Ninan, Anup Sam | India

Ever since he was an OEAD North-South Dialogue Fellow of IAS-STS from 2006 to 2008, Anup Sam Ninan has found himself returning to Graz frequently. So, when the COST Action ‘Transformation of Global Environmental Governance’ of EU Framework Program 7 offered him a short term scientific mission mobility grant after the submission of his doctoral thesis, he religiously took up a research stay in Graz. Submitted in March 2012 to the University of Bremen (Germany), his thesis titled 'By Carbon They Swear- Sustainability in Climate Change' explores how anthropogenic climate change and carbon markets are redefining global politics through techno scientific means.  Looked at from an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) perspective, the project ‘followed’ the object Carbon in different locations of performance and the web of interrelations within which it is situated.

Ninan earned his MA (Sociology) and MPhil (Science Policy Studies) from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India. His research interests include political and social construction of climate change; discourses on environment, development and sustainability; science and technology studies; and architecture. He is interested in the boundary-making and boundary-unmaking discussions both in performative and practice spheres generally scattered across STS, anthropology, geography, sociology, organizational studies, environmental sciences etc.

Project at IAS-STS: Carbonisation of Politics: Climate Change, Sustainability and Globalisation

With the widening scientific and political attention on anthropogenic climate change, carbon is increasingly becoming a political object. Individuals and countries are measuring or being made to measure their carbon footprints and carbon intensity. Carbon is an exchange object of emissions trade, and a focal point in sustainability discussions. The object mediates a wide range of political contestations, material translations and geographical reorganisations, both materially and metaphorically. By drawing insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS), anthropology, geography, organisation studies and environmental sciences, the proposed interdisciplinary study explores how far the material politics of carbon can enable us to understand globalisation in practice. The proposed project aims to working towards developing a theory of the carbon-mediated transformations from an ANT perspective, with an expected output of completing two articles over the short term mission.

Peer-reviewed Publications

Ninan, Anup Sam (2009) Gandhi's Technoscience: Sustainability and Technology as Themes of Politics, Sustainable Development 17 (3) 183 -196. www.interscience.wiley.com DOI: 10.1002/sd.381

Ninan, Anup Sam (2009) Technopolitical Mediations in the Climate Change Regime: STS Takes on Hot Air, In Bammé, Arno; Guenter Getzinger; Bernhard Wieser (eds.) Yearbook 2008 of the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society, Munich/ Vienna: Profil. ISBN: 978-3-89019-653-4.

Ninan, Anup Sam (2011) Outsourcing Emissions: Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as Ecological Modernisation, in Michael Schmidt, Vincent Onyango, Dmytro Palekhov (eds.) Implementing Environmental and Resource Management, Heidelberg/ London/ New York: Springer Publications. ISBN: 978-3-540-77567-6 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-77568-3