Academic CV

PhD in Infrastructure Futures & Theory (pending corrections), University of Sheffield, 2013-18

MA Creative Writing (Merit), Middlesex University, 2011-12

CURRENT APPOINTMENT

  • Postdoctoral researcher, Dept. of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden; social theory and narrative prototyping for zero-carbon transitions. (Since October 2018)

Research interests:

  • Metasystemic infrastructure; sustainability transitions, practice theory, Actor-Network Theory
  • Transitions design, design fiction, narrative prototyping; disruptive research communications paradigms
  • Social theory, theories of sociotechnical change
  • Science fiction studies, critical theory, narratology, modal genre theory

Research experience:

  • PhD candidate, Oct 2013 – 2018, University of Sheffield (Civil & Structural Eng. / Urban Studies & Planning)

Thesis title: Making Infrastructure Legible

Synopsis: This thesis represents the development and pilot application of a novel methodology for the speculative qualitative assessment (or “prototyping”) of new infrastructural systems. Its core aim and guiding principle is to make infrastructure legible: to reveal and narrate its role in everyday life from a more human perspective than that of the paradigmatic technology-focussed approach. Or, more simply, the project aims to understand how infrastructures develop, how they evolve and entangle over time.

  • Research Assistant, Oct 2011 – Oct 2013, University of Sheffield (Pennine Water Group)

10/2011 → 9/2013: RA on “Transforming Utilities Conversion Points” [ESPRC: EP/J005649/1] (Data-mining and collation, agent-based-model interpretation, scenario development, foresight and horizon-scanning techniques.)

10/2011 → 4/2013: RA on “All-in-One” [ESPRC: EP/J005592/1] (Data-mining and collation, scenario development, vignette narrative development, visual, video and spoken presentation to colleagues and stakeholders, paper drafting and editing, synthesis.)

PUBLICATIONS

Refereed journal papers, chapters:

Refereed conference papers:

  • Raven P G, “Ways of telling tomorrows:(science) fictions, social practices and the future(s) of infrastructure”; DEMAND Centre Conference 2016, Lancaster, UK
  • Raven P G, “Prototyping for (and with) publics: a role for (social) science fiction as policy sandbox”; Interpretive Policy Analysis 2015, Lille, France,
  • Raven P G, “The self-effacement of Cyborgaia: (re)narrating the illegible morphogenesis of metasystemic infrastructure”; Critical Geographies of Urban Infrastructure, UGRG/Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, 6-7/11/2014
  • Raven P G, “The rhetorics of futurity: scenarios, design fiction, prototypes, and other evaporated modalities of science fiction”, LonCon3 (World Science Fiction Convention – academic track), 14-18/8/2014
  • Raven P G, Machell J, Boxall J B, “Choice infrastructure: non-engineering strategies for behaviour change around domestic water and sewerage use”; 7th International Conference on Sewer Processes & Networks, Uni. Of Sheffield, 28-30/8/2013
  • Raven P G, Machell J, Boxall J B, “Worlds that tell stories, stories that tell worlds: diegesis and mimesis in science fiction and technoscience”, Science in Public 2013, Nottingham, 22-23/7/2013
  • Raven P G, Machell J, Boxall J B, “The model is not the system: post-normal engineering and the super-wicked problems of infrastructure”, Int’l Water Assoc. Young Water Professionals, Teeside Uni., Darlington,17-19/4/2013
  • Raven P G, “Thunder & Consolation: New Model Army as an ephemeral anarchist utopia”; New Genre Army (a conference on the work of Adam Roberts), Uni. Of Lincoln, 5/4/2013
  • Raven P G, Machell J, Boxall J B, “The future’s four quarters: strategic thinking with science fiction”, British Academy of Management Strategic Visions workshop, Euston, London, 6/2/2013

Practitioner papers, articles, essays, other publications:

CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS

As invited speaker/panellist:

  • Speaker: “Prestidigitation, habituation, effacement: how infrastructure came to hide itself”; Beneath the city streets: urban infrastructure and its invisibility, Sheffield Hallam University, 21/3/18
  • Speaker: “How does the rabbit end up in the hat? (Or: what transhumanism doesn’t want you to know about infrastructure.), Zuendfunk Net-Conference, Munich, Germany, 13-14/10/17 [video]
  • Panel convener (with Dr A. Krzywoszynska): “Where’s My Jetpack? Making and breaking promises in (public) technoscience and science fiction”, Science in Public 2017, Sheffield UK, 10-12/7/17
  • Guest lecturer: Speculative & Critical Design Summer School, London College of Communications, 5/7/2016 [video]
  • Participant: Decarbonized Futures: Narrating Low Carbon Societies, Lorentz Centre, Leiden NL, 6-10/6/2016
  • Panellist: Land & Water 2015, Brown University, Providence RI, USA, 4-5/9/2015
  • Panellist: Tomorrow Today: Design, Fiction and Social Responsibility, ICA, London, 11/6/2015
  • Keynote speaker: City Infrastucture Lab, FutureEverything, Manchester, 4/6/2015
  • Panellist: (Dis)Assembling #STACKTIVISM – a salon; Goethe Institute London, 15/10/2014
  • Delegate: Oxford Futures Forum 2014, Saïd Business School, Oxford, 30-31/5/2014
  • Speaker: “What lies beneath? Infrastructure fiction and utopian urbanism”, FutureEverything2014, Manchester, 31/3–1/4/2014 [video; starts at ~31m00s]
  • Speaker: Methods For Thinking About The Future (workshop/conference), ARCC/EPSRC, B’ham University, 7/11/2013
  • Speaker: “An Introduction to Infrastructure Fiction”, Improving Reality 2013, Lighthouse, Brighton; 5/9/2013 [video]
  • Speaker: “Infrastructure fiction and cyborg anthropology”, #Stacktivism unconference, The Thought Menu, Lime Wharf, Hackney; 13/7/2013
  • Facilitator/narrator: Fractal’13 (public-access design fiction conference), Medellín, Colombia; 17-18/5/2013
  • Panellist: “The Future of Truth” at Write The Future, Royal Society, London; 1/5/2013

AFFILIATIONS

  • Institute for Atemporal Studies (associate; Jorge Luis Borges Memorial Chair in Infrastructural Psychogeography)

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