Biopolitics, technoscience and society

Research Proposal 3. Sustainability, urbanitzation and policies of (socio-)technology

Researchers

Research Group

Exploring the implications of (urban) nature-based solutions  (NBS) to tackle the climate emergency.

This thesis will explore through the prism of urban political ecology, critical environmental studies and/or environmental justice the socio-environmental implications of the implementation of Nature-Based solutions (NBS) at the urban and metropolitan scale to tackle the impending climate emergency, including the unintended impacts, distributional issues and the conflicts around them. It may focus also on how NBS open up/produce new ecosystem services for citizens.  It will seek a comparative perspective.

Grassroots urban resilience to climate change and transformative learning.

This thesis will focus on advancing understanding on the learning processes embedded in community-led initiatives towards climate change in cities. These initiatives might include urban green infrastructure and agroecology projects linked to civic ecology practices, energy citizenship actions, and public awareness interventions by using digital technologies. Both individual and collective learning resulting from the design and implementation of these initiatives will be explored and its potential for transformation analyzed and discussed in terms of its implications for city resilience.

The “twin green and digital transitions” in the urban context.

The European Green Deal focuses on promoting the “twin transitions”, that is, the parallel pursuit of the green and digital transitions, which render sustainability a problem to be solved through (primarily technological) innovation. The city of Barcelona has adopted the “twin transition” discourse, which is very prominent in visions for how the circular economy is to be implemented at the urban scale. The thesis will critically analyse the socio-technical imaginaries linked to the “twin transitions” and the “circular economy”, and assess how innovation, technology and digitalisation produce green policies in Barcelona.

Untangling the project of road pacification of N-II in el Maresme through the prism of Environmental Justice.

This thesis would analyze the rationales, governance forms and early effects of the recently announced N-II pacification in Southern Maresme (Metropolitan Region of Barcelona). This project, involving different governing bodies at different scales, is aimed at beautifying the beach area by drastically changing the mobility in this region. Civil society organizations (e.g. Salvem Baix Maresme) have claimed for the greening of this highway for long. However important socio-economic impacts in terms of environmental justice/privilege (e.g. who is to benefit from this corridor, who is to suffer the effects of it) have not been addressed so far by the civil society organizations nor the public administration. Will the upcoming implementation process include such concerns? Other relevant questions could be: Does social resistance emerge within this process? Does it include participation, and if so, to what extent? What effects are expected, or not, to have in the different municipalities? How is the green and health discourse mobilized and to what purpose? 

The political ecology of agriculture’s digitalization and the agriculture 4.0.

Drones, robots and big data are becoming important actors along the agricultural chain. This PhD thesis studies the turn towards an “agriculture 4.0.”, focusing on emerging power dynamics (e.g. between small and big farmers, ag companies and farmers, etc.). It will also question to what extent this institutionally-led plan really target farmers’ needs and how it addresses agriculture sustainability on its full breath, that is, considering economic, social and environmental factors. Which rationales sustain the introduction of such technologies in agriculture? What material aspects need to be considered (e.g. conditions, limitations that these technologies are tied to)? How labor dynamics are changed? How agrarian dynamics are shifted and to what effect? Can the digitalization be emancipatory for small-medium farmers? 

The European sustainability turn in agriculture: towards which direction?

This PhD thesis would inquire how agricultural technology development and distribution dynamics are shaped by the new European sustainability agendas (e.g. Farm2Fork program) and/or economic plans (e.g. Green New Deal, Next Generation funds) and which effects these might have in agrarian dynamics such as labor or farming income. While part of these programs value agroecological practices and logics, others envision a sustainability based on digitalization and technological innovation. Can these two visions be compatible? Can it shift the power imbalances embedded in the current agricultural technological model?

Reflexive and critical approach to cities.

This research focuses on critically and reflexively analysing cities as urban conditions that give rise to certain social and urban processes. That is, understanding cities not only as spaces for economic generation and the development of certain urban governance programmes, but also –and especially – as spaces open to the construction of certain conditions with a certain amount of visibility.