CRESI Director to Speak at Cardiff University

‘Food, Energy, and the Sociogenesis of Climate Change’

Professor Mark Harvey, University of Essex

Tuesday 18th March 2014 – 5:30pm

Glamorgan Building Committee Rooms

Cardiff University, Wales

Hosted by the Innovation and Engagement Unit Abstract: The world faces historically unprecedented challenges, and so also do the social sciences. The generation of climate change needs to be understood much more in terms of how different societies and political economies have taken different strategic directions, driving or mitigating climate change in distinctive ways. We need to think ‘sociogenic’, rather than ‘anthropogenic’, climate change. Likewise, although some social sciences have long considered the interaction between political economies and the natural world with its finite resources (fossil fuel, land, water, and numerous minerals, for example) in limited ways, the 21st century demands a more holistic and integrated approach to the interaction between particular political economies, the environments where they are situated, and the natural resources to which they have access. This lecture will focus on the huge and widely underestimated risks of climate change arising from global developments of agriculture in meeting the need to feed a population of 9 billion with a changing demands and standards for food. It will hope to show how this is linked to the search for renewable energy, especially in a new competition for land. To illustrate the argument, the lecture will take the case of Brazil, to demonstrate the historical emergence of sustainability crises, and the interactions between a political economy and its natural environment, resource constraints and endowments.

See the event page to sign up. 

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CRESI-Affiliated ESRC Seminar Series: Spaces of Evidence

ESRC Seminar Series: The trial on trial. Evidence in interdisciplinary contexts.

We are pleased to announce the final programme for the launch event of the ESRC-funded Spaces of Evidence network, The trial on trial. Evidence in interdisciplinary contexts, on Friday March the 28th 2014 at the University of Essex. The programme can be downloaded here. The meeting is open to members of the public, but spaces are extremely limited. For further information, or to book a place, please write to Daniela Boraschi (programme coordinator) at evidence@essex.ac.uk.

Spaces of Evidence is a global network of scholars, practitioners and activists exploring the intersections of politics, measurement and evidence-based policy in health, development, economics, medicine and beyond. Dr Linsey McGoey, Co-Director of CRESI, serves as Spaces of Evidence’s Principal Investigator.

Europe’s approach to biofuels: The Road to Nowhere

Mark Harvey‘s research featured at a Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Biofuel seminar at the Royal Society on 22nd July 2010.

“Mark echoed what other speakers also noted that in order to deliver a transition to sustainable transport energy strong, long-term strategic political direction is required, together with strong state support and steering from basic science to commercialisation. ‘Market signals will not drive radical, comprehensive or urgent technological change,’ he added.” Read  more coverage of the seminar from the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).

From tomatoes via genomes to biofuels – by public road

This presentation, which was given at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent on March 18 2010 gives an overview of Mark’s work of the last decade, and its specific contribution to the development of the understanding of economic sociology and innovation. The presentation covers a wide range of research, picking out the main features, rather than going into great depth. There are detailed notes to each slide which can be viewed via the Slideshare version.

Diane Elson and the Casablanca Dreamers

CRESI’s Prof. Diane Elson‘s work featured recently in two panel sessions at the United Nations as part of the 54th Annual UN Commission on the Status of Women (March 1-12, 2010).

The first, “Vision for A Better World: From Economic Crisis to Equality” centred on the contributions of the Casablanca Dreamers, an international group of female activists and thinkers established in 2007 with the aim of empowering women in the developing world in order to help them overcome poverty.

Speaking to MediaGlobal, Diane who is a member of the Casablanca Dreamers criticised the response of many governments to the current economic crisis

‘Theory in the face of global challenges’

Centre for Theoretical Studies Roundtable

15th October

University of Essex, Colchester Campus: LTB 9. 1pm-3pm.

Professor Mark Harvey (Director of CRESI)

CRESI research features at ESRC Seminar

CRESI’s Dr Ben Anderson recently gave an overview of our research on developing small area estimates of income, household expenditure (consumption) and time-use at an ESRC Seminar.

Talk: Capitalism as multi-modal economic process: a neo-Polanyian approach

On June 17th CRESI’s Mark Harvey will be giving an Invited Lecture to the Centre for Globalisation and Governance, University of Hamburg.