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:
- 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:
- Raven PG (2017) “(Re)narrating the societal cyborg: a definition of infrastructure, an interrogation of integration.” People, Place & Policy
- Raven PG (2017) “Telling tomorrows: science fiction as an energy futures research tool.” Energy Research & Social Science
- Raven PG (2016) “The rhetorics of futurity: scenarios, design fiction, prototypes, and other evaporated modalities of science fiction.” Foundation: the International Review of Science Fiction #123 (print only; please email for proofs)
- 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)
- Raven PG (2015) “Imagining the impossible: the shifting role of utopian thought in civic planning, science fiction, and futures studies.” Journal of Futures Studies
- Raven PG, Elahi S (2015) “The New Narrative: applying narratology to the shaping of futures outputs” Futures
- Keraca F, Raven PG, Machell J, Camci F (2014) “A comparative analysis framework for assessing the sustainability of a combined water and energy infrastructure” Technological Forecasting & Social Change
- Raven P G (2014) “The future’s four quarters: proposing a quadrant methodology for strategic prototyping in infrastructural contexts” Technological Forecasting & Social Change
- Keraca F, Camci F, Raven PG (2013) “City Blood: A Visionary Infrastructure Solution for Household Energy Provision through Water Distribution Networks” Energy
- Karaca F, Raven PG, Machell J, Varga L, Camci F, Chitchyan R, Boxall J, Ulanicki B, Skworcow P, Strzelecka A, Ozawa-Meida L, Janus T (2013) “Single infrastructure utility provision to households: technological feasibility study” Futures
Refereed conference papers:
- Raven P G, “Metasystemics: towards an ontological theory of concrete infrastructure”; RGS-IGB Conference 2019, 27-30 August 2019, London, UK [pending]
- Raven P G, Stripple J, “Toward the instrumentalisation of science fiction as a sandbox for social science”; Worlding SF, 6-8 December 2018, Graz, Austria
- 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:
- Raven PG. “Showing, not telling: some thoughts on social science and (science) fiction”. theSociologicalReview.com, Mar 2016
- Raven P G, “Dream states: 500 years of Utopia”, The Long+Short (NESTA), Mar 2016
- Raven P G, “Rational renationalisation”, The Long+Short (NESTA), Nov 2015
- Raven P G, “Infrastructure Cyborgs”, FutureEverything, July 2015
- Raven P G, “Who wants to live forever?”, The Long+Short (NESTA), June 2015
- Raven P G, “Pipedreams: Exploring the World of Biofilms in Pipe Networks”, Water & Wastewater Treatment, November 2014
- Raven PG, “Los Piratas del Mar de Plástico”, in Twelve Tomorrows 2014 (MIT Technology Review), ed. Bruce Sterling, September 2014
- Raven PG, “Infrastructure fictions”, Compass (Assoc. of Professional Futurists), October 2013
- Raven PG, “The Artist as Engineer”, The Guardian, September 2013
- Raven PG, “Someone Else’s Problem? A brief protohistory of infrastructure”, ARC Magazine, September 2013
- Raven PG, “An introduction to Infrastructure Fiction”, Superflux, 27 June 2013
- Raven PG, “Trends in Sensor Deployment”, Water & Sewerage Journal, February 2013
- Raven PG, “This is a Game: Nordic Larp”, Best of Rhizome.org 2012
CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS
As invited speaker/panellist:
- 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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