Streaming STREAMS: Join the conversation on August 5–7

, 2020-07-27

By Johan Gärdebo and Roberta Biasillo

On August 5–7, we host Streaming STREAMS – a series of online conversations and presentations about the Environmental Humanities (EH). These sessions will function as an introductory event for the upcoming STREAMS-conference (Stockholm, August 3–7, 2021).

The three-day event has the ambition to initiate conversations to be continued, open a space for many other contributions to be hosted during this next months, build a community of academics, artists and activists addressing the environmental crisis to be gathered in real life.

Our Programme

We took up the challenge of envisioning diverse and easy-to-follow formats and adjusting academic and less academic contents to the WWW and we came up with a manifold programme consisting of three sessions per day.

Each day begins with an interview between an early career and a distinguished scholar exploring specific realms of expertise within the EH, namely postcolonial studies, ecocriticism and environmental justice. Then, a hands-on roundtable will give a taste of the selected panels for the conference and present innovative approaches and themes in use. Finally, we will dedicate the conclusive daily session to a self-reflexive and inclusive forum discussion in which an invited speaker will share her/his/their experience in facing every-day scholarly challenges.

On August 5 we will meet Dipesh Chakrabarty, historian and professor at the University of Chicago. Moving from his wide-ranging scholarship, the interview will explore crucial conceptual knots of the EH and will pay particular attention to potential future developments of the field.

The stream Approaching Time-Things will put the question of time at the forefront, both as analytical lens and object of inquiry: “is time that hard to grasp?” Finally, the forum discussion with Greta Gaard, ecofeminist scholar, will explore narratives of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

On August 6, James Ogude, literary scholar and Director at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship (Pretoria), will join us for an interview on “Ubuntu and the Principle of Co-Agency in African Ecology”.

The stream Feminist Posthumanities will present their trailer “The Posthumanities Hub, submerged at ART LAB GNESTA”.

Our forum discussion will engage with publication venues. Together with Dolly Jørgensen, historian of the environment and technology and co-editor of the open-access journal Environmental Humanities, we will see how journals are part of remaking scholarly fields.

On August 7 Julie Sze, professor of American Studies at the University of California (Davis), will speak about the topic of her most recent book “Environmental Justice in a moment of danger”.

The stream Environmental History of Migration will host a roundtable discussion on “Environments of Italian diaspora”.

Our concluding forum discussion on making academia sustainable will have as guest speakers historian Kathleen Brosnan and political ecologist Felipe Milanez. They will address a variety of challenges under the umbrella of sustainability.

To join for the live sessions and updates on these and upcoming STREAMS-events, register here.

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Full programme for Streaming STREAMS, 5–7 August, 2020.

Follow STREAMS on social media (Facebook and Twitter).

STREAMS is an international conference for the Environmental Humanities (EH) that gathers researchers from a wide range of academic disciplines as well as artists, activists and practitioners. EH has grown considerably during the last decade and STREAMS seeks to offer a space in which this experimental and dynamic field can meet, discuss and set out future directions for thinking and acting amidst the ongoing ecological disaster.

STREAMS is hosted by the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory (EHL).

Conveners, organisers and participants to STREAMS remain committed to inclusivity with regard to race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression and identity, sexual orientation, and physical abilities in terms topics discussed at their conference.

The Politics of Nuclear Waste: An Interview with Andrei Stsiapanau*

, 2020-05-19

by Alicia Gutting, PhD student

Nuclear energy is a highly debated field and depending on the societal context usually either embraced or fully rejected. From an outsider position it sometimes seems as if there was no in between: you are either pro- or anti-nuclear. This does not solely apply to times of active nuclear energy generation, but it also affects the future and finding solutions for safe storage of nuclear waste. In today’s interview with Andrei Stsiapanau we will hear more about the nuclear debate in the former Soviet Union. Andrei is a guest in our Nuclearwaters project since January 2020 and he is a scholarship holder of the Swedish Institute Visby Scholarship Program for Senior Researchers. He researches how nuclear energy is being socially and politically debated in Russia, Belarus and Lithuania and he is especially interested in the politics of nuclear waste in Russia, Lithuania and Sweden.

Alicia Gutting: Andrei, could you please let us know what you have been working on in the past months?

Andrei Stsiapanau: During the last months I have been working on the nuclear waste management issues in Russia as well as in Lithuania and Sweden. When more and more nuclear facilities throughout the world enter the stage of decommissioning, it is becoming particularly urgent to find sustainable solutions to the issue of nuclear waste. The list of possible technical solutions for spent nuclear fuel and other types of waste include deep geological disposal after reprocessing (favoured in France, Japan, and UK); direct deep geological disposal (favoured in Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Germany, USA and Czech Republic); surface long-term storage (favoured in the Netherlands, Italy and Spain). Each of these solutions translates into different ways on how to communicate, classify and govern nuclear waste in a particular country.

