ISRF Book Launch: Crude Capitalism
On 13th November 2024 (from 5:30pm), the ISRF hosts a book launch and conversation with Professor Adam Hanieh, author of 'Crude Capitalism'.
We’ve known for at least forty years that we need to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Why, then, have we made so little progress? Why does oil’s grip on the world seem more unbreakable than ever?
In his new book, Crude Capitalism, Adam Hanieh offers some original answers to these questions. He describes our own everyday dependence on a range of oil byproducts like plastic. He tells the story of the “new axis of world oil now emerging around giant-non-Western firms in the Middle East and East Asia.” He details the networks of corporate control that embed oil more deeply than ever into the global system. He shows how capitalism would not have become what it is without oil to fuel it, which may mean that we will need to do without capitalism if we want to do without oil. Synthesising unique empirical detail with a grand historical narrative, Hanieh changes our sense of oil’s centrality while opening new prospects for going beyond it.
Please join us for Adam Hanieh’s presentation and the discussion of a book that makes an essential contribution to debates around oil-dependency and the struggle for climate justice.
Adam Hanieh is Professor of Political Economy and Global Development at the University of Exeter. He will be joined by two panelists: Adrienne Buller, Associate Fellow at Common Wealth and author of The Value of a Whale (2022); and Angus McNelly, Lecturer in International Development at King’s College London and author of Now We Are in Power: The Politics of Passive Revolution in Twenty-First Century Bolivia (2023). A Q&A will follow, moderated by Chris Newfield, ISRF Director of Research.
Join us from 5:30pm on Wednesday 13th November at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London & Online. Register Now.
Also coming soon…
As ever-larger numbers of people find themselves living in refugee camps, what are their lives like? How, for example, do they get the energy to cook, refrigerate, communicate, read at night, and do everything else most people take for granted?
Humanitarianism is in crisis: refugee numbers increase every year and humanitarian agencies are struggling to meet the needs of displaced people. In refugee camps all over the world, refugees are forced to secure their own access to energy and are provided with limited cooking resources and minimal electricity. Voices in the Dark draws upon a decade of original research to provide evidence on the energy lives of refugees. Focusing on refugee camps in Rwanda and Kenya, the book identifies that urgent change is required within humanitarian responses to forced migration and the climate crisis to ensure that future energy provision in displacement settings is sustainable, reliable and affordable for refugees.
Sarah Rosenberg-Jansen is Research Associate at the University of Oxford, where she is a member of the Refugee Studies Centre and Linacre College. She is an independent consultant and a senior advisor on humanitarian energy and climate issues. Sarah is a CoFounder of the Global Platform for Action for Sustainable Energy in Displacement Situations (the GPA).
Sarah will be joined by Samer Abdelnour, Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management at the University of Edinburgh Business School; and Kirsten McConnachie, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of East Anglia. A Q&A will follow, moderated by Dr Lars Cornelissen, ISRF Academic Editor.