“The material politics of urban energy transitions” by Dr. Vanesa Castán Broto, on Tuesday 23rd May (room C21, Pariser Building, Sackville Street) at 1.00pm.
Historical analyses of past transitions have led to a wealth of empirical understanding about how transitions occur. This type of analysis has most often focused on the social and material reconfigurations that follow a change in technology. What is less common is an analysis that focuses on how those technologies are embedded in a particular location, and in turn, how location configures transitions. From an urban perspective, the prevalence of certain technologies can only be explained with reference to how those technologies are embedded within the urban fabric.
This paper builds upon Graham Harman’s tool-being theory to explore alternative means to conceptualize materiality in urban energy transitions. The objective of this paper is to characterize the spatial embeddedness of certain objects in certain cities and how they are tied to a particular politics of uncertainty and emergence. The methodology focuses on specific artefacts that characterize the urban energy system (such as neon in Hong Kong or cookstoves in Maputo), to characterize backward linkages and forward linkages as a means to study the material politics of urban energy transitions.
The seminar will take place in room C21, in the Pariser Building on Sackville Street– number 12 on the map here- http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/maps/interactive-map/?id=9
manchester climate monthly 