In early summer 2020, Sverker Sörlin published the book “Kris! Från Estonia till Corona” (Crisis! From Estonia to Corona) on Bokförlaget Atlas. Here he puts the Corona pandemic as a crisis in a historical perspective along with other big crises in our society. He also shares his own experience from being ill with Corona. The publisher together with Sverker decided early on that the income of the book would go to scholarships for those who writes about crises. Last week the two reciepients of the scholarship was announced: Rasmus Landström, who will write a book about the hidden solutions to the climate crisis, and Ingrid Eckerman, Jan Stattin, and Karin Fridell Anter that will write about the refugee crisis, civil society and the rule of law. The two projects will recieve a total of 25 000 sek each.
“Rasmus Landström’s project Ustopi: The Hidden Ways of the Climate Crisis will result in an essay and a subsequent book. Rasmus is a literary scholar, critic and author of the critically acclaimed book Arbetarlitteraturens återkomst (2020). In his application, he writes that utopias are often criticized for “advocating over-planned model societies. That critique is based on a misunderstanding of utopia as a literary genre. But also that the concept of ‘planning’ is in such a state of disrepute today. The climate crisis shows an enormous need for democratic planning of the economy. That we expand the welfare sector to more parts of society and disconnect parts of the economic life from the market’s chaotic price signals. ” Ustopia is a combination of utopia and dystopia, coined by author Margaret Atwood.
Jan Stattin, Ingrid Eckerman and Karin Fridell Anter’s project Flyktingkrisen – Civilsamhället, rättssäkerheten och de unga flyktingarna 2015–2020 (The refugee crisis – Civil society, the rule of law and the young refugees 2015–2020) will result in a book. A historian, a doctor and an architect have chosen to come together to critically examine one of the crisis understandings that have characterized our time most deeply. In the application, they write that “refugee crisis” is a word that has been used extensively in debate and the mass media since 2015, but which is rarely given a more precise meaning. “We who are involved in the civilian work of civil society see the crisis of asylum seekers and our own, when we try our best to support people whose lives are being torn apart. We also see an ever deeper social crisis where the handling of refugees exposes major shortcomings in what is claimed to be legal certainty, and where the public debate is based on untruths that are never questioned,” the authors write further. Translation of the article: Intäkterna från Sverker Sörlins bok Kris räckte till två stipendier: Rasmus Landström ska skriva om klimatkrisens dolda utvägar. Ingrid Eckerman, Jan Stattin, och Karin Fridell Anter ska skriva om flyktingkrisen, civilsamhället och rättssäkerheten published in Arena Idé, February 2021.
“Water is everywhere in our economy, in nature and culture. Billions of years ago our planet had cooled down enough for the surrounding gas clouds to condense, fall down to Earth’s surface, and form the oceans. Everything started with water and water is still a precondition to all life. No wonder that World Economic Forum in 2016 listed water as the largest risk factor for sustained well-being on the planet.” https://www.kth.se/water/about
With the focus on water, one thing led to another a few years ago and in 2017 the WaterCentre was initiated at KTH Royal Institute of Technology – linked to our Division through center director David Nilsson, and research coordinator, Timos Karpouzoglou, both researchers with us. The Centre is a collaboration with a “mission to bring about water innovations for a sustainable future of the Earth”.
In line with their own motto “expect the unexpected”, the WaterCentre managed to sum up their four first year in a covid-19 safe conference last week. Read all about it in their blog, and visit their homepage for more news, research and other interesting pieces:
The WaterCentre@KTH has already existed for four years. Wow, time flies! To mark the ending of our first mandate period, we had decided to organise a water conference showcasing research, water inn…
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.
For colleagues with permanent jobs or research funding, consider to (also) buy the real and heavy book because its so nice!
The book provides well-written chapters on urban natures, their social lives, their vibrant matters, and their politics across a varied geography, from the global South to North. Bringing together ethnography and environmental history in a comparative gesture, the chapters are great to teach from as students can trust experienced scholars to unpack the multiplicity of urban nature in narrative form that is kept free from jargon. Let me know if you teach from it through my twitter handle @rhizomia (Henrik Ernstson).
Back cover of Grounding Urban Nature
Front cover of Grounding Urban Nature
The book Grounding Urban Natures unpacks the multiplicity of urban natures across a wide geography, from global South to North. It opens a space to re-think how we think urban environmental politics for the 21st century. Written by leading scholars it is divided in three sections: Unexpected Natures, Popular Natures, and Technological Natures, couched within an Introduction and Conclusion written by the editors Henrik Ernstson and Sverker Sörlin.
