Henrik Ernstson is a human geographer and political ecologist and Professor in Urban Sustainable Development and Docent in Political Ecology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Gianfranco Selgas is a Guest Researcher at the Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Sciences and Engineering (KTH Royal Institute of Technology), an Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for Energy Ethics (University of St Andrews), and a Guest Researcher at NILAS. 

Martín Ávila is a designer, researcher, and Professor of Design at Konstfack, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, Sweden.

Abstract

This seminar will focus on inter- and transdisciplinary research projects in environmental humanities, political ecology, and design. We will present collaborative projects with an emphasis on grounding urban natures and geohistories of extractivism in Latin America and the Global South. We will begin by setting a wider historical-geographical frame by presenting insights from our project Archives of the Planetary Mine, exploring the geohistorical and socioecological magnitude of energy consumption, as well as the radical political, territorial, and social configurations around nature extraction, with an expanded understanding of Latin America and the Global South. In the next section, we develop a different kind of methodology to articulate radical political ecologies by focusing on Designing for Interspecies Cohabitation from our design-led project Political Ecologies of the Artificial. Departing from studies in Cordoba, Argentina, and set within a wider contemporary moment of intensified extraction, this section explores how design-led research can pose deeper-lying questions of how artefacts from industrial production would look like if designed to participate in emancipatory and life-affirming ways. The analysis is set within place-based ecological constraints, colonial histories, and decolonial aspirations. The seminar will conclude with a synthesis discussion and then open for a wider discussion with those attending.
 
Henrik Ernstson is a human geographer and political ecologist and Professor in Urban Sustainable Development and Docent in Political Ecology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Through in-depth case studies, he has developed a postcolonial neo-Marxist approach to urban political ecology, including the use of cinematic ethnography film-making. His latest book is Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-obscene (2019, Routledge), co-edited with Erik Swyngedouw, and his latest film with Jacob von Heland is The Lindeka: How A City Ate a Book (2023, SVA Toronto). He is co-director of The Situated Ecologies Platform and leads the VR-funded research project Terra Potentia: The World-Making Force of Dredging and co-edits with Gianfranco Selgas a special issue in Geoforum on the Archives of the Planetary Mine. He is Honorary Scholar at The University of Manchester and former Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town.
 
Gianfranco Selgas is a Guest Researcher at the Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Sciences and Engineering (KTH Royal Institute of Technology), an Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for Energy Ethics (University of St Andrews), and a Guest Researcher at NILAS. His research and teaching examine the historical, cultural, and political dimensions of natural resource extraction and energy consumption across Latin America and the Caribbean. He is the author of Regionalismo ensamblado: Cultura, ecología política y extractivismos en Latinoamérica (1930-1940)(Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2025), co-editor of the special issue Energy Matters: Latin America and the Cultural Critique of Energy (Environmental Humanities), and currently co-edits with Henrik Ernstson the special issue Archives of the Planetary Mine (Geoforum).
 
Martín Ávila is a designer, researcher, and Professor of Design at Konstfack, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, Sweden. Martín’s research is design-driven and addresses forms of interspecies cohabitation. His latest book is Designing for Interdependence: A Poetics of Relating. He is currently working on a collaborative project entitled “Material Cultures for Interspecies Cohabitation” (2023-2026). Martín is a committee member for Artistic Research at The Swedish Research Council.