A reminder that the 3rd Annual Bassett Lecture is taking place this
Thursday (18th) October at 4pm at University of Bristol's School of
Geographical Sciences (Peel Lecture Theatre)
The School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol is proud
to host the 2012 Bassett Lecture. This year's presenter is Prof. Erik
Swyngedouw from the University of Manchester.
Prof. Swyngedouw will present under the title: “Not a Drop of Water
…..!” From Manufacturing Rivers to Desalting the
Seas:Contested Hydro-Modernities in Spain
18 October 2012, 4 pm, Peel Lecture Theatre, School of Geographical Sciences,
All Welcome!
Abstract:
The lecture explores the relationship between modernization,
socio-environmental change and the choreographies of social and political
power. The contested political-ecological process that marked the
transformation of Spain’s hydro-social landscapes during the 20th
century and into the new century will be the entry through which a wider
set of issues will be explored. Modernization was and is a decidedly
geographical project and is expressed in and through the intense
socio-environmental transformation of Spain, both internally and in terms
of its wider geo-political relations. This transformation is one in which
water and the waterscape play a pivotal role. The broader intellectual
objectives behind the articulation of the transformation of Spain’s
hydro-social landscape between 1898 and 2008 are: 1) to explore how
diverse political projects, social visions, ecological sensitivities,
socio-cultural imaginaries, discursive formations, institutional
arrangements, economic interests and strategies, and engineering
technologies fuse together in particular environmental practices and
hydro-technical infrastructures; 2) to document how human and non-human
‘actants’ become enrolled in this historical-geographical
process of multi-scalar assembling; 3) to analyze the political ecological
processes through which particular socio-technical configurations come
into being, are stabilized, transformed, and ultimately replaced by other
socio-technical assemblages; and 4) to tease out the implications of this
reading for contemporary environmental politics.
Biography:
Erik Swyngedouw is Professor of Human Geography in the School of
Environment and Development at the University of Manchester. His research
interests include political-ecology, urban governance, democracy and
political power, water and water resources, the political-economy of
capitalist societies, and the politics of globalisation. Recent books
include Urbanising Globalisation (co-edited, OUP 2003), Social Power and
the Urbanisation of Water – Flows of Power (OUP 2004), and From
Manufacturing Rivers to Desalting the Seas (MIT Press, forthcoming).
The Bassett Lecture is held every year in honour of Dr. Keith Bassett, a
critical geographer and long-time Senior Lecturer in the School of
Geographical Sciences. Although formally retired, Dr. Bassett continues to
write, teach, and contribute to the intellectual life of the School and
University. The lecture series recognizes Dr. Bassett's work and
contributions in the fields of social and geographical theory, critical
geographies of political economy, urbanism, social movements and social
justice, political ecology, and critical socio-legal studies. The 2011
Bassett Lecture was presented by Prof. Melissa Wright (Penn State).
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