RIFS “Justice in Sustainability” lecture on “Infrastructuring environmental (in)justice: on the political geographies of energy technologies in planetary crises” with Benno Fladvad
Dear all,
We cordially invite you to the January lecture and discussion of the RIFS focal topic year 2023 “Justice in Sustainability” with Benno Fladvad: “Infrastructuring environmental (in)justice: on the political geographies of energy technologies in planetary crises.”
Abstract: This presentation discusses the relevance of infrastructure as both a research object and a conceptual lens for examining environmental justice issues and conflicts in the context of planetary crises. In a first step, it problematizes the prevailing techno-utopianism inherent in mainstream sustainability debates on green transitions and ecological modernizations. In a second step, drawing on Political Geography and Science and Technology Studies, it introduces the notion of ‘infrastructuring’ and theorizes the fundamental political character of infrastructures, especially energy technologies, and their relevance for space-making processes. Finally, preliminary considerations for ‘convivial infrastructures’ are presented, which not only aim at overcoming and decolonizing growth- and control-oriented sociotechnical imaginaries of Western modernity, but also at achieving greater autonomy and environmental justice directly through infrastructures.
Dr. Benno Fladvad is a Human Geographer with a focus on Political Geography, Energy Geographies, Political Ecology, Environmental Justice, and the coloniality of climate politics. He is a Social Justice Fellow at the RIFS and research associate at the Centre for Advances Studies “Futures of Sustainability” at the University of Hamburg that focuses on different trajectories of sustainability and their contradictions and conflicts. He received his doctorate from the University of Kiel, where he worked until 2017 as a research associate to investigate the justice dimensions of the claim for food sovereignty in the Bolivian context.
Online event with zoom.
You will receive the link to join the event with the confirmation e-mail after registration.
