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Claire Waterton

I am interested in the theory and methodological practices of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and in working with these to understand all sorts of contemporary environmental issues and problems. My approach is to understand 'environmental problems' as particular kinds of orderings in on-going natureculture relations. This helps us to open up questions about these relations, including how they came into being, as well as whether it is possible to create hopeful spaces for re-ordering them. Several aspects of my research dwell on highly intractable and difficult challenges thrown up by modernity – such as the disposal of highly radioactive nuclear wastes, the diffuse pollution and enrichment of large tracts of land and water, the on-going acceleration of biodiversity loss, the creation of large global databases that might somehow afford environmental protection. In the last 20 years or so, I have had the opportunity of thinking through these issues using the theoretical tools of STS with many different scientists, policymakers and NGOs. I am interested in their ways of working, and in exploring whether we can work together in ways that might produce new ways of thinking about, and enacting, natureculture relations.

Technology, Agency and the Future of the Earth Workshop. 12th November 2018

Technology, Agency and The Future of the Earth Workshop. LEC Training Suites, Lancaster University. 12th November 2018 This workshop explored the concept of the ‘technosphere’ as a distinctive approach to understanding the changes occurring in the Earth system that go under the general name of the Anthropocene. Peter Haff (2014) argued that the technosphere constitutes a […]

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Hypermetabolic N! New interdisciplinary research on Nitrogen

Over the last century, the amount of reactive nitrogen in the biosphere has almost tripled. Emma Cardwell and Claire Waterton have secured N8 Pump Priming funds to bring together a small interdisciplinary team to explore trends in the use of inorganic nitrogen in contemporary agriculture from combined sociological and ecological/environmental chemistry perspectives. We want to […]

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