas of poor people themselves (Fox & Stoett, 2016, p. 560).” As an example, organic farmers can argue that an ecosystem-conscious system of agricultural production can reduce and even potentially capture and store carbon to reduce greenhouse gases, while increasing production and reducing hunger. They can also point to the need for educational systems to better prepare future generations for the advanced technical and scientific skills that will be needed to manage organic agricultural production and create the possibilities for restoration of degraded soils. It is not necessary to line up on either side of the ideological divides or to categorically reject one side or the other in order to engage with the Goals.

The narratives observed that are developing around the SDGs in Canada incorporate elements of the GEM and Populism discourses, but also add-in other more innovative discursive

frames that may be overlooked when the analysis is oversimplified. A clear demarcation or dialogue between managerial approaches on one side and Populism discourses on the other side, has not yet emerged. This may be due to various factors, including the relatively low level of awareness about the Goals among the general public, a generally low level of political animus or debate over the Goals, or a sense of their irrelevancy (despite the potential of some of the goals, like Reducing Inequality, to spark such debate) and a ‘lack of fit’ with existing ideological divides. On the other hand, much of the government’s communication (and to some extent that of civil society too) has been understandably focused on quantitative measurement, reporting, awareness-raising and accountability for gaps or shortfalls (Mcarthur & Rasmussen, 2017), and so perhaps feeds in to a certain de-politicization of the charged issues that the Goals may represent.

The discursive function of the Goals can also be viewed in symbolic terms, as a route

toward re-politicization and as a discursive instrument of collaborative and critical social change. Constructivist approaches have often pointed to the power of an enabling positive symbolic politics to encourage action. Symbolic politics can even include “simultaneous discourses composed of both ‘radical change and uncompromising defence’ (Baker, 2007, p. 313). Both discourses, one focused on facilitating environmental management and growth, and one focused on ecological limits, are activated simultaneously through the goals. Populism discourses that seek to platform marginalized voices can find much to aid their cause in the 17 SDGs, and as governments face pressure both from above and below to live up to the Goals, they can become a powerful lever for articulating alternative social agendas.

For example, public broadcaster TV Ontario pledged to devote 12 months of airtime to

the SDGs following the SDG Summit in April 2018 (Runnalls, 2017, p. 13). A transcript of one of the TVO panel broadcasts on the SDGs reveals the way in which the discursive framings of the SDGs are developing. In this case, a government statement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau linking the SDGs and the project of reconciliation with Indigenous people is analyzed by the panel. One commentator, Bernd Christmas, Ceo of Gitpo Storms, a national Indigenous sustainable development firm, and a Member of ohe Mi'kmaq Nation from Membertou, argues: “I like the idea that there's these goals. Of course we would agree with this. And I think the issue or what's getting lost in translation is that our communities have been here for thousands of years and we've been working on these type of goals…” Christmas goes on to express concerns about the Goals being little more than a new language for old problems, and argues that the main problem is inclusiveness and the apparent lack of universality of the goals, in a context where groups such as indigenous people are excluded as equal partners in the discussion. As Andrew Chunilall of Community Foundations of Canada states in the same broadcast: “we're talking about poverty, hunger, climate, gender inequality, and the list goes on. These are issues of ordinary people. There should not be a populist movement against the SDGs once people understand what they are. The SDGs are not about putting other interests above Canada's, it's about putting Canadian interests first alongside the globe's interests (TVO, 2017).” This last point captures very well the way in which the SDGs can evolve alongside Populism political critiques of the prevailing capitalist and nationalist power order.

The technocratic, apolitical managerial culture of the Goals is emerging at the same time

as a more politicized, anti-managerial and critical turn is emerging. The form of the Populism discourse, as flagged in BCCIC reports and in local consultations, is motivated by the need for inclusion, justice, equality, and a recognition of the need for anti-racism and anti-discrimination goals. These Populism discursive framings are emerging in ways that could potentially disrupt, or at the very least balance, an overly managerial or technocratic framing of SDGs. This critique is stated well by indigenous and marginalized communities who are focused on their

independence and autonomy, and who are critical of misplaced interventions from national governments. Brend expresses this concern during the dialogue on TVO when he complains about the tendency to overlook the continuous efforts of communities to deal with the same problems, and the problems of ignoring local voices in the national discussion. Interestingly, Populism (as opposed to reactionary) framings are embedded into the SDGs through specific goals (for example, the attention to inequality) and are also evident through the process by which they were developed. The process of deliberate public engagement that gave emergence to the goals is being replicated in Canada, with new interpretations specific to the Canadian context emerging.

