Environment and Technology
Program Leaders: Associate Professor Charles Barbour (HCA) and Professor Denis Byrne (ICS)
Photo by Professor Denis Byrne
Environmental crises now permeate and form all aspects of our lives. Addressing the impacts of climate change, environmental diminishment and more, researchers and practitioners work across disciplines to produce new analytical perspectives, methods and theories. These crises profoundly confront singular notions that technology will liberate humanity from planetary limits. By contrast, Indigenous leaders have long articulated and practiced the understanding that we are all connected through mutual co-dependencies.
Our research provides qualitative expertise on knowledge practices, culture and politics to help society navigate environmental crises, addressing issues of governance, accountability and institutional complexity in contexts of environment and technology. We pursue outcomes that are both sustainable and just, ensuring research impact through collaborative approaches with communities, government, scientists, Indigenous peoples, media practitioners and creative practitioners. Our expertise extends across a range of topics and conditions, including risk societies, equity, global action, new economies, heritage futures, environmental management, synthetic life, extreme environments and outer space. Our work contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goals 13, 15 and 16 concerning climate action, land and water health, biodiversity and institutional accountability.
Evidence of Research Concentration: This research includes projects that are situated at the intersection of environment and technology, ranging from studies of the Australian Space industry that follows from previous work on Antarctic futures in the face of climate change, bushfires and resilience, carbon and energy, the circular economy and the intensified focus upon collaboration and communication between HASS and STEM as part of a new node of the Centre of Excellence for Synthetic Biology.
Some of the current and recently completed research projects being developed through this research program include:
Curating Museum Collections for Climate Change Mitigation - ARC Linkage (2021-2024)
Australia a Space-faring Nation: Imaginaries and Practices of Space Futures - ARC Future Fellowship (2020-2024)
Heritage-making among recent migrants in Parramatta - ARC Linkage (2019-2023)
Antarctic Cities and the Global Commons: Rethinking the Gateways - ARC Linkage (2017-2021)
Hazards, Culture and Indigenous Communities - (2017-2020)
Scientific Diversity, Scientific Uncertainty and Risk Mitigation Policy and Planning - (2014-2017)
Social Dimensions Node of the ARC Centre for Excellence in Synthetic Biology (opens in a new window)
Some of our Doctoral candidates researching in related fields of research and creative practice include:
Anisah Madden - The micro-politics of agri-environmental governance: care and commoning in the UN Committee on World Food Security
Vanicka Arora - Post-disaster reconstruction of cultural heritage: negotiating value, authenticity, and acceptable change in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.
Robert Nugent - Space And The Cinema Of Planetary Regard; Modalities Of Filmmaking In The Time Of The Anthropocene
Billy Pringle - Green and Gold: Crises of ecology and economy and the path to degrowth ontologies in Australia
Fan Xuegang - Alternative food networks in China: new peasantry and reproduction of alternative agricultural space
The Environment and Technology group has also played a vibrant role in the ICS international Knowledge/Culture conferences series including Knowledge/Culture/Ecologies (2017) co-convened by Juan Salazar, Gay Hawkins, Anna Pertierra and Paul James, and Knowledge/Culture/Climate Action (2019) co-convened by Fiona Cameron and Juan Salazar.
Check out the ICS Events and Twitter for more information on events and public engagement.
