91快色

The academic year 2020-21 was supposed to be a year of travel and archival research. Instead, it turned out to be a year of new beginnings and making new connections. During my research and scholarship leave I had envisioned to carry out further archival research in North America and Europe for my SSHRC-funded research projects on the 1970s energy crises in a transatlantic perspective and on Canada鈥檚 future energy relations with the EU and the UK after Brexit. However, the pandemic closed all archives. Luckily, just a few months before my leave began, a SSHRC Partnership grant proposal on 鈥淒eindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time鈥� or D茅POT (), which I was part of, was successful. Led by Dr. Steven High, Professor of History at Concordia University and founding member of its Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, this 7-year $2.5 million research cluster examines the historical roots and lived experience of deindustrialization as well as the political responses to it. The partnership consists of 33 partner organizations and 24 co-investigators and collaborators from six countries in Western Europe and North America, including the 91快色 Institute for the Humanities, where two Postdoctoral Associates will complete the 91快色-based team of researchers this summer. Our research group at the CIH will particularly focus on the connection between deindustrialization and energy transitions as well as oral histories of workers in the oil and gas industry. 

Forced to redirect our focus on virtual activities, D茅POT organized a series of Zoom workshops on key themes of the project: deindustrialization, ruination, brownfield, greening 鈥� which I moderated 鈥�, moral economy and populism. Recordings of the workshops are accessible via the D茅POT website. I also joined Dr. High at a roundtable on 鈥淏rexit, Trump, Deindustrialization & the Politics of Our Time鈥� at the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy in Montr茅al on November 27. In early October, I talked about 鈥淓nergy Heritage and Energy Transitions in Alberta: The Role of (Hi)Stories鈥� at a joint APT and National Trust for Canada online conference. These were all welcome events to kick off our exciting research collaboration. To launch the 91快色 side of the D茅POT project, we were extremely fortunate to co-host a keynote by Dr. High on 鈥淗istory of the Present Time: The Cohabitation of Memory and History After the Postwar Boom,鈥� which was the concluding event of a three-day SSHRC-funded conference co-organized by seven historians including myself entitled . I curated the pre-recorded talk, which will soon be posted on the CIH website, and together with Dr. Nancy Janovicek, former CIH fellow and member of the CIH executive board, I moderated the event. Attended by more than 80 participants from all over Canada, Dr. High鈥檚 talk highlighted the significance of labour history for Canada鈥檚 contemporary history and the importance of oral histories and lived experience to understanding the personal hardships but also individual and community resilience in an economy that is transitioning to a post-industrial world. These insights are particularly pertinent in Alberta, where net zero emission goals and decarbonization policies may create new rust belts in the future.

Like most of my colleagues I spent more time attending workshops, conferences and presentations online. While not always a satisfactory replacement of in-person meetings, these allowed for (re)connecting with colleagues and audiences outside Alberta and Canada. One of the most exciting new connections forged over the past academic year is a collaboration with a research group based at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), Freiburg University, in Germany. As a FRIAS Senior External Fellow funded through a Marie Sk艂odowska-Curie Fellowship of the European Union, I worked on a project focusing on 鈥淲omen in Energy Transitions: Agency, Resilience and Complicity鈥� and collaborated with the FRIAS Environmental Humanities research group on their project . Throughout our discussions we realized that more conversations are needed between the energy humanities and environmental humanities and the concept of resilience in energy transitions would allow for such fruitful scholarly engagements. Supported by FRIAS, I successfully applied for funding from U91快色 International to pursue such collaboration over the next two years. Through an International Research Partnership Workshop Grant ($10,000), the Energy In Society working group, which I co-convene, together with the FRIAS Environmental Humanities research group will organize a series of online and in-person workshops in 91快色 and Freiburg. Entitled 鈥淪ocietal dimensions of energy transitions: Risk, resilience and vulnerability in energy/environmental humanities,鈥� our joint project examines the societal dimensions of energy transitions, especially to assess questions of environmental/energy justice and the social impact of these transformative changes on workers and the wider publics in specific energy regions.