Emptying the future: On the environmental politics of anticipation

Anticipation may be seen as structured by images and representations, an approach that has informed recent work in science and technology studies on the sociology of expectations. But anticipation, as a capacity or characteristic, is not solely manifested in the form of representations, even where such representations of the ‘not yet’ are performative in nature. It also comprises material capacities, technological, biophysical and affective in nature. The politics of anticipation is shaped by how these symbolic and material capacities, and the forms of agency they make possible, are distributed. As anticipation is an environmentally distributed capacity, it is suggested that the politics of anticipation is also an environmental politics. A conceptual framework for analysing anticipation as comprised of environmental capabilities is introduced, and fleshed out using a case study of energy infrastructure planning from the UK. Key elements of this framework include the concepts of anticipatory assemblages and future horizons or ‘styles’ of anticipation. Working through the case study as an empirical example of a conflict concerning the politics of anticipation and of ‘environments’, it is demonstrated how the relationships between styles of anticipation are materially constitutive of such conflicts

Prosocial aggression: Validation of a behavioral measure and model

Helpful and hurtful behavior are commonly viewed as antithetical, with little overlap and are commonly found to be negatively related (e.g., Anderson et al., 2010). Anecdotally, however, there are many instances of behaviors that can be generally considered as representative of both help and harm (CBS, 2015; Karimi, 2015). Such behaviors, which I refer to as Prosocial Aggression (PA), have received relatively little attention in the social psychological literature. Two factors are identified as potential sources of this inattention. First, there is no current theoretical framework integrates social psychological theories of prosocial and aggressive behavior. Second, practical limitations of studying PA make such work difficult. The work presented here was designed to address these two limitations by developing a coherent theoretical account of PA behavior and validating a novel measure of PA. To this end, two studies were conducted. Study 1 provided an initial test of the PA task by manipulating the presence of victimization followed by measuring aggression toward the victimizer. In addition to the manipulation, long-term predictions of the PA model were tested in a cross-sectional manner. Personality factors that are theoretically relevant to PA (i.e., empathic anger, anti-bullying attitudes) were tested as likely predictors of PA behavior. Finally, an experiment (Study 2) tested the short-term predictions of the PA model in which empathy toward the (soon-to-be) victim, and vulnerability of the victim were manipulated and PA was subsequently measured. Results indicated no effect of either manipulation on PA. In addition, neither empathic anger, nor anti-bullying attitudes predicted PA. Discussion focuses on potential theoretical and methodological factors that may have limited the PA task’s effectiveness with an emphasis placed on directing future investigations into PA

Correlation of particulate theory and behavior of real soils

The behavior of granular soils subjected to triaxial stresses can be explained in terms of a combination of elastic deformation and sliding friction. Three sans and a coarse silt at various initial void ratios were tested in drained triaxial compression. Cell pressures were varied between 50 and 1500 psi. Prediction techniques for simulating laboratory data was based on various packings of equal radii spheres. Equilibrium and compatibility equations were used to calculate the principal strains under certain applied stresses. The assumed arrays predicted much smaller strains than those than the soils exhibited. If these strains were subtracted from those observed, residual strains could be analyzed in terms of sliding friction. this method adequately described the actual behavior of the soils. The sliding friction angle and the percentage of the volumetric and axial elastic strains increased with cell pressure --Abstract, page ii

Hegel and Deleuze: immanence and otherness

The thesis critically analyses the dominant foundationalist tendency of modern philosophy, with special reference to the sophisticated antifoundationalist critiques of foundationalism formulated by G.W.F. Hegel and Gilles Deleuze. It begins by outlining a general methodological aspect of foundationalism, regarding the necessity of radical self-critique in philosophy, which directly connects contemporary thought with Cartesianism, via classical German philosophy. In the philosophies of Kant, Fichte and Schelling, this self-critical project is transformed: they undertake to show that reason can, by examining itself, give an account of experience that is systematic, or consistent with itself. However, each of these thinkers fails to accomplish this, and indeed, the commitment to a priori foundations is itself undermined in Schelling's work; where a philosophical crisis of meaning (a 'trauma of reason', philosophical nihilism) emerges. Deleuze and Hegel's contrasting critiques of foundationalism, and their positive reconstructions of the standpoint of philosophy, are then interpreted as non-foundationalist attempts to overcome this internal crisis of foundationalist thought as inadvertently exposed by Schelling. Both criticise certain subjective presuppositions common to foundationalist philosophies, which they consider constitute a dogmatic 'image' of philosophy, a kind of transcendental illusion that is the guiding force behind foundationalism. Both also aim to replace this with a genuinely philosophical image. The thesis provides an original historical contextualisation of Deleuze's thought in relation to German Idealism, and Schelling in particular, with whom, it is argued, Deleuze has much in common. Deleuze's conception of pure difference is treated in this regard as a kind of 'absolute knowledge'. This contextualisation also allows the sometimes crudely understood antipathy between Hegel and Deleuze to be addressed in a more penetrating fashion, which shows that they have more in common in terms of their critical orientation than is usually supposed. The thesis concludes with a critical comparison of these thinkers, which argues that, although both succeed in their own terms, in relation to a criterion of self-consistency, Hegel's philosophy offers a more satisfactory treatment of the ontological and historical conditions of philosophical activity

