Lecture abstract:
“We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote, they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions”, a recent UN report states. But opportunistic use of normative disjunctures in time is only part of the story. How is (dis-)alignment between temporal, social, and moral orders done? And how do ‘we’ fail to connect across generations, spaces and times? As anthropogenic climate change and environmental destruction are making their monumental mark in the ‘deep time’ of geological earth history, ruinous collapse of large parts of the biosphere is made to happen in the lived temporal and normative orders of modernity, capitalism, and human time. People are notoriously bad at perceiving the ‘system-ness’ of their actions. However, not only are cities essential for a low carbon transformation, they are also spaces of hope where temporal and normative orders of mobilities enable an emerging sense of crisis and of change. In her talk, she uses praxeological reflections on the temporal organization of transport and traffic to explore the normative, prefigurative, performative momentum of changing mobilities and creative urbanism. ?
About the speaker:
Monika Büscher is Professor of Sociology, Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research and Associate Director for the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University. Her research explores the digital dimension of contemporary ‘mobile lives’ with a focus on digital ethics and disaster risk management. She combines qualitative, often ethnographic studies of everyday practices, social theory and design through mobile, experimental, 'inventive' engagement with industry and stakeholders. An analytical orientation to intersecting physical and virtual mobilities, blocked movements and immobilities of people, objects and information drives this work. She leads research on the informationalization of risk governance in a range of projects, isITethical? <http://www.isitethical.eu/> (2017-2018), SecInCoRe <http://www.secincore.eu/> (2014-2017), BRIDGE <http://www.bridgeproject.eu/en> (2011-2015). Monika received an honorary doctorate from Roskilde University, Denmark for her work on participatory design and ICT innovation. She edits the book series Changing Mobilities (Routledge) with Peter Adey.
About the seminar series Cities & Society:
As a growing majority of the planet's population live in urban landscapes, cities are increasingly identified by a wider variety of actors as the primary strategic ground for resolving some of the most pressing environmental, political, and social challenges of the 21st century. In this context, there is an urgent need to reexamine some of the basic categories and concepts used to define and decipher urban processes, and to more broadly pose the questions of what characterizes the urban today and what approaches that can help us to successfully generate new urban theory and knowledge. By inviting international expertise working at the frontiers of urban research, this seminar series seeks address these questions and support the development of a dynamic and robust research environment around contemporary urban issues at the University of Oslo.