The war on ‘woke’: anti-ESG investing and research directions in financial geography

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing has become a site of struggle,around which a range of actors at multiple scales and in different legal, political andfinancial spheres are mobilising. We delve into four dynamics that characterise thisquickly changing landscape and propose a set of conceptual avenues to analysethem. Gramscian political economy, legal geographies and science and technologystudies (STS)-inspired approaches provide tools for grasping the changing ESGlandscape across scales and illuminate its legal, material, and organisational effectswithin and beyond the US.