My research is focusing on how nuclear waste issues are communicated in various techno-political contexts. While studying how nuclear waste issues are being negotiated with communities in Russia, I discovered that natural resources like clay are used within nuclear waste discourses to mitigate the risk of potential radioactive contamination. It was my starting point to investigate how natural resources are used in various discourses about nuclear waste to make it less dangerous and harmful for people and environments. In the cases of Lithuania and Sweden, I am investigating how, through awareness and information campaigns, risks associated with nuclear waste are mediated and mitigated to transform the hazardous nuclear objects into manageable waste.

AG: What role does clay play?

AS: According to numerous researches on the role of the natural barrier in the nuclear waste disposal system, clay as well as crystalline rock are considered as a retardation medium for radionuclides migration. The multi barrier protection within nuclear waste technology illustrates how natural barriers or the geology of the disposal site will retard or mediate for both fluid flow and radionuclides migration in case of the engineering layer decay. This kind of technical vision of the disposal process promotes the natural protection layer as a reliable tool for absorption and immobilization of radioactivity. Geological and chemical studies of clay rock in various sites in the United States, France, Belgium, Canada and Russia show that clay has a number of absorption properties valuable for immobilization of the radioactive elements in the geomedia in case of the technical barrier decay. Thus, clay has become employed as a part of the nuclear waste management process. It represents a tool for absorption, immobilization and confinement of radioactivity. Including clay in the whole process of the nuclear decommission and decontamination makes it possible to reconsider the role of natural resources and materials in nuclear waste technologies and multi-barrier protection discourses.

AG: Are there differences in the Swedish and the Lithuanian (political) approach?

AS: Nuclear waste management systems in Sweden and Lithuania are developing in the context of decommissioning and nuclear phase out but following different trajectories and guidelines. The final repository for short-lived radioactive waste located at Forsmark in the municipality of Östhammar started operating in 1988. Lithuania is only now entering the phase of the construction of the landfill repositories for low and medium radioactive waste, and the construction of the geological disposal is programmed for after 2045. The Swedish approach represents an advanced example of nuclear waste management, based on the long-term experience of scientific research, transparent decision-making and continued reliance on public opinion and participation. Some connections in sharing nuclear waste management technology and experience exist between these two Baltic Sea countries. The Swedish nuclear waste authority, SKB, has been involved in the assessment of the existing nuclear waste facilities at the Ignalina NPP site in Lithuania since the 1990s. Swedish nuclear research and governance institutions continue to contribute to the transfer of knowledge and expertise in nuclear waste management taking part in numerous joint international research projects (BEACON; EURAD).

AG: What role does environmentalism play in the debate?

AS: As the two countries are at different stages of implementation of nuclear waste programs, it illustrates different levels of public engagement in the site selection process and environmental impact assessment of the radioactive waste disposals. In Sweden environmental issues are at the core of the public debate and concerns about the nuclear waste management program and are involving various actors, from local communities to International NGOs and leading national media outlets. In Lithuania environmental issues are less questioned, site selection is not contested and public participation is limited to local communities of the nuclear site with scarce media coverage. I suppose this situation will change with the start of a public discussion about the site selection for geological disposal of high radioactive waste and SNF and its environmental impact assessment. This debate will expand nuclear waste issues to the national scale. Considering environmentalism not only as participatory but also as scholarly concern, at the moment there are relatively few studies in environmental humanities and history about the uses of the natural resources in nuclear waste confinement and its impact on social and natural landscapes.

AG: Do people in the two countries differ in their risk perception?

AS: Different levels of public engagement in the nuclear decision-making illustrates different public opinion dynamics as well as public perception of nuclear risks. In Sweden due to the nuclear phase-out decision in 1980 and to the high impact of environmental movements, critical voices are prevailing the publicity concerning nuclear waste. In Lithuania the nuclear energy use became public only in the 1990s after the reestablishment of the independence and were associated mostly with Chernobyl disaster risks and anti-communist, sovereignty claims. During the transition period, the use of nuclear energy was considered as necessary for the economic and social developments of the country; political personnel, nuclear engineers and Lithuanian citizens embraced the energy produced by the Ignalina NPP as a national resource. The referendums about nuclear energy uses in Lithuania in 2008 and 2012 after the start of the decommissioning of the Ignalina NPP showed a rather radical change from pro- to anti-nuclear attitudes challenging the plan to construct a new NPP in the country.

*This interview originally appeared on the Nuclear Waters project website.

Report: Dying at the Margins Workshop

, 2019-12-02

by Jesse D. Peterson and Natashe Demos-Lekker

On September 26-27, the Environmental Humanities Laboratory—along with the Division of History of Science, Technology, and Environment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology—hosted the Dying at the Margins Workshop. Put together by PhD students Jesse D. Peterson (KTH) and Natashe Lemos Dekker (University of Amsterdam), this workshop brought together scholars at various stages of their career and from various backgrounds and disciplines to discuss how contemporary perspectives in environmental humanities and the medical humanities might further research on how dying “bodies”—animal (including human), plant, thing, place—challenge natural, normative, and notions of a “good” death. The workshop had two keynote presentations, along with discussions of participant papers and a creative embroidery workshop.

