Building a BUS: Technoscience and the emerging mode of organising interventions in Indian Cities

Abstract

It is evident that Science and Technology Studies (STS) offers important insights for energy studies research. Yet, attending to global energy problems has received less attention within this budding research engagement. Building upon John Urry’s theorization of the global, this paper calls for considering the embedding of automobility in the global South in order for the growing STS and energy studies research to take the global seriously. Empirically investigating automobility is timely and STS’ diverse tool-box of theories is uniquely positioned for the task. With the street as locus, I propose a hybrid framework that draws upon several STS literatures to conceptualize the politics of automobility in the global south. Relying on STS for this purpose offers pathways towards just low-carbon transitions.

Govind Gopakumar

Principal Investigator

Associate Professor and Chair in the Centre for Engineering in Society in the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science at Concordia University.