• Energy In Society

      A working group at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities

    • About us

      An interdisciplinary group of scholars

      The Energy in Society (E I S) research group was initially formed by four scholars in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Calgary - Drs. Petra Dolata, Sabrina Perić, Roberta Rice and Saulesh Yessenova. We were interested in creating a community of energy scholars in the humanities and social sciences on campus, but we also wanted to reach out and create collaborations with, and learn from engineers, natural scientists, health researchers and many others who were actively engaged in the energy field.

       

      In the fall of 2016, we founded a working group on energy, initially called Beyond Petrocultures, at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities (CIH), which now remains our home. With the support of the CIH, we have begun to engage practitioners and scholars of a variety of energy processes and industries, and wish to chart a new agenda for energy research through E I S at the University of Calgary, through interdisciplinary collaborations with other scholars from across the globe. University of Calgary is an ideal research hub for research in the humanities, social and natural sciences.

      Energy Research for the Future

      In our contemporary world, especially in an Alberta currently defined by oil bust, many people are focused on finding solutions to a fossil-fuel dependent society. As a society, we are focused on the next big transition away from a hydrocarbon-dominated economy. However, in order to understand both the nature of today's energy challenges, as well as socially acceptable solutions, one needs to uncover the history and politics of certain assumptions about energy.

       

      To this end we have put together an Energy in Society (E I S) research agenda:

       
      • If we want to address our energy futures, we need to know about our energy pasts, because historical decisions and narratives create societal criteria of the present. 
       
      • We need to understand the dynamics of energy politics, not only in Canada, but elsewhere in the world. This includes addressing dominant and suppressed energy discourses as well as examining and giving voice to all actors involved - this includes the State, Indigenous people, corporate actors, and marginalized groups. 
       
      • Both scholars, policy makers and the general public have focused too much on singular commodities - such as oil and coal. We need to understand that all energy systems are intertwined, and that energy pathways and transitions need to be understood holistically. Coal, oil, wind, solar and nuclear energy (amongst others) systems will also interact with one another. 
       
      • Research on our energy futures and solutions also entails cooperation across disciplinary lines. We know therefore that energy research should always be interdisciplinary. 
       
      • Lastly, while we focus on energy and our energy future, we understand that energy is always tied to and embedded within other social practices. 

      How do I get involved?

      We are looking for collaborators based in academia, industry and government in order to move forward with our research projects.

    • Conference 2019: Energy and Scale

      Trans-scalar and multi-scalar interactions in energy transitions

      Conference

      Banff Centre (19-21 Sept)

      International Conference convened by Energy In Society, Calgary Institute for the Humanities (CIH), University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), Berlin, Germany

       

      Banff Centre, Banff

       

      Preliminary Program

      Thursday, 19 September 2019

      13:15 – 13:30 Land Acknowledgement & Indigenous Welcome

      13:30 – 14:45 Panel 1: Thinking Scale (Chair: Cora Voyageur, University of Calgary)

      • Jürgen Renn (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin Germany): History of Science in the Anthropocene
      • Petra Dolata (University of Calgary, Energy In Society): Energy History and Scale

      15:00 – 16:15 Panel 2: Catalysts for Change (Chair: Roberta Rice)

      • Benjamin Steininger (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin Germany): Molecular planetary technology: Industrial catalysis as a model case for questions of scale in the Anthropocene
      • John R. Parkins (University of Alberta): Ownership structures, procedural justice and distributive justice options for wind power development in Alberta
      • Joshua DiCaglio (Texas A&M University): Rhetoric as Energy, Scale as Effect: Moving Humans to Respond to Energy Flows

      16:30 – 17:45 Panel 3: Planet Thinking (Chair: Gwendolyn Blue, University of Calgary)

      • Sabrina Peric (University of Calgary, Energy In Society): Whence Came the Hydrocarbons?
      • Giulia Rispoli (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin Germany): Cosmic Energies: Sun, Earth and Humanity in the Work of Serghey Podolinsky and Alexander Chizhevsky
      • Joseph Keith (Binghamton University, SUNY): The Novel and the Planetary

       

      18:30 – 20:30 Keynote: Peter C. van Wyck (Concordia University): Exposure and Entanglement on the Highway of the Atom

       

      Friday, 20 September 2019

      9:00 – 10:15 Panel 4: The Human Body Scale (Chair: Jim Ellis, University of Calgary)

      • Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University, Literature): Reproduction and Radioactive Decay in J.G Ballard’s Post-Growth Imaginary
      • George Colpitts (University of Calgary, History): Investments into Energy Transitions: The Adoption of York Boats over Canoes in the Canadian fur trade
      • Ruth Sandwell (University of Toronto, History): Energy and Everyday Life: What Households Can Tell Us About Energy Transitions

      10:30 – 11:45 Panel 5: New Geographies of Scale (Chair: Liza Piper, University of Alberta)

      • Jonathan Peyton (University of Manitoba): Vertical Energies: Scalar inversions in Prairies resource transitions
      • Tom Turnbull (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin Germany): Three Registers for Past and Future Relations between Energy and Scale
      • Andrew Watson (University of Saskatchewan): Farm Systems Energy Transitions on the Great Plains: Fossil Fuels, Fertilizers, and the Energy Return on Investment of Industrial Agriculture

       

      12:45 – 14:00 Keynote: Steven Bryant (University of Calgary): Transforming the Problem into the Solution to Achieve Scalable Negative Emissions Technologies

