Week 2: April 27 to May 1 - Western history and commodity trade: energy

Read Introduction p 1-11 and Chapter 1 p 12- 42

Discussion on May 5

......

In Carbon democracy, the geographer Timothy Mitchell does to fossil fuels (and more specifically Oil) something similar to what Sidney Mintz did with Sugar: he traces the commodity from its production process to its consumption.  While he is also paying attention to the meaning that fossil fuels carry, Mitchell brings new conceptual tools borrowing from Science and Technology Studies and Postcolonial theory, to pay attention to the shaping of our "sociotechnical" worlds.  This way, the author traces the "arrangements of people, finance, expertise and violence that were assembled in relationship to the distribution and control of energy" (p8), and the ways in which these arrangements opened or closed political possibilities. In doing so, Mitchell challenges key assumptions of how liberal democracies see other countries and makes us see fossil fuels in new ways. The book shows Oil as having a central role in the shaping of the ways we think now about "development" (as economic growth), in constituting "the economy" through novel forms of calculation, among many other things.

Read Introduction p 1-11 and Chapter 1 p 12- 42

Discussion on May 5

......

In Carbon democracy, the geographer Timothy Mitchell does to fossil fuels (and more specifically Oil) something similar to what Sidney Mintz did with Sugar: he traces the commodity from its production process to its consumption.  While he is also paying attention to the meaning that fossil fuels carry, Mitchell brings new conceptual tools borrowing from Science and Technology Studies and Postcolonial theory, to pay attention to the shaping of our "sociotechnical" worlds.  This way, the author traces the "arrangements of people, finance, expertise and violence that were assembled in relationship to the distribution and control of energy" (p8), and the ways in which these arrangements opened or closed political possibilities. In doing so, Mitchell challenges key assumptions of how liberal democracies see other countries and makes us see fossil fuels in new ways. The book shows Oil as having a central role in the shaping of the ways we think now about "development" (as economic growth), in constituting "the economy" through novel forms of calculation, among many other things.

Read Introduction p 1-11 and Chapter 1 p 12- 42

Discussion on May 5

......

In Carbon democracy, the geographer Timothy Mitchell does to fossil fuels (and more specifically Oil) something similar to what Sidney Mintz did with Sugar: he traces the commodity from its production process to its consumption.  While he is also paying attention to the meaning that fossil fuels carry, Mitchell brings new conceptual tools borrowing from Science and Technology Studies and Postcolonial theory, to pay attention to the shaping of our "sociotechnical" worlds.  This way, the author traces the "arrangements of people, finance, expertise and violence that were assembled in relationship to the distribution and control of energy" (p8), and the ways in which these arrangements opened or closed political possibilities. In doing so, Mitchell challenges key assumptions of how liberal democracies see other countries and makes us see fossil fuels in new ways. The book shows Oil as having a central role in the shaping of the ways we think now about "development" (as economic growth), in constituting "the economy" through novel forms of calculation, among many other things.

Read Introduction p 1-11 and Chapter 1 p 12- 42

Discussion on May 5

......

In Carbon democracy, the geographer Timothy Mitchell does to fossil fuels (and more specifically Oil) something similar to what Sidney Mintz did with Sugar: he traces the commodity from its production process to its consumption.  While he is also paying attention to the meaning that fossil fuels carry, Mitchell brings new conceptual tools borrowing from Science and Technology Studies and Postcolonial theory, to pay attention to the shaping of our "sociotechnical" worlds.  This way, the author traces the "arrangements of people, finance, expertise and violence that were assembled in relationship to the distribution and control of energy" (p8), and the ways in which these arrangements opened or closed political possibilities. In doing so, Mitchell challenges key assumptions of how liberal democracies see other countries and makes us see fossil fuels in new ways. The book shows Oil as having a central role in the shaping of the ways we think now about "development" (as economic growth), in constituting "the economy" through novel forms of calculation, among many other things.