Geography and the Environment Colloquium Series: Saulesh Yessenova

Geography and the Environment Colloquium Series: Saulesh Yessenova. (Co-sponsored by CAC Research, online

https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/j/96092850900 ) For more information, please contact nkoch@syr.edu.

Abstract
Future Energy was the theme of Astana Expo that was held in the new capital of Kazakhstan in 2017. This mega event attracted 115 countries, many of which invested significant resources in presenting their visions and pathways towards sustainable energy production for human use to Kazakhstan’s and international public. This talk is about the performance of national imaginaries at the Astana Expo where energy futures materialized in the form of hydrogen powered vehicles, nuclear reactors on Earth and in orbit, Tokamaks, smart cities, living facades, vertical gardens growing biomass energy, and happy humans inhabiting a socially just future world. Scholars from different disciplines have argued that technoscientific and political orders are intimately connected and co-produced. This co-production as played out at the Astana Expo – highlighting debates about who gets to imagine energy future and how narratives of technological disasters and breakthroughs, and political decisions that followed are organized in support of hegemonic political and instrumental orders in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in the world.