#4.1 w/ Alf Hornborg: Machine Fetishism & Global Magic

Recent years have seen a spike in interest from multinational investors in rural Ireland's rich wind resources, which are increasingly being harvested to power the growing number of data centers proliferating in suburban landscapes across the island. In this episode we situate this seemingly ceaseless growth of wind/data within the long sweep of Irish history, concluding with a discussion of environmental politics in the country today. Our guests are Patrick Brodie, a postdoctoral researcher in media studies at McGill University in Montreal, and Patrick Bresnihan, a geography lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Music by: Gaetano Fiorin (https://soundcloud.com/gaetanofiorin) Produced by: William Westgard-CruiceArtwork by: William Westgard-CruicePhoto credit: Les de Hamer (https://unsplash.com/@ldehamer51)

The Corona Virus pandemic is exposing the gross inadequacies and failures of the food system in even the most prosperous countries.The crumbling facade of a highly-subsidized (and highly exploitative) industrial system leaves us with no other option than facing head on the crises of social, mental, and environmental subsistence.In this episode we explore the notion of 'commoning' and the necessity of a reinvention of social organisation in face of collapse. Our guest Tomaso Ferrando is a tenure track docent in the Faculty of Law at Antwerp University (Belgium).Music by: Gaetano Fiorin (https://soundcloud.com/gaetanofiorin)Produced by: Lukas PeterArtwork by: Lukas Peter(using a photo of https://unsplash.com/@44degreesnorth)

Confronted by the many heads of the hydra that is the present ecological crisis - climate change, global inequality, reactionary politics etc. - technological solutions have come to occupy center stage in a scramble for 'fixes' oscillating between euphoria and desperation. With the polarization of 'believing in' or 'denying' technological progress, there appears to be little space left for contestations of dominant notions of what will deliver us from encroaching devastation of the environmental, social and mental ecologies.In this second part of our interview with Alf Hornborg, we discuss a different orientation towards the crisis of the global metabolism. Instead of obsessively chopping off each head of the beast with a 'technological fix' only to discover two more to have grown in its place, Alf urges us to focus on the chief facilitator at the root of exhausted natural and social habitats: general purpose money. His provocative suggestion for counteracting such a generalized depletion of our lifeworlds is the introduction of an alternative currency which would not only reduce carbon emissions and other forms of environmental destruction but could reinvigorate communities and local economies. Alf Hornborg is Professor at the University of Lund (Sweden) and coordinates their Human Ecology Division.In his wide ranging academic work, he has developed an intruiging critique of the common notion of 'technology'. Strongly influenced by World Systems Theory, he points out the widespread neglect of systemic inequalities of the global economic system as the conditions for so called 'technological progress'. From Alf Hornborg's interdisciplinary approach emerges a whole series of provocations on themes such as 'alternative currencies', the local/global entanglement, the connections between poverty and ecological devastation, and many more. His work has found much resonance beyond the field of Anthropology, including Ecological Economics and Science and Technology Studies (STS)This is part 2 of our conversation with Alf HornborgMusic by: Gaetano Fiorin (https://soundcloud.com/gaetanofiorin)Produced by: Lukas PeterArtwork by: Lukas Peter(using a photo of https://unsplash.com/@nasa)

Will technological progress deliver us from the crises of climate change and global poverty? Our guest Alf Hornborg levels some troubling challenges to the supposed 'factuality' and 'rationality' of such notions. In our conversation we find out that washing machines actually perform magic and that the notion of technological progress keeps us from devising genuinely emancipatory approaches to the ecological crisis. Alf Hornborg is Professor at the University of Lund (Sweden) and coordinates their Human Ecology Division.In his wide ranging academic work, he has developed an intruiging critique of the common notion of 'technology'. Strongly influenced by World Systems Theory, he points out the widespread neglect of systemic inequalities of the global economic system as the conditions for so called 'technological progress'. From Alf Hornborg's interdisciplinary approach emerges a whole series of provocations on themes such as 'alternative currencies', the local/global entanglement, the connections between poverty and ecological devastation, and many more. His work has found much resonance beyond the field of Anthropology, including Ecological Economics and Science and Technology Studies (STS)This is part 1 of our conversation with Alf Hornborg Music by: Gaetano Fiorin (https://soundcloud.com/gaetanofiorin)Produced by: Lukas PeterArtwork by: Lukas Peter(using a photo of https://unsplash.com/@agzed)

Energy efficiency, this hallmark of efforts to 'build sustainably', has in recent years increasingly given way to a new obsession with 'human friendly environments'. Around the notions of 'health' and 'well-being' the meaning of a 'green transition' is slowly shifting. Workplaces are increasingly geared towards 'optimizing human performance'.This is the second part of our exploration of 'ecological modernisation' with James Sheldon. Music by: Gaetano Fiorin (https://soundcloud.com/gaetanofiorin)Produced by: Lukas PeterArtwork by: Lukas Peter(using a photo of https://unsplash.com/@sarahdorweiler)

The financial deregulation beginning in the 1980s has had profound effects on our work spaces and urban environments. James Sheldon shows us the fascinating connections between the emergence of office buildings, the rise of Canary Wharf and the geographical reorganisation of London around the financial sector, and the development of sustainability ratings by private developers. This is part 1 of a 2-part exploration of 'ecological modernisation' and the increasingly widespread notion of a 'green transition' as a panacea to the many crises of a struggling economic and social system. Music by: Gaetano Fiorin (https://soundcloud.com/gaetanofiorin)Produced by: Lukas PeterArtwork by: Lukas Peter(using a photo of https://unsplash.com/@kate_sade)

Emily Reisman is a human-environment geographer and Assistant Professor in the Department of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo (New York). Her research on the almond industry reveals the importance of producing ever new meanings and identities around this unassuming nut in order to avert crises of overproduction. From patriotic attitudes to heart health and the limitlessness of a 'superfood,' a whole series of subjective models have been mobilized over the last century to expand the space of almonds in both our stomachs and our minds.Music by: Gaetano Fiorin (https://soundcloud.com/gaetanofiorin)

Emanuele Amo is a PhD researcher in geography at Aberystwyth University in Wales. His research focuses on the Slow Food movement, a worldwide organization based in his home region of Piedmont. In this inaugural episode, we traced the movement from its origins in 1980s Italy through to the present day. Along the way, we explored what an analysis of the Slow Food movement can teach us about tradition, cultural transformation, and commodification in a globalizing world. Music by: Gaetano Fiorin (https://soundcloud.com/gaetanofiorin)Produced by: Lukas PeterArtwork by: Lukas Peter