Infrastructure for a social-ecological Transformation

Infrastructure for a social-ecological transformation
Seminar Bettina Köhler

FB06.155

Designing places to live is always synonymous with designing infrastructure. Interconnected infrastructures are a fundamental and often normalized component of societal processes within their respective political-economic contexts. They enable a variety of seemingly routine (urban) practices that often only gain renewed attention during moments of disruption and crisis. Consequently, societal debates about fundamental change are also conducted around the question of realigning infrastructures. From the perspective of "political ecology," infrastructures are not merely viewed as technical artifacts but as "socio-technical systems" that simultaneously express and mediate social-ecological processes and socio-spatially unequal conditions. Divergent societal interests are inscribed into these systems in historically and geographically specific contexts. This seminar aims to explore this relationship between infrastructure projects, political economy, and different conceptions of development and social-ecological transformation through selected conflict areas from various perspectives and at different spatial scales.
The goal of the seminar is to introduce selected conceptual approaches from urban and infrastructure research and to sharpen the understanding of key dynamics in current socio-ecological transformation processes through exemplary conflict areas in Kassel and globally. Methods include short presentations, group discussions, text discussions, written reflections, analysis of empirical examples, and the development of individual research topics.
 

Block seminar: The meetings will take place in 5 thematic blocks on Fridays between 13:45 and 19:00.

Teaching language: German

First date: Fri, Oct 27, 13:45.

Further dates: 17.11, 1.12, 15.12., 19.1.

Modules: A-1.1-31, C-1.1-30, D-1.1-30, D-1.1-31, S.1.0-04, S-1.0-05, A-2.1-31, D-2.1-31, D-2.1-30, S-2.0-04, S-2.0-05

Moodle link: https://moodle.uni-kassel.de/course/view.php?id=11028