       

      14:15– 15:45 Panel 6: Connecting Scales (Chair: Pablo Policzer)

      • Jorge Vergara-Castro (Fundación Diálogos para la Naturaleza/Dialogues for Nature Foundation, Chile): The Science of Power (or the Power of Science) in the Case of Lithium Energy and Mining in Chile
      • Jorge Rowlands Narváez (Fundación Diálogos para la Naturaleza/Dialogues for Nature Foundation, Chile): The Environmental Impact Assessment as an Instrument for Exercising Power in the Salar de Atacama
      • Sergio Cubillos Verasay & Juan Carlos Cayo (Consejo de Pueblos Atacameños/Council of Atacameño Peoples, Chile): Local Environmental Knowledge and Resistance in the Race for Lithium in the Salar de Atacama 

       

      Saturday, 21 September 2019

      8:30 – 11:00 Emerging Researchers Panel (Chair: tba)

      • Glenn Iceton (University of Saskatchewan): Scaling Back(wards): Energy Development, Land Use, and History in the Canadian North
      • Odinn Melsted (Universität Innsbruck, Austria): Substitution, Diversification and Upscaling in Global Energy Systems: The Multifaceted Transition that Ignited the Great Acceleration
      • Maria Michails (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute): Small scale action, big scale disruption: how community-based art activism supports energy transition
      • Claire Ravencscroft (Duke University): Fossil capitalist realism and the scales of critique
      • Ana Watson (University of Calgary): Natural Gas Extraction, Discourse, and Power in Upper Amazonia: The rise of Camisea
      • Philip Wight (Brandeis University): The Weight of a Thread: Interconnection, Inertia, and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

      11:00 – 12:00 Roundtable Discussion

       

      Public Event

      Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (18 Sept 2019)

      Screening of Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018), documentary (87 minutes), by Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky and Nicholas de Pencier, followed by panel discussion at the Calgary Central Library, Patricia A. Whelan Performance Hall

       

      Program

      5:30 p.m. – doors open

      6:00 p.m. – Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

      7:30 p.m. – Q&A panel discussion

      8:30 p.m. – end

    • Events

      Through the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, we have been running a speakers series since Fall 2016. All talks are followed by a reception at CIH. Keep an eye out for upcoming events below!

      Join us for a talk with Dr. Lindsey A. Freeman

      Join us for a talk with Dr. Ian Wereley! A graduate student workshop and networking event will follow!

      Join us for a talk with Dr. R. W. Sandwell!

      Join us for a talk with Dr.Andrew Watson!

      Though not an EIS event, CIH is co-sponsoring this event with the Department of History, which features 2 of our co-conveners!

      Join us for a talk with Dr. Timothy David Clark!

      Join us for a talk with Norma Kassi!

      Dr. Dolata's public talk at the Calgary Public Library!

      Join us for a talk with Dr. Terry Mitchell!

      Join us for a talk with Dr. Liza Piper!

    • The E I S Blog

      What we've been up to!

      UCalgary joins forces with Max Planck Society to advance energy research
      26 juillet 2018
      Recognizing that the study of energy transformations at different times and in different places...
      Energy Transitions Workshop June 21-22
      15 juin 2018
      Energy Transitions – Histories, Cultures, Politics: Keynote and Evening Reception The Energy in...
      2017-2018 in review
      8 avril 2018
      While in our first year Energy In Society was focused on bringing scholarly guest speakers to...
      More Posts

    • E I S Projects

      Dr. Petra Dolata

      Department of History, University of Calgary

      My research interests include European and North American energy history after 1945 as well as the history and politics of the Canadian and circumpolar Arctic. I am specifically focusing on the 1970s energy crises in Europe and North America, the history and politics of energy security, and the role of energy in Arctic Canada.

      Dr. Sabrina Perić

      Department of Anthropology and Archaeology,
      University of Calgary

      My research focuses on the anthropology and history of resource extraction, science and its relationship to governance. In particular, I am interested in the role that 19th and 20th century corporate geologists played in the development of oil economies, the definition of energy and the governance of the circumpolar north and its people.

      Dr. Roberta Rice

      Department of Political Science,

      University of Calgary

      My research expertise is in Indigenous politics in Latin America. I am currently completing a comparative project on Indigenous rights and representation in Canada (Nunavut, Yukon) and Latin America (Bolivia, Ecuador). My latest project looks at Indigenous activism in response to Canadian extractive industry in Canada, Ecuador, and the Philippines.

      Dr. Saulesh Yessenova

      Department of Anthropology and Archaeology,
      University of Calgary

      Dr. Yessenova focuses on nuclear power and space exploration and the role they play in pursuit of energy transition. Specifically, she examines the refashioning of the historical arms race infrastructures in response to more recent concerns with climate change and energy security.

    • Project Gallery

      Photos & videos from E I S projects

      Energy security in the Arctic
      Oil and Gas Exploration in the Canadian Arctic, 1960s-1980s
      The Transnational Veins of Coal: Transatlantic Energy Diplomacy from the 1950s to the 1970s
      From Pipelines to Parks: Exploitation and Conservation along the Yukon-Alaska Border
      Melting Frontiers: Petroscience, Climate History and the Permafrost Archive

    • Important Links

      Calgary Institute for the Humanities

      University of Calgary Energy Research Strategy

    • Contact Us

      Don't be afraid to reach out. We are always looking for collaborators.

      Submit

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