logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2024
48m 17s

Alice Mah, "Petrochemical Planet: Multis...

NEW BOOKS NETWORK
About this episode

Is a green future possible? In Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation (Duke UP, 2023), Alice Mah, a Professor in Urban and Environmental Studies at the University of Glasgow examines the practices of the petrochemical industry, along with the communities living with, and resisting, its impact. Offering ethnographic and theoretical reflections on this often overlooked and hidden part of the oil and plastics production chain, the book offers a new perspective on our present environmental crisis. Diagnosing the acuteness of problems as well as the challenges of solutions, the book is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand our planet and environment. The book is available open access here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Up next
Yesterday
Siri Schwabe, "Moving Memory: Remembering Palestine in Postdictatorship Chile" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Two juxtaposed years frame the subject matter of Moving Memory: Remembering Palestine in Postdictatorship Chile. In one, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet’s troops stormed Chile’s presidential palace. In the other, 1948, Zionist militias expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinian ... Show More
49m 58s
Yesterday
Janet McIntosh, "Kill Talk: Language and Military Necropolitics" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Even casual observers of the military will notice the unique ways that service members use language. With all of the acronyms and jargon, some even argue that membership in the military requires learning a whole language. But rather than treat military-specific language as a cult ... Show More
1h 28m
Jul 8
Myles Lennon, "Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2025)
In the face of accelerating climate change, anticapitalist environmental justice activists and elite tech corporations increasingly see eye to eye. Both envision solar-powered futures where renewable energy redresses gentrification, systemic racism, and underemployment. However, ... Show More
1h 10m
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2024
Josh Spodek, "Sustainability Simplified: The Definitive Guide to Solving All (Yes, All) Our Environmental Problems" (Amplify, 2025)
Josh Spodek disconnected his Manhattan apartment from the electric grid in May 2022. Over time, he has reduced his consumption and contribution to landfill. His new book argues that sustainability is not a sacrifice but an upgrade that can bring joy and increased quality of life. ... Show More
1h 6m
Mar 2025
The Life Scientific - Anna Korre
As the famous frog once said, it's not easy being green. And when it comes to decarbonising industry, indeed, reducing emissions of all sorts, the task is a complex one.Fossil fuels are used to manufacture some of mankind’s most ubiquitous products, from plastics to cement to ste ... Show More
26m 29s
Jan 2018
Jacob Smith, “Eco-Sonic Media” (University of California Press, 2015)
Can we have sound media that is ecologically sound? Can we fine tune our media production and consumption habits to a greener key? How can an environmental perspective on sound media contribute to our understanding of how media culture is involved in the ecological crisis? These ... Show More
37m 7s
Oct 2024
Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor, "Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles, and a Just Future" (The New Press, 2024)
A clarion call for justice in the quest for clean energy California’s Salton Sea region is home to some of the worst environmental health conditions in the country. Recently, however, it has also become ground zero in the new “lithium gold rush”—the race to power the rapidly expa ... Show More
32m 41s
Oct 2023
Smith Mehta, "The New Screen Ecology in India: Digital Transformation of Media" (British Film Institute, 2023)
In The New Screen Ecology in India: Digital Transformation of Media (British Film Institute, 2023), Smith Mehta takes a deep dive into the world of social media platforms and their impact on contemporary film and television production, arguing that they have fundamentally shifte ... Show More
1h 5m
Apr 2023
‘Possibility Of Life’ Book, PFAS Sewage, ‘Smart’ Play. April 14, 2023, Part 2
Is Anybody Out There? The Quest For Life In Space It’s one of humanity’s biggest fundamental questions: “Is there life elsewhere in the universe?” But despite years of searching, it’s a query that still has no answer.  That conundrum also opens up a whole string of other inquirie ... Show More
47m 44s
May 2024
Liliana Doganova, "Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels beg a nagging question: have we lost our capacity to act on the future? Dr. Liliana Doganova’s book Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology (Princeton University Press, 2024) sheds new light on this anxious qu ... Show More
1h 1m
Oct 2024
Bananapocalypse: Plantation Southeast Asia and Its Many Afterlives
This episode focuses on a cluster of issues of longstanding significance in Southeast Asia and in Southeast Asian Studies – plantation agriculture, global commodity chains or supply chains, exploitation of labour and environmental degradation, and resistance. To discuss these iss ... Show More
46m 22s
Oct 2024
Anna Lora-Wainwright, "Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China" (MIT Press, 2021)
Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China (MIT Press, 2021) by Dr. Anna Lora-Wainwright digs deep into the paradoxes, ambivalences, and wide range of emotions and strategies people develop to respond to toxicity in everyday life.An examination of the daily grind of ... Show More
50m 37s
Aug 2021
Beronda L. Montgomery, "Lessons from Plants" (Harvard UP, 2021)
In Lessons from Plants (Harvard University Press, 2021), Dr. Beronda Montgomery connects the science of plants to the behavior of people. She unpacks how their ability to who they are, where they are, and what they are supposed to do translates into good leadership. In the interv ... Show More
47m 43s