Environment, Agency, and Technology in Urban Life since c.1750

Technonatures in the Global North
Herausgegeben:Thelle, Mikkel; Høghøj, Mikkel

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book explores the historical relationship between 'technonatures' and urban transformations in the Global North. In recent years, various interdisciplinary movements such as Urban Political Ecology, STS and New Materialism have affected urban history and generated new scholarly insights into the formation of cities and urban life based on notions of hybridity, entanglement and metabolism. While scholars have increasingly attempted to grasp the socio-natural and technical complexity of cities, studies dealing with urban transformation within urban history have, however, mostly concentrated on political actors or broader social and economic changes. Seeking to introduce the concept of technonatures to the field of urban environmental history, this book instead takes its empirical and analytical starting point in the technonatural fabric of cities. Focusing on urban rivers, dumps, railways, flood walls and housing, the chapters of the book thus examines how different entanglementsof environment, technology and agency have shaped cities and processes of urbanization in the Global North from the seventeenth century onwards. By foregrounding the transformative role of urban natures, materialities and technologies in shaping the politics of urban life and cities more broadly, the book aspires to probe the potentiality of technonatures as a conceptual and analytical strategy for urban environmental historians.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer International Publishing / Springer, Berlin
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 978-3-031-46953-4
• Seitenzahl: 260
• Erscheinungstermin: 13. März 2024
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 153mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 430g
• ISBN-13: 9783031469534
• ISBN-10: 3031469534
• Artikelnr.: 68964795

Autorenporträt

Mikkel Thelle is Senior Researcher at the National Museum of Denmark. Mikkel Høghøj is Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Museum of Denmark.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction.- 1) Mikkel Høghøj and Mikkel Thelle: "Unravelling Urban Technonatures".- Part I: Themes and concepts.- 2) Chris Otter: "Planetary Agglomeration".- 3) Mikkel Thelle: "Phronologies of Urban Water: Copenhagen".- 4) "Hybrid Cities: Agency, scale and power. A conversation between Matthew Gandy, Dorethee Brantz, Chris Otter and Mikkel Thelle".- Part II: Agency of flow, matter and technology.- 5) Friedrich Hauer, Christina Spitzbart-Glasl, Severin Hohensinner and Verena Winiwarter: "A Techno-River in the Making: Three transformations of the Wien River from the Middle Ages until the present".- 6) Sam Grinsell: "River Lines and Railway Lines: "Colonial military technonatures in the making of Sudan's capital region, 1880s-1920s".- 7) Uwe Lübken: "Concrete History: Floodwalls on the Ohio River".- Part III: Governing mobility, waste and urban subjects.- 8) Marjolein Schepers: "Closed Gates and Dart Streets: Spaces and infrastructures of transit in the Low Countries, eighteenth-nineteenth century".- 9) Nina Toudal Jessen: "At the Intersection of Expertise and Landscaping: How technical advisors created new nature".- 10) Mikkel Høghøj: "Good and Bad Nature: Slum clearance and metabolic poverty in mid-twentieth century Copenhagen".

Rezensionen

It includes a wide range of case studies, from Vienna to Copenhagen and from Sudan to the United States, providing well-documented and concrete examples of urban dynamics and offering global and comparative perspectives. A common feature of all the essays is that the authors offer innovative interpretations and renewed conceptualizations of existing literature . This volume is particularly interesting to read due to its interdisciplinary approach, varying case studies, formulation of innovative concepts, thorough historical analysis . (Federico Paolini, Technology and Culture, Vol. 66 (4), October, 2025)