The talk is the first event of the Public Lecture Series
High-Tech Valorization of Nature: Work, (Re)production, Technology, and Politics in Green Capitalist Projects
Link for the Zoom Event: https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/69481226452
Recording/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxxUxX8XRG0
Aaron Benanav’s work deals with questions of automation, global unemployment, and economic development. In Automation and the Future of Work he challenges the popular argument that ‘the rise of the robots’ will bring an end to work, heralding either a realm of freedom or mass unemployment and misery for all. Instead, Benanav identifies economic structures that drive both the loss of jobs (or slower creation of new jobs) and technological development. Based on these long-term trends, he asks: How would a post-scarcity society be organized?
In this event, we ask Aaron Benanav to extend his analysis to help us think about the valorization of nature in green capitalist projects such as the ‘Bioeconomy’, including biotechnology, high-tech forestry, agriculture, and food production. We will discuss how the trends Benanav identifies in global economies relate to developments in our use of nature, human work, and ideas about green growth. We will also ask what possibilities and challenges new technologies and economic structures pose for a different society organized around human needs rather than profits.
Aaron Benanav is the author of Automation and the Future of Work. He is currently a researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In August 2022, Benanav will begin a new position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Syracuse University, where he will also serve as one of the core faculty members at SU’s Autonomous Systems Policy Institute.
The Public Lecture Series is hosted by the BioMaterialities Research Group at Humboldt University. The conversation with Aaron Benanav will be led by Miriam Boyer and Johannes Fehrle.
[source of picture: pexels.com]