City/future in the making: masterplanning London’s Olympic legacy as anticipatory assemblage

To understand how the legacy of urban regeneration promised by events like the London 2012 Olympics is constructed, the masterplanning process is analysed as an assemblage of heterogeneous elements that construct futures as knowable and actionable objects in the present. Building on recent applications of actor-network theory to planning studies, the value of the concept of ‘anticipatory assemblage’ is demonstrated. The example of London 2012 masterplanning underlines how masterplanning as an anticipatory activity is performed through networks which are formed through the circulation of expectations and visions as networked ‘intermediaries’. Through these intermediaries, ordered processes are set in motion, and requirements for subsequent activities established. Further, it is shown how this use of concepts of anticipatory assemblages can help understand the political significance of masterplanning in the present, which depends on how organised forms of anticipation re-order social and material relationships in the present, including some actors as participants within anticipatory assemblages and excluding others

Sustainability and the future: reflections on the ethical and political significance of sustainability

Historically, concepts of sustainability have been articulated in response to a perceived crisis within central modernist narratives about progress. As such, they are not just environmental concepts, but ethical and political ones. At the same time, they have often been accused of being too wedded to many of the same assumptions as these central narratives of modernity, and indeed inviting the hubristic mistakes of modernity to be resurrected in the form of pretentions to global stewardship or ‘managing the planet’. I respond to some recent critiques of key conceptual elements encountered within sustainability narratives by articulating an approach to imagining sustainability that draws on D. W. Winnicott’s concept of the ‘holding environment’, and which acknowledges the otherness of the future and of nature, while also affirming responsibilities towards both

The bomb in my backyard, the serpent in my house: environmental justice, risk and the colonisation of attachment

Theorists have argued that environmental justice requires more than just the fair distribution of environmental benefits and harms. It also requires participation in environmental decisions of those affected by them, and equal recognition of their cultural identities, dimensions most clearly articulated in relation to indigenous struggles, where past devaluation of place-based cultural identities is seen as a source of injustice. I argue for an alternative concept of environmental justice that draws on accounts of how attachment (and place attachment specifically) is constitutive for both self-efficacy and collective agency in the face of an intrinsically uncertain future. Drawing on the work of Peter Marris and using a case study of UK gas pipeline infrastructure, I show how disruption to attachments also disrupts lived strategies for dealing with an uncertain future. The source of injustice involved in such disruption should be viewed as the ‘colonisation of attachment’

Lithologic Controls on Karst Groundwater Flow, Lost River Groundwater Basin, Warren County, Kentucky

The Lost River Groundwater Drainage Basin in Warren County, Kentucky, is a karst drainage system encompassing 55 square miles (143 square kilometers) developed within the Mississippian St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve Limestones. Near the contact between these two formations are two bedded chert units, the Lost River Chert Bed (Elrod, 1899) within the Ste. Genevieve and the Corydon Chert Member (Woodson, 1983) of the St. Louis, which appear to be perching layers to shallow karst groundwater flow. Groundwater may be seen flowing on top of these beds in various cave streams and at swallets and springs throughout the basin. In order to compare the vertical positions of these layers to shallow karst groundwater flow, geologic structure maps of the Lost River Chert Bed and the Corydon Chert Member were prepared for the basin, along with a contour map of the water table (at or near which shallow karst groundwater flow is assumed to take place) over the same area. These surfaces were digitized, then contoured and compared using SURFACE II and DISSPLA computer graphics systems. Correlation was accepted for points where the water table is either 20 feet (6.1 meters above or below the top of the two chert layers. The water table (at baseflow conditions) was found to correlate with the Lost River Chert Bed over 42.6% of the basin, as well as 40.7% for the Corydon Member. Shallow karst groundwater flow is found to correlated with bedded chert layers over 83.3% of the study area, and therefore it is concluded that chert layers have a dominant effect on the vertical position of groundwater flow within the Lost River Groundwater Drainage Basin