New SCI blog on the challenges, strategies & opportunities of (re-)making infrastructures in the face of the climate crisis

Mair Perkins illustration

The aim of the workshop was to bring together academics from diverse backgrounds to collaborate and focus on different infrastructures in the UK and beyond. By discussing how existing infrastructures shape our responses to the climate crisis and in which ways these could be "re-made" ideas for future research avenues were uncovered.

On the 30th of June 2022, Torik Holmes, from the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI), Carla De Laurentis and Rebecca Windemer (both from the University of the West of England) hosted an in-person workshop on infrastructures and climate emergencies. The event drew together thirty-six researchers, with academic homes in the UK, Europe, South Africa and Australia.

The workshop was premised on the idea that infrastructures play a dual role with regards to the constitution of climate emergencies and attempts to respond to these. We thus set out with a shared understanding that infrastructures form ‘locks’ and ‘keys’ – helping to perpetuate and hold in place ways of life that lead to states of emergency, while also acting as platforms through which solutions can (and must) transpire. 

The workshop provided a stage to discuss and explore the conceptual and practical challenges associated with this symbiotic understanding of climate-related challenges. It further facilitated a consideration of linked themes, including: materiality; spatiality and scale; temporality and timeframes; and other social, political, and economic dimensions of the topic at hand.

You can read the full blog on our website.