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Permanent associate professor in climate and energy transformation

A permanent position as associate professor of political science/public policy within climate and energy transformation in Bergen, Norway.

The position is with Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation, and hosted by the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen. It requires a PhD in political science, public policy or other social sciences with relevance for the Department. Energy geographers who have sufficiently strong background in this realm may qualify.


Associate professor at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory within climate and energy transformation

We welcome you to apply for a full-time permanent tenured position as Associate Professor at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, within the field of climate and energy transformation. The Department of Administration and Organization Theory hosts the position, in collaboration with the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET). The position will contribute to strengthening research, education and project development at the Department and CET within climate and energy transformation, which is a priority area at the University of Bergen.

The Department of Administration and Organization Theory<https://www.uib.no/en/admorg> combines political science with an organizational approach to public policy, public administration, and political institutions.

The Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET)<https://www.uib.no/en/cet> is an interdisciplinary research centre aiming at producing actionable knowledge about how to achieve deep, rapid and sustainable transformation of society to meet the climate challenge.

Applicants are advised to consult and make themselves familiar with the teaching and research profile of the department as well as CET. Please see: http://www.uib.no/admorgandhttps://www.uib.no/en/cet.

We seek a dedicated candidate with collaborative skills to engage in research, supervision and teaching at the Department and CET. Personal aptitude will be important for the position. Among the qualifications we seek are:


 *   A Ph.D. in political science, public administration or other social sciences, with relevance for the Department’s profile.
 *   A strong academic background and documented expertise within the profile of the Department and with a documented specialization within the field of climate change, energy transition and/or societal transformation. This implies a demonstrated ability to publish research at a high international level beyond the PhD dissertation.

Application deadline: 15 September, 2019. Please find more information about the position at Jobbnorge: https://bit.ly/2LwxOnO

Anthropology in a time of climate change: theoretical questions, productive problems

Call for Papers: AAA/CASCA Annual Meeting 2019

Organizers: Julianne Yip, Adam Fleischmann

 

Climate change produces problems for anthropology. Like other global phenomena, its scale is both difficult to comprehend and challenging for the immediate methods of anthropology. Insofar as climate change is anthropogenic (human-made), humans–or, rather, certain forms of human existence–have become a geological force at the planetary level. How can humans, as anthropology ethave claimed, be both cultural beings (more-than-mere-nature) bound to place, yet a global geological force of “nature”? Anthropologists have begun to consider the demands climate change makes with regard to our grounding concepts, politics, methodologies, and how we understand ourselves and our discipline. This panel gathers these conversations to reflect on the theoretical questions climate change poses for anthropology.

Climate change is a productive problem. We cannot experience global climate change in itself, only its effects, mediated. Further, global anthropogenic climate change is only knowable through a vast assemblage of people, practices, processes, things and institutions. How does this shape the sites and methods of anthropological research? To what extent does climate change render visible the organizing principles of our discipline? How does it provoke us to question the epistemic figures of culture (nature), society, the subject, agency, the human/Man, time, history, etc.? These questions are also relevant in light of the unequally and inequitably distributed causes and effects of climate change across time and space. How do theoretical problems raised by climate change situate anthropologists vis-a-vis their relationships with interlocutors, other ethical or political commitments, or anthropology’s historical, colonial origins?

We encourage submissions that explore how climate change challenges (or not) the discipline’s theoretical assumptions in your research.

 

Please send 250-word abstracts and titles to the organizers,

adam.fleischmann@mail.mcgill.ca and jcyip@mit.edu, by 27 March 2019.

 

New Challenges of Sustainable Energy Transformations? Ambiguity, Contingency, and Politics

Abstract
Recently, social science literature is particularly concerned with implementation processes of sustainable energy transformations. The crucial question is how to analyze these complex processes adequately in order to provide answers on urgent questions like successful governance of energy transformation processes [1–4], appropriate policies and political conditions [5,6], or how long the transformation process will take [7], or how much it will cost [8]. These scientific disputes reveal the need to consider carefully socio-institutional processes in which sustainable energy transformations are embedded. In an age of populism, post-truth politics, and contestation the social-institutional environment is in turbulence. At the same time, countries all over the world but especially those from the Global South are facing climate change deteriorating living and production conditions and bringing about economic damage. We call for Panels and Papers analyzing challenges of sustainable energy transformations as well as the impact of these challenges on sustainable energy transformation processes. The overarching aim of the Section is for all Panels to draw together conceptual expertise and rigorous empirical analysis in order to explore if and how changes of the socio-institutional environment affect sustainable energy transformation processes or if and why these processes are resilient.

The following colleagues have expressed their interest in organizing a Panel within this Section:

“Climate and energy policy revisions in Europe”
(Chairs: Merethe Dotterud Leiren, CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway/ Elin Lerum Boasson, University of Oslo, Norway)
Extensive revisions of EU climate and energy policy is going on. To what extent has the Paris agreement influenced such EU revisions? What are the effects on the development of national renewable energy policies embedded in a European order? How does policy development at the global and European level affect national policies in different or similar ways?

