Fall 2021 GEOG 530 Seminar in Human-Environment Interactions
Infrastructure Geographies
- Instructor: Trevor Birkenholtz
- Semester: Fall 2021
- Class Time: Wednesdays, 11:15 am - 2:15 pm
- Contact: tlb5964@psu.edu; 315 Walker Building
- Credits: 03
- Place: 319 Walker Building
- Section: GEOG 530-001
Description
In this seminar we will examine recent research on infrastructural geographies with a specific focus on natural resource infrastructures and “green infrastructure.” In recent years, infrastructure has been conceptualized as a mediator of nature-society and state-society relations, but also as an active agent in reworking access to and control over resources (e.g., water, energy, financial, healthcare, economic, political). Theoretically, infrastructure has been variously conceived as a network, assemblage or as nature-society-technical hybrid, among other perspectives.
Our goal for the semester is threefold. First, we will build a typology of theoretical approaches for the study of infrastructural geographies by examining the histories, assumptions, and strengths and weaknesses of these different conceptual frameworks. Second, we will ground them with specific case studies to identify their contributions to our understanding of natural resource & green infrastructure. Finally, we will identify ongoing and future research lacunae to apply to our own research projects. We will meet these goals through weekly response papers, in-class mini lectures and presentations, fieldtrips, and a final research paper and presentation.
Likely Themes
- Green infrastructure
- Conservation
- Political economy & development
- Metrics and payments for ecosystem services
- Retrofitting & adapting the built environment
- Infrastructural knowledge, practices and subjectivities
- Infrastructural financialization and dispossession
- Infrastructural time and space
- Geopolitical infrastructure
- The return to big infrastructure