3rd Meeting of the Study Group ‘Energy Materiality: Infrastructure, Spatiality and Power’

This week Professor Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen is taking part in the 3rd Meeting of the Study Group ‘Energy Materiality: Infrastructure, Spatiality and Power’ under Professor’s Margarita Balmaceda leadership. The meeting is organised at Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (HWK), Institute for Advanced Study, in Delmenhorst – one of the world-renowned Institutes for Advanced Study.

How do issues related to energy materiality (ie. the physical characteristics of different types of energy) affect the social implications of the use of different types of energy? How do the spatial aspects of the production/transformation/transit and use of each energy type affect the equation? Current research on energy materiality has largely neglected the spatial implications of reliance on various energy sources. Building on previous work on Science, Technology and Society (STS), this Study Group aims to bring together political scientists, geographers, anthropologists and specialists in Innovation Studies to rethink the impact of energy materiality, both fossil and renewables, on power relations as it takes place through issues of infrastructure and its related spatial impacts.

The main outcome of the study group will be a special issue of a journal on “Energy materiality: Infrastructure, Spatiality and Power.” In addition, individual or co-authored publications are expected on sub-areas of the SG interest, such as the impact of energy infrastructure on political power relations, and the impact of energy materiality on the role of producing, transit, processing and consumer areas.

More information is available online here.