“Energy transition(s) in the countries of central and eastern Europe”
(Chair: Filip Černoch, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic)
The environmental goals of the European Union reflect the growing consensus on the necessity to limit the energy usage of coal, oil, and natural gas in order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases significantly. In this Panel the case studies of energy sector transformation processes from the CEE region are provided, shedding some light on how the low-carbon technologies breaks through to the conventional energy systems, changing the way the energy is handled in this area.

“Sustaining and entrenching energy transitions. The challenge of sector coupling and sector integration”
(Chair: Jörg Kemmerzell, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany)
Sector coupling (i.e. interconnection of electricity, heat, and transport & mobility) represents a specifically intricate challenge for the prospective governance of energy transitions. Sector coupling causes specific problems of sectoral integration, since it requires the conjunction of different policy arenas constituted by different actors, institutions and logics. The Panel invites empirical case studies and comparative analyses that describe the various ways of dealing with the challenge and provide an insight into both country-specific and general perspectives on the issue.

“Political and social divisions over the energy issue”
(Chairs: Lorenz Kammermann, Eawag, Switzerland/Clau Dermont, University of Bern, Switzerland)
Political parties, interest groups as well as ordinary citizens play a central role in regulating and implementing more sustainable energy production and consumption. We are interested in factors that drive these actors’ attitudes towards the transformation of the energy system. We welcome contributions that illustrate (e.g.) the effects of beliefs and values, party heuristics, regional and social affiliations on policy-making and implementation and/or how they vary among actors.

“The social acceptance of energy and climate policy: cultural and economic explanations”
(Chair: Tomas Maltby, King’s College London, United Kingdom)
The objective of this Panel is to bring together research that explains the role that social acceptance (and the lack of) plays in facilitating/undermining energy transitions, including work conceptualising the link between populism and climate scepticism and exploring the role that scientific experts have on public opinion towards climate and energy policy.

“Energy transition and the social question: Conflicts, participation and populist forces. Does the idea of sustainability threaten to be lost in the whirlpool of events?“
(Chairs: Jörg Radtke, University of Siegen, Germany/ Stefan Wurster, Technical University Munich, Germany)
While the solution of the climate change problem is urgently required, the energy transition in some welfare nations is being put under increasing pressure by social, political and economic counter-movements. The planned Panel will examine the following questions in more detail: At local level, which examples of concrete conflict situations based on social inequality can be found? At national level, where can we prove that contrary situations lead to standstill and paralysis? At international/regional level, where can we point out that international and supranational efforts are failing?

References
[1] Miller CA, Richter J, O’Leary J. Socio-energy systems design: A policy framework for energy transitions. Energy Research & Social Science 2015; 6:29–40.
[2] Nance MT, Boettcher WA. Conflict, cooperation, and change in the politics of energy interdependence: An introduction. Energy Research & Social Science 2017; 24:1–5.
[3] Geels FW, Berkhout F, van Vuuren DP. Bridging analytical approaches for low-carbon transitions. Nature Climate change 2016;6(6):576–83.
[4] Turnheim B, Berkhout F, Geels F, Hof A, McMeekin A, Nykvist B et al. Evaluating sustainability transitions pathways: Bridging analytical approaches to address governance challenges. Global Environmental Change 2015; 35:239–53.
[5] Hess DJ, Brown KP. Green tea: Clean-energy conservatism as a countermovement. Environmental Sociology 2016; 3(1):64–75.
[6] Paramati SR, Apergis N, Ummalla M. Financing clean energy projects through domestic and foreign capital: The role of political cooperation among the EU, the G20 and OECD countries. Energy Economics 2017; 61:62–71.
[7] Sovacool BK. How long will it take?: Conceptualizing the temporal dynamics of energy transitions. Energy Research & Social Science 2016; 13:202–15.
[8] Sovacool BK, Geels FW. Further reflections on the temporality of energy transitions: A response to critics. Energy Research & Social Science 2016; 22:232–7.

“Energy without Conscience” : free course book (open access)

Energy without Conscience is now effectively a free course book.

Duke U Press has made a special deal to provide this book and a few others as open access.  In the spirit of Copy Left and Creative Commons, you may download and share the PDF from this link:

http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=625276

 


Author(s) Hughes, David McDermott
Publisher Duke University Press, Durham NC
Published 20170301
Subjects HumanitiesHistoryRegional and national history__History of the Americas
Abstract
‘In Energy without Conscience’ David McDermott Hughes investigates why climate change has yet to be seen as a moral issue. He examines the forces that render the use of fossil fuels ordinary and therefore exempt from ethical evaluation. Hughes centers his analysis on Trinidad and Tobago, which is the world’s oldest petro-state, having drilled the first continuously producing oil well in 1866. Marrying historical research with interviews with Trinidadian petroleum scientists, policymakers, technicians, and managers, he draws parallels between Trinidad’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century slave labor energy economy and its contemporary oil industry. Hughes shows how both forms of energy rely upon a complicity that absolves producers and consumers from acknowledging the immoral nature of each. He passionately argues that like slavery, producing oil is a moral choice and that oil is at its most dangerous when it is accepted as an ordinary part of everyday life.

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Keywords History
Language English
ISBN 9780822363064