On the first day, Dr. Philip R. Olson (Virginia Tech) presented his work on bodily disposition. Beginning with Roy Scranton’s premise in Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene, he posed the question as to how might the demise of culture impact body care? If the Anthropocene is largely a problem of scale, what challenges and opportunities will face the disposition of human bodies now and into the future? Looking specifically into the practice of “natural organic reduction” (essentially composting human bodies) alongside other disposition technologies—such as alkaline hydrolosis, burial pods, green burial, submersible reef balls, and promession—Olson articulated how these alternative forms of disposition claim to be more environmentally friendly than burial or cremation as well as gentle forms of body recycling. Yet, as he pointed out, individualist norms “die hard,” that is, although a stunning array of new technologies have challenged the social and cultural norms of disposing of a corpse, many end users don’t want to see their loved ones transformed by some kinds of ecological relationships or contaminated by the technologies that process multiple bodies. For instance, what critters and creatures are allowed access to corpses or how do people negotiate the possibility for bodies to be passive rather than active forms of nourishment? As a conclusion, Olson suggested that these issues lead us to consider what kind of species ought we to be, asking us what are the moral virtues to be cultivated and moral vices to shun. He argued that humans not only need a species centered history but a species focused virtue ethics.

The second day, Dr. Marietta Radomska (University of Helsinki and Linköping University) spoke to us about the need for “queering” death studies. Responding to calls in queer theory and posthumanism that challenge normative conceptions of the human subject, a queer death studies ought to help reconfigure notions of death and practices related to it that have relied upon such conceptions. In other words, by challenging basic assumptions about dying and death, queering death can lead to producing alternative imaginaries about dying, death, and the dead beyond gender and sexuality. It also provides the means for moving away from “normative ontologies”

Marietta Radomska presents Queer Death Studies

Participants were also treated to an embroidery workshop led by Karina Jarrett (Broderiakademi), who stitched together ways in which fine arts feature in memorial, memory, and creative response to loss and grief. Having been working with residents of Malmberget, a town in northern Sweden currently being dismantled and “moved” to allow for the expansion of the local mine (LKAB malmberget), Jarrett curated a personal exhibition and provided the participants with time to express themselves by embroidering a friendship card. The experience highlighted how there is still very much to be done when facing loss even when there feels like there is nothing left that one can do.

Workshop participants practice their stitching.

Thanks to all the participants for their attendance, energy, and enthusiasm.

SCAR visitor at the Division

Sofia Jonsson , 2018-04-25

Hanne Nielsen, from the University of Tasmania (Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies), is currently visiting our Division on a four-month Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) fellowship.

Whilst in Sweden, Hanne is working on a project entitled “Framing Antarctica as Fragile: Tracing the evolution of media narratives about the far south (1945 – 2015).” This project complements her recent PhD work at the University of Tasmania (between English and IMAS), where Hanne examined representations of Antarctica in advertising media (“Selling the land of extremes“).

The aim of the SCAR Fellowship programme is to encourage the active involvement of early career researchers in Antarctic projects, and to strengthen international capacity and cooperation in Antarctic research. 56 SCAR Fellowships have been awarded since the programme’s inception, but this is the first time a SCAR Fellowship has been awarded to a researcher from the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS). Hanne notes that KTH is an internationally renowned hub for Antarctic humanities and social sciences work, making it the ideal location to undertake such a project. She is looking forward to forging closer connections between researchers in Scandinavia and in Australia/New Zealand.

Hanne is the current President of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), and the early career representative on the SCAR Humanities and Social Sciences Expert Group (HASSEG) Executive Committee. She will be visiting KTH until mid July 2018.

Goodbye Giacomo!

Sofia Jonsson , 2017-12-12

Last day at the Divison! We will miss you Giacomo.

On December 1 we said goodbye to our fellow guest researcher Giacomo Bonan who has been working with the EHL on a C.M Lerici visiting scholarship during the fall. Giacomo’s expertise is the Alps, and together with Stefano Morosini (who is a visitor within the same scholarship) he held the brown bag seminar “Mountains and Mountaineering in the Alpine Space between XIX and XX Century – Two Environmental Humanities Case-Studies” in late November this year.

If you are interested in the research Giacomo is doing you can read his publications and follow his profile on Academia.net

This was Giacomo’s second visit at the Divsion, and even though he got a position back in Italy, we certainly hope that he will be back to visit us soon again. Not just because we got to drink wine on the day that he left, but mostly because he has become a dear colleague to many of us.

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Streaming STREAMS: Join the conversation on August 5–7

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The Politics of Nuclear Waste: An Interview with Andrei Stsiapanau*

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Report: Dying at the Margins Workshop

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SCAR visitor at the Division

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Goodbye Giacomo!

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