SITUATED ECOLOGIES gathers art, design and research collaborations to contest and democratise ecologies.

Key outputs and publications from GROWL

Papers, drafts and submissions

Submitted, in review or in preparation (as of September 2021)

  1. “Kilamba Life: Domestic Visions of China in Angola” by Wangui Kimari and Henrik Ernstson. — Re-submitted and accepted in June 2021 to a special issue in Urban Geography edited by Linda Peake of the Urbanization, Gender and the Global South Project (GenUrb) . 
  2. “Seeing Salvador in Luanda: Lineaments of a Southern Atlantic Urbanism,” by Ricardo Cardoso,  —  Re-submitted to Antipode in May 2021 . 
  3. “Accelerated vs Decelerated urbanism: The New Luanda from Sector 5 Filhos” by Wangui Kimari and Henrik Ernstson— Advanced draft to be submitted to Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography.
  4. “Not only in the Bairro”:  Promises and Realities of Infrastructure in the New Luanda by Wangui Kimari and Henrik Ernstson — Advanced draft to be submitted to City & Society in October 2021
  5. “Infrastructure as Symbolic Geopolitical Architecture: Kenya’s megaprojects and contested meanings of “development.”” by Wangui Kimari and Gediminas Lesutis. Accepted for publication in The Rise of the Infrastructure State (Seth Schinlder and Jessica Dicarlo). Forthcoming with Polity Press
  6. “Histories of Heterogeneous Infrastructures: Negotiating Colonial, Postcolonial and Oral Archives in Kampala, Uganda” by Henrik Ernstson and David Nilsson. Submitted and first review received in August 2021 to Geoforum.
  7. “Blocos Urbanism: The Materiality of Luanda’s Urban Transformations” by Ricardo Cardoso, Henrik Ernstson, Jia-Ching Chen, and Wangui Kimari — Advanced draft to be submitted to  International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
  8. ‘Bloco a Bloco’: Concrete Blocks and the Materiality of Urban Citizenship in Luanda’s New Peripheries” by  Jia-Ching Chen, Ricardo Cardoso, Henrik Ernstson, and Wangui Kimari — Early draft to be submitted to  International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
  9. “Elliptical Orbits: How Master Planned New Satellite Towns Have Become a Channel for State-controlled Capital Flows” by Jia-Ching Chen, Ricardo Cardoso, Wangui Kimari, and Henrik Ernstson — Early Draft for Submission to Annals of the Association of American Geographers
  10. “Compound Life: Topologies of Security, Self and Cultural Difference in Chinese-Angolan Urbanization Projects” by Jia-Ching Chen, Tiffany Liu, Wangui Kimari, and Henrik Ernstson. — Outline developed for Political Geography
  11. “Grounding and Worlding Urban Infrastructures: Situated Challenges, Risks and Contradictions of Sustainability through African Cities” by Henrik Ernstson, Ricardo Cardoso, Jia-Ching Chen, and Wangui Kimari. — Outline developed for Local Environment.

Published 

  1. Ernstson, Henrik. (2021). Ecosystems and Urbanization: A Colossal Meeting of Giant Complexities. Ambio 50th Anniversary Collection. Theme: Urbanization, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01516-y
  2. Kimari, Wangui. (2021) “‘Under construction’: everyday anxieties and the proliferating social meanings of China in Kenya.” Africa 91, no. 1 (2021): 135-152.
  3. Kimari, Wangui (2021) “The story of a pump: life, death and afterlives within an urban planning of “divide and rule” in Nairobi, Kenya.” Urban Geography 42, no. 2 (2021): 141-160.
  4. Kimari, Wangui, and Henrik Ernstson (2020) “Imperial Remains and Imperial Invitations: Centering Race within the Contemporary Large-Scale Infrastructures of East Africa.” Antipode 3 (52): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12623.
  5. Kimari, Wangui (2020) “War-talk: an urban youth language of siege in Nairobi.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 14, no. 4 (2020): 707-723.
  6. Kimari, Wangui, and Jessica Parish. (2020) “What is a river? A transnational meditation on the colonial city, abolition ecologies and the future of geography.” Urban Geography 41, no. 5 (2020): 643-656.
  7. Sseviiri, Hakimu, Shuaib Lwasa, Mary Lawhon, and Henrik Ernstson. 2020. “Claiming Value in a Heterogeneous Solid Waste Configuration in Kampala.” Urban Geography 00 (00): 1–22.
  8. Brook, Makonnen (2019). “Political Ecology of Infrastructures in Africa Through Chinese Capital: A case study on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project in Kenya,” Master thesis, Department of Geography, The University of Manchester  (Supervised by Henrik Ernstson and co-supervised by Wangui Kimari)
  9. Ernstson, Henrik and Sverker Sörlin (2019) “Toward Comparative Urban Environmentalism: Situating Urban Natures in an Emerging ‘World of Cities.’” Pp. 3–53 in Grounding Urban Natures: Histories and Futures of Urban Ecologies, edited by H. Ernstson and S. Sörlin. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  10. Ernstson, Henrik and Sverker Sörlin (2019) “Grounding and Worlding Urban Natures: Configuring a New Urban Ecology Knowledge Project.” Pp. 356–90 in Grounding Urban Natures: Histories and Futures of Urban Ecologies, edited by H. Ernstson and S. Sörlin. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  11. Ernstson, Henrik and Erik Swyngedouw (2019). “Politicizing the Environment in the Urban Century.” Pp. 3–21 in Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-obscene: Interruptions and Possibilities, edited by H. Ernstson and E. Swyngedouw. Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
  12. Chen, Jia-Ching. 2019. “Refiguring the Rural: Eco-Urbanization in Yixing City.” Pp. 323–62 in Grounding Urban Natures: Histories and Futures of Urban Ecologies, edited by H. Ernstson and S. Sörlin. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  13. Lawhon, Mary, David Nilsson, Jonathan Silver, Henrik Ernstson, and Shuaib Lwasa. 2018. “Thinking through Heterogeneous Infrastructure Configurations.” Urban Studies 55(4):720–32.
  14. Swyngedouw, Erik and Henrik Ernstson. (2018). Interrupting the Anthropo-obScene: Immuno-Biopolitics and Depoliticizing Ontologies in the Anthropocene. Theory, Culture & Society. 35(3): 6-30.

