Social revolutions, civil war and crippling economic crises: What is going on in the Middle East and South Eastern Mediterranean? Are the revolutions and wars in Egypt, Syria or Libya connected to the economic crises in Greece, Italy or Cyprus? How do carbon resources and energy competition affect these tense social, economic and environmental inter-relations? What is the future of `carbon democracy` and what are its geographic and political ramifications?
Inspired by Timothy Mitchell`s work Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil, this workshop will probe the relationship between energy, political power, history and ideology in the broad area of the Middle East and South-Eastern Mediterranean. Starting with a keynote lecture by Timothy Mitchell entitled “Carbon Democracy and the Corporate Future,” the two-day workshop aims to combine exploration of regional case-studies with critical analyses of power relationships, resources and the frailty or persistence of democratic practices. Specifically, the workshop—consisting of paper presentation and discussion—will interrogate how discourses of democracy are constructed on the basis of conditions that inevitably undermine its emancipatory premises, producing and reproducing, instead, economic inequality, environmental crisis, and tacit acceptance of systemic violence.
Location: Durham University, Calman Learning Centre and St Mary`s College
Date: 13-14 February 2015, 8:30am to 6:00pm
Organization: Matteo Capasano and Maria Kastrinou
matteo.capasso@durham.ac.uk; maria.kastrinou@brunel.ac.uk
Programme:
Friday 13 February 2015, Ken Wade Calman Lecture Theatre
4.00 – 5.30 pm
Carbon Democracy and Revolution: Introducing the theme
Maria Kastrinou (Brunel University) and Matteo Capasso (Durham University)
Windbag of Aeolus
Screening of documentary film trailer about the contentions of ‘green’ energy in crisis-era Greece, and Q&A with the director Nasim Alatras
The Miners of the Great Northern Coalfield: Energy, Education, Empowerment
Jim Coxon (Durham University)
6.00 – 7.30 pm
Public Lecture: Carbon Democracy and the Corporate Future
Timothy Mitchell (Columbia University)
Saturday 14 February 2015 – St Mary’s College
8.30 – 9.00 Coffee and registration
9.00 – 11.00 Panel One: Energy and Resistance
Discussant: Wilf Wilde
“Our Oil Won`t Feed our Slavery”. Battles Around Pipelines in Wartime Algeria
Roberto Cantoni (LATTS – IFRIS, Paris, France) Marta Musso (University of Cambridge, UK)
Energy and Intifada: Natural Resources and Resistance to Colonialism in Western Sahara
Joanna Allan (Leeds University)
Low-Carbon Hypocrisy? Hydropower, Bio-fuels and “Revolutionary Democracy” in Ethiopia
Dr Edward G. J. Stevenson (Durham University)
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee Break
11.30 – 1.00 Panel Two: Urban Ecology
Discussant: James Piscatori
Political Ecologies of Urban Energy: The Case of Amman and Beirut
Eric Verdeil (Université de Lyon, CNRS)
A ‘Silent’ Revolution? Reflections on Petro-Urbanism and Violence in the early Oil Age
Nelida Fuccaro (SOAS, London)
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch Break
2.00 – 4.00 Panel Three: Carbonized Democracy
Discussant: Elisabeth Kirtsoglou
Confessions of a Dangerous Paradigm: Democratisation, Transitology and Orientalism
Andrea Teti (Aberdeen University)
Democracy Inc: Humanitarian Intervention and Economentality
Matteo Capasso (Durham University)
The Revolution will be Scaled: Solidarity and Security in the Mediterranean
Nikolas Kosmatopoulos (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
4.00 – 4.30 Coffee Break
4.30 – 6.00 Roundtable discussion
[To reserve, please go to the EventBrite page.]