Academic CV

PhD in Infrastructure Futures & Theory, 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:

  • Postdoctoral RA, Twenty65 Project (Civ. & Struct. Eng.), University of Sheffield (Nov 2017–Sep 2018)

Writing journal papers in which the trialectic model of sociotechnical change developed during my doctoral research is applied to domestic potable water consumption practices. Additional duties included drafting and editing of white papers, responses to calls-for-evidence and other non-academic writing within the project’s remit. (Also marking and assessment on undergrad papers from a infrastructure-focussed module for Urban Studies & Planning Dept.)

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

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

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:

Chapters in edited volumes:

  • Raven, PG (in progress) “Dumbing down the ‘smart city’”, in The Handbook of Social Futures, M Buscher, C Lopez Galviz, A Nordin, E Spiers (eds.)
  • Raven PG (2016) “New Model Authors? Authority, Authordom, Anarchism and the Atomised Text in a Networked World” in Adam Roberts: Critical Essays, McFarlane A & Callow C (eds.) Gylphi, Kent, UK (longlisted for the BSFA Best Non-Fiction Award 2017)

Refereed conference papers:

  • “Acting your age: design fiction, Nordic LARP and the embodiment of critical utopia-as-method against the Capitalocene”; The Senses of Science Fiction: Visions, Sounds, Spaces, 5-7 December 2019, American Studies Centre, University of Warsaw, Poland [pending]
  • “Jumping the shark: lessons from media fandoms regarding the coherence of climate imaginaries”; Scenarios and the Politics of the Future at the Climate-Security Nexus, 14-15 November 2019, Climate, Climatic Change and Society cluster (CLICCS), University of Hamburg [pending]
  • “Climaginaries: putting the critical utopia to work”; Constructing the Future symposium, 30 October 2019, University of Huddersfield, UK [pending]
  • “FOSSIL / The Museum of Carbon Ruins (an ongoing experiment in the anticipation of decarbonisation)” (a panel/performance/intervention), Anticipation 2019, 9-11 October, Oslo, Norway (w/ Stripple J, Nikoleris A, Versteeg W, MacDonald G)
  • “Metasystemics: towards an ontological theory of concrete infrastructure”; RGS-IGB Conference 2019, 27-30 August 2019, London, UK
  • “Toward the instrumentalisation of science fiction as a sandbox for social science”; Worlding SF, 6-8 December 2018, Graz, Austria (w/ Stripple, J)
  • “Ways of telling tomorrows:(science) fictions, social practices and the future(s) of infrastructure”; DEMAND Centre Conference 2016, Lancaster, UK
  • “Prototyping for (and with) publics: a role for (social) science fiction as policy sandbox”; Interpretive Policy Analysis 2015, Lille, France,
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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 (w/ 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 (w/ 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 (w/ Machell J, Boxall J B)
  • “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
  • “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:

  • Guest speaker: “Cognitive bridges: infrastructure fiction vs. investor storytime, and other forms of narrative prototyping for adapting to the Anthropocene”; Primer, Copenhagen, 25/9/2019
  • Guest lecturer / facilitator: Degrowth and Environmental Justice Summer School, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), 24/06-05/07/2019
  • 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] [audio]
  • 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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