An Alternative Discursive Frame?

If the SDGs can be thought of as a means of communicating and framing problems, then

what is the frame? One frame that runs throughout the deliberations is the interconnected nature of problems and the need for collaborative, even deliberative, solutions. This framing can be termed Glocal Partnerships. While Global Environmental Management tends to view problems in technocratic or managerial terms, thereby obscuring the local and the social realms, and a Populism discourse frames problems as issues of resistance and redistribution, a Glocal Partnerships frame leaves room for more contingent forms of deliberation, discussion and decision making. In this, the SDGs themselves are reflective of the global social, economic and political processes that have, in the first part of the 21st century, created an organized global civil society. As stated by Biermann et. al. “…it is rather the bottom-up, non-confrontational, country-driven, and stakeholder-oriented aspects of governance through goals that its supporters cite as a key potential success factor. Partnerships and emergent properties are envisaged as an innovative feature of the SDGs (Biermann, Kanie, & Kim, 2017, p. 27).” A strength of the SDGs is that they were developed with the idea that community identities transcend borders, and that these identities are imagined more broadly or differently from national sovereignties (Fox & Stoett, 2016, p. 559). A Glocal Partnerships frame focuses on the agency of local communities to solve global problems, while recognizing the universality of problems and their embeddedness in relations of power. As Corey Tataryn argues, local connections are the most “Vibrant Common Denominators” that exist, and the SDGs represent a method for local collaboration (Tataryn, 2017, p. 24). A Glocal Partnerships message can be summarized as follows:

1. An awareness that the indivisibility of the goals means that each goal must be

considered in light of its relationship with all others 2. A recognition of the need for multi-level governance involving a range of actors as the

most effective means of achieving sustainable development, while prioritizing local 3. An assumption that ‘business as usual’ is unsustainable and new ways of living will need

to be developed 4. A drive to ensure that no one should be left behind, meaning policies should focus on

the most marginalized 5. A presumption that all countries, whether in the North or South are ‘developing’,

therefore no country is completely ‘developed’ (Biermann et al., 2017, p. 27). The SDG narrative structure and policy recommendations move toward a public sphere

of political action, at the intersection of the local and global levels, occupied by civil society, business, and governmental bodies. The BCCIC BC2030 Roundtables demonstrated the importance and value to participants of a local focus for conversations, and together with the Movement Map and other initiatives, call for more, not less, political activity. The BC2030 Roundtable report notes that groups were quick to identify the value of the Goals for achieving

political ends and for keeping government accountable to the public, hardly an indication of de-politicization.4

To what extent might alternative discursive framings exemplified by the Goals provide

the conditions for political, social, economic, and environmental action and change? It seems unlikely that the Goals will be able to inspire change without some conscious awareness of their discursive power. This power is unlike the knowledge matrix of modern science and technology, which draws upon the distinction between human and natural social processes to build an epistemology of progress. It is also unlike the power of critical and popular movements against globalization and neoliberal economies, which focus on social justice, resistance, and community activism to activate an alternative power based on localism. Instead, Glocal Partnership focuses on the processes by which change occurs, emphasizing the duality and complexity and connectedness of life in the Anthropocene, and the ambiguity of the glocal as a site for transformative changes. As described by Michael Simpson, BCCIC's Executive Director, when groups combine into networks they can build into movements that: "build into swells and movements of energy with direction and intention...motivated by change and evolution." Here, there is much insight in the literature of ecopolitics and deliberative democracy that can shed light on how discursive interactions can create the conditions for transformative change (Dryzek, 2013; Hajer, 1995; Warner, 2010). The most modest conclusion is that Glocal Partnerships has much to commend it as a way of imagining transformative change from the bottom up, through the means of the Goals. In light of this, one way forward is to embrace the glocal, focus on connectivity, and approach sustainable development as an inherently political process of reimagining a more sustainable and equitable future.

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