Ringvorlesung „Research at Risk“ – Azadeh Ganjeh
About the Lecture Series „Research at Risk: Fossil Authoritarianism and Climate Catastrophe“
The climate catastrophe and the war against Ukraine are bringing the problem of fossil fuels to a head. The extraction, consumption, and trade of fossil fuels are not only threatening to our ecosystem on a planetary scale, but our social and democratic orders as well. Concepts such as „petromasculinity“ (Cara New Daggett), „petrofascism“ (Andreas Malm/Zetkin Kollektiv), „pollution as colonialism“ (Max Liboiron) or climate racism (Black Earth Collective, Matthias Quent et al.) make the interconnectedness of demands for climate justice and intersectional critique blatantly obvious. Not only do Petroregimes, rooted in colonial regimes, that manifested over the last century persist in contradiction to a majority of scientific ways of knowing, they also form – or are enmeshed in – structures of power that threaten the conditions of free and democratic research and art as well as the security and rights of researchers, artists and activists. To discuss the various dimensions of state, colonial, or patriarchal power and violence in their relationship to fossil fuels and petro-industries, we invite international thinkers from the humanities and sciences, journalists, artists and filmmakers. This second iteration of our lecture series „Research at Risk“ thereby focusses on specific structures that, while also producing concrete threats, above all must be considered the (indirect) cause of war and forced migration. The interests of state and non-state actors in the preservation of fossil-fueled ways of life and production play a crucial role in these structures. The dangers of petro authoritarianism are not only directed at individual researchers, but also at research in its democratic potential as a place of knowledge exchange and criticism, including questions about the (extractivist) conditions under which research takes place, what is recognized as such and what is not. How are collaborations between science, journalism, art and activism possible? How can we enable knowledge in feminist, anti-racist or decolonial research that acts and calls for action?
Organised by: University Siegen: Professur für Medienästhetik, SFB 1187 „Medien der Kooperation“; Ruhr-University Bochum: DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 2132 „Das Dokumentarische. Exzess und Entzug“; and Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF | Initiative Grün