Past Events

Seminar - State, citizenship and risk: the case of the heat waves and uranium mines rehabilitation in France and Portugal

Prof José Manuel Mendes, who is visiting IHRR from Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal, will show how in two different political cultures, France and Portugal, extreme events and continuous environmental hazards are normalized without stepping out of the sociotechnical performations and their inherent materialities, symbolisms and practices.

In both cases the full presence and coercion of the State were witnessed, including the full play of the market, the administration of persons and emotions, and the biopolitics of populations’ regulation regimes related to extreme events or continuous hazardous situations.

José argues also that citizenship issues, in the analysed case studies, were invisible, played at the interstices of politics and sociotechnical performations. The case studies used are the response of France and Portugal to the heat waves of 2003 and the rehabilitation processes of uranium mine sites in the same countries.

Contact brett.cherry@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.

Download this event in iCalendar format