Ryan Carolan

Ryan Carolan recently completed his PhD under Arran Gare, which focuses on the neoliberal transformation of Australian federalism, specifically in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin. Employing Gare’s distinction between the Radical and Moderate Enlightenment, the thesis examines the history of public policy since colonization and shows how neoliberalism both abolished the institutions that “re-embedded” water in social relations by making water a public good (although still excluding aboriginal people) and forgot the lessons that rationalised these institutions. It argues that the best framework for returning the Basin to health involves reviving and reformulate the idealist liberal socialist ethic that underpinned federalist policy though the ethics and politics of eco-poiesis, which requires the creation of both an ecological federalism in Australia and the creation of a global ecological civilization. Ryan is currently living in Uppsala with his wife and son and looking for work.