Hopefully this will be of interest to list members. Find a flyer
for the event attached. Speakers are listed at the end of the
mail. Please distribute as you see fit.
Chris Wilbert.
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IRNES; The Dept of Sociology, Goldsmiths College;
and The RGS Social and Cultural Geography Research Group Presents:
TECHNO NATURES
Environments, Technologies and Spaces in the 21st Century
A Symposium
Dept of Sociology, Goldsmith College, Thursday June 26th 2003
'Society', 'technology' and the 'environment' have frequently been
studied as discrete intellectual realms. However, a revisionist mood in
contemporary sociology, geography and technology studies now indicates
a distinct desire to 'think beyond' such boundaries.
At the ontological level, recent discourses concerned with 'the
production of nature' (Lefebvre, Smith, Castree), 'contested natures'
or 'socio-natures' (Haraway, Swyngedouw), have sought to draw attention
to the mutual imbrication and irreducibly spatial qualities of our
socio-environmental relations. Other commentators [Latour, Michael,
Whatmore] have maintained that proliferation of 'quasi objects',
'hybrids' and 'actants' not only demonstrates how 'the technological'
now 'runs through' contemporary socio-natures but also point to how
basic categories: 'the social', 'the technological', the natural, 'the
urban' and 'the human' are now thoroughly destabilised. At the macro
level, numerous currents in critical social theory (Harvey, Castells,
Massey) suggest that the restructuring of environments and
technocultures across various spatial scales has opened up new power
geometries and new frontiers for capital accumulation, spatial
displacement and uneven development. For a reinvigorated and
globalising neo-liberalism, 'Nature' has become an accumulation
strategy for capital all the way down (Katz).
Inside and beyond the academy, one can trace the contours of a new
politics of environment-society-technology relations played out through
gene splicing and 'factor 'x' initiatives; CO2 and dolly the sheep,
industrial ecology and demands for 'zero waste'. Beyond 'catastrophe or
cornucopia' new battle lines now appear to be emerging as attempts to
administer, regulate, patent, 'ecologically modernise' or own emerging
techno-natures come up against alternative projects to 'ecologically
democratise', demand 'alternative sustainable techno-natures' and
'environmentally just' spatial relations or simply resist.
What are the most effective conceptual tools that can grapple with the
transformations of environments, technologies and spaces in the 21st
century? Do such developments necessitate further reworking of debates
around environmental 'crisis', urbanism, humanism, contemporary
political economy and agency? Whose interests are currently being
served by the development of various techno-natures and
eco-capitalism(s)? What room lies for reappropriation? Does the rise of
'techno-natures' suggest the need to move beyond the epistemological
and political horizons of much late 20th century environmentalism?
The aim of this symposium is to create a space for interdisciplinary conversations between the various critical traditions which now populate sociology, geography & technology studies (e.g: eco/post Marxism, post structuralism & actor network theory; critical ecological modernism, cyborg feminism & political ecology). The symposium will reflect on the various ways in which environments, technologies & spaces are being configured and reconfigured in contemporary sociology, geography and technology studies. Finally, Techno-Natures hopes to generate an on-going discussion on how we could move beyond ecocentric despair or high modernist Promethianism to imagine 'spaces of hope' & a new critical politics of techno-natures.
Presenters include:
Sarah Whatmore/Steve Hinchcliffe (Geography, Open University);
Elizabeth Shove (Sociology/Science Studies, Lancaster)
Mike Michael (Sociology, Goldsmith,);
Tiziana Terranova (Sociology, University of Essex);
Eric Swyngedouw (Geography, Oxford University);
Andrew Barry (Sociology, Goldsmith);
Kate Soper (Philosophy, London Metropolitan),
Damian White (Sociology, Goldsmith);
Chris Wilbert (Planning, Anglia Polytechnic University).
Costs (lunch, coffee and programme) £10 waged; £5 unwaged;
· To secure a place at the symposium/obtain further details contact Damian White, Dept of Sociology,
Goldsmiths College, University of London, New Cross, London [log in to unmask]
or
Chris Wilbert, Dept of Planning, Anglia Polytechnic University, Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford, Essex,
CM1 1SQ. [log in to unmask]
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