The chapters are made for teaching as they contain no jargon. They effectively open up urban natures from a multiple of perspectives, and bring case studies from across the world—from new emergent forms of urbanism of the global South, to re-worked cities in the global North. Students will have a wealth of experience to rely on as urban natures are shown to be shaped in sometimes unexpected ways through:
a multiplicity of agencies;
the role of historical changes, from colonisation to industrialisation;
the impact of race and class structures—but also social movements;
the circulation of ideas, from Confucianism to neoliberalism; and
the heavy hand of expert models and engineering standards.
Constructive review of urban ecology as an interdisciplinary field from especially the 1990s onward is given in the Introduction. The shear explosion of exciting thinking that have emerged and pushed the humanities and the social and natural sciences to regard urban nature very differently today than simply 20 years back. The Introduction includes debates and tensions between different perspectives from socio-natures, more-than-human, urban political ecology, and social-ecological systems theory (including resilience), which is paired with a close reading of how postcolonial and Southern urbanism, which has grown strongly in urban studies in the last 15 years, can help to open up a space to think urban nature from a wider lens, from a “world of cities” (1).
The chapters are written by leading scholars in the field. This includes chapters from one of the true founders to think cities as socio-natures, Ann Whiston Spirn who wrote The Granite Garden-classic in 1984 and here contributes an intimate chapter on teaching high school kids about landscape literacy in Philadelphia and theorising democratic practices; to Lindsay Sawyer’s chapter on Lagosian’s mode of building auto constructed real-estate; to Martín Ávila (with Henrik Ernstson) on infrastructures and scorpions and the problem of co-habitation in Córdoba, Argentina; how a huge engineering lock made a river disappear in New Orleans by Joshua Lewis; “alien” plant clearing in Chinese Dalian by Lisa M Hoffman; Amita Baviskar on parks, forests and couples falling in love in New Delhi; and how Chinese “eco-cities” is linked to massive dispossession of farmers from their land in China by Jia-Ching Chen; and several more chapters from Richard A. Walker, Lance van Sittert, Jens Lachmund and James Evans.
Chapters are placed between an Introduction and Conclusion that provides historical background and theory from an expanding field. These chapters opens up a space to re-think urban environments from new locations. With rapid urbanisation and radically new ways through which urban natures are shaped across global South and North, we cannot trust old models nor unreflectively reproduce global models such as “eco-cities,” “smart cities,” “resilience cities,” or a new “science of cities” without paying attention to how place matters. Through a critique of how global discourse tend to homogenise and universalise how we think about cities, the Introduction and Conclusion opens a space to re-think our urban environmental crisis.
This book provides a step to gather a more inclusive and generous practice for thinking and formulating urban environmental policy and activism in the Urban Age of the 21st century. Drawing on the strong resurgence of Southern and postcolonial perspectives in urban studies, we as editors argue for a “comparative urban environmentalism” to create this space of critique and dialogue. The Introduction argues for combining the “wild” libraries of urban socio-nature from the 1990s onward, with postcolonial or “Southern urbanism” from urban studies, to invigorate thinking while decentering the global North as the locus of thought. This opens the global phenomena of rapid urbanisation and environmental crisis to be theorised from more places and disciplines. In the tradition of William Cronon’s edited volume Uncommon Ground, a truly eclectic and somewhat boistorous collection of writers, our “Grounding-book” offers a strong contribution to urban ecology, to environmental humanities, to political ecology, and to environmental thought more generally.
Contributors: Martín Ávila, Amita Baviskar, Jia-Ching Chen, Henrik Ernstson, James Evans, Lisa M. Hoffman, Jens Lachmund, Joshua Lewis, Lindsay Sawyer, Anne Whiston Spirn, Lance van Sittert, Richard A. Walker.
Editors: Henrik Ernstson and Sverker Sörlin.
(1) The expression is taken from Jennifer Robinson, a founding and generous sister of Southern urbanism. More on that in the Introduction.
*Reprinted with permission from http://www.situatedecologies.net/archives/2225
This was a summer to remember! Swedes are normally not spoilt with sunshine and we know how to complain about too much rain and too many mosquitoes. But this year most of us got more than we bargai…