Presentations, talks, conferences, workshops, and workshop participation (not exhaustive)

2021

  • Ernstson, Henrik (2021) Invited speaker to the panel on “Urban-Rural Dialogues on Degrowth”, 8th International Degrowth Conference on Caring Communities for Radical Change, 24-28 Aug 2021, The Hague, The Netherlands. 
  • Chen, J.-C. (2021) “Energy and Ecology for the Majority: The Political Economy of Renewable Energy and Low Carbon Value.” Presented at Historical Materialism East Asia: Capital and Labor Mobilities in the Era of Ecological Catastrophe, 2021/08/22.
  • Cardoso, Ricardo (2021) Throughout 2021 Ricardo Cardoso has been participating in a multi-month workshop organized by the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield towards a series of publications on the general theme of Urban Re-Arrangements.
  • Ernstson, Henrik (2021) Invited Speaker and Panelist EADI Conference, Rotterdam. European Association of Development Research and Training Institute EADI 2021, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, International Institute of Social Studies (IAS), 5-9 July 2021 (online)

2020

  • Ernstson, Henrik, Ricardo Cardoso, Jia-Ching Chen. (2020) “Blocos Urbanism: On the Materiality of Luanda’s Petro-infused Urban Transformations,” Political Ecology Network POLLEN Biennial Conference, 2020/09/23.
  • Ernstson, Henrik (2020). Invited Speaker at Cambridge University (online). “Grounding Urban Natures: An Invitation to Do Comparative Urban Environmentalism.” Seminar on Urban Ecologies, Department of Geography, Cambridge University. Invited by Dr Maan Barua. 13 Nov 2020.
  • Chen, J.-C. (2020) China’s Rural Capitalism: Land, Labor, and Environment. Critical China Scholars Series. 2020/09/30 Available online: https://youtu.be/VNp5FcTQ7ZM
  • Ernstson, Henrik with paper by Ricardo Cardoso, Jia-Ching Chen & Wangui Kimari. (2020) Seminar presentation at Geography Seminar, The University of Manchester (online). “Blocos Urbanism: On the Materiality of Luanda’s Petro-infused Urban Transformations,” Geography Seminar Series, The University of Manchester, 9 December 2020.

2019

  • Kimari, Wangui and Henrik Ernstson* (2019) “Imperial Remains and Imperial Invitations: Theorizing Racialized Disposability within the Infrastructures of African Cities.” RGS-IBG Conference London.
  • Chen, J.-C. (2019) “Solar Energy Infrastructure and Environmental Justice.” Presented at Solar Array, the Mellon Sawyer Seminar, Santa Barbara. 2019/03/01.
  • Ernstson, Henrik and Jacob von Heland. (2019)  “Svarta ljud/Black Noise.” Henrik Ernstson and Jacob von Heland organised a film screening and conversation with African and Africa-based urban artists on the role of art, hip hop and story telling to make peripheries central. ABF huset Stockholm 20191009 with Issraa El-Kogali, Emile Jansen and Mixed Mense.
  • Kimari, Wangui and Henrik Ernstson (2019) “Kilamba Life: Domestic visions of China in Angola” China in Africa conference in Nairobi, October 27 – 28 
  • Chen, J.-C. (2019) “Global, Area Studies and Comparative Studies and Transregional China” China Rising in Africa, Middle East and Latin America, University of California, Santa Barbara 2019/05/03.