Infrastructural Power in the Age of Climate Crisis: Rethinking State, Public Values, and Scale
Research group: Sociology of Politics, Economy and Education
of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAS
has a pleasure to invite for an online seminar
Tuesday, 17th of September, 2024, H:16:00 (CET)
with a lecture by
Dr. Jędrzej Niklas
Polish Academy of Sciences, Programme PASIFIC
Infrastructural Power in the Age of Climate Crisis: Rethinking State, Public Values, and Scale
Comments:
- Professor Alison Powell (LSE)
- Dr. Becky Kazansky (University of Amsterdam)
Link to the meting: https://meet.google.com/ind-khon-ijq
Abstract:
In a world where environmental crises such as climate change reshape governance challenges, the role of the state in managing complex infrastructures—including data—becomes central to our ability to act at scale. Public actors, through their infrastructural and regulatory power, not only shape the contours of data governance but also influence the fundamental ways in which we understand and respond to environmental issues. Yet, understanding how the state exerts its power within these spaces remains complex, especially when political interests, public values, and environmental urgencies collide.
This lecture draws on a two-year empirical study of Poland’s forest sector—a politically charged space where data infrastructures and environmental governance are deeply intertwined. Through a series of 30 interviews with experts, practitioners, and activists, as well as detailed document analysis, I explore how public actors—especially the State Forests, a major institution managing over a quarter of Poland’s land—deploy data infrastructures for forest management, international reporting, and broader climate policy. Guided by Michael Mann’s concept of infrastructural power, I examine how the state organizes and asserts control through data, not only for resource management but also as a mechanism for mobilizing and centralizing societal activity. This lens helps unravel how state power is enacted through technological infrastructures, how data shapes and sometimes constrains governance, and how conflicts over data reflect larger political struggles.
Central to this exploration is the question: Can the state’s infrastructural power, rooted in national governance, scale up to address planetary-level challenges in the face of climate crises? While data infrastructures enable governance at the state level, they are embedded within political economies and value systems that both drive and constrain action. This lecture critically reflects on how the state’s involvement in these digital infrastructures presents both opportunities and limitations—not just for governing at a national level but for imagining how state-based governance can interact with broader, planetary-scale responses to climate catastrophe. By examining the tensions in forest data governance in Poland, I aim to shed light on how the state’s infrastructural power operates in both digital and environmental spaces. These dynamics reveal the possibilities and constraints of working within the state’s scale while raising questions about how, or if, these systems can help us reimagine governance at larger, planetary scales.
In parallel with this analysis, the lecture offers a reflection on what it means to conduct research in such politically charged and data-driven spaces. Conducting fieldwork and interviews in the context of forest governance revealed not just the content of these debates but the broader spaces in which they unfold—spaces where science, activism, and politics intersect, and where data becomes a site of contention. Working on data in these contexts means not only analyzing its governance but also navigating the deeply political landscapes in which data infrastructures operate. As researchers, we are exposed to the various power dynamics and conflicts embedded in these systems, seeing how data not only serves as a tool for governance but also reflects larger societal tensions.
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