In this episode of Urban Nature, physicist Geoffrey West discusses the universal scaling laws that govern organisms, cities, and economies. Drawing from his book Scale, West explains how cities function as networked systems analogous to living organisms, exhibiting predictable patterns of growth, efficiency, and innovation. The conversation explores the implications of these laws for urbanization, sustainability, and the future of the planet, arguing that cities—rather than humanity alone—are the central drivers of the current “Urbanocene.”

In this episode of Urban Nature, Sunita Narain explores the concept of “environmentalism of the poor”, contrasting it with the technocratic, middle-class environmentalism that often externalizes costs and creates new problems while trying to solve old ones. She emphasizes equity, local knowledge, and practical solutions that consider both human needs and environmental sustainability. Narain critiques conventional approaches to climate change, urban planning, and renewable energy, highlighting the resistance of professional orthodoxies to innovative ideas. She underscores that inclusive development is synonymous with sustainable development, and stresses the need for courage, imagination, and hope in addressing global environmental crises.

In this episode of Urban Nature, Sheila Jasanoff delves into the intricate relationship between science, society, and the natural world. She challenges the conventional view that science merely mirrors nature, arguing instead that scientific knowledge is shaped by human mediation, representation, and power dynamics. Through an exploration of how societal choices influence scientific practices and technological developments, Jasanoff urges a deeper examination of how science interacts not only with nature but also with the fabric of social order.

In this episode of Urban Nature, Steward Pickett explores the dynamic relationship between cities and natural ecosystems, challenging the notion that urban environments are separate from nature. He argues that viewing cities as part of natural systems reveals the deep interconnections between human and ecological processes, urging for a more holistic approach to urban planning that integrates these complexities.

In this episode of Urban Nature, Eduardo Góes Neves and Gabriel Kozlowski discuss how archaeology can be a means to understand change in human–natural systems over long timescales. Neves elaborates on the connection between ancient Amazonian societies with large-scale transformations of the natural environment. He emphasizes that what see as pristine forests are, most of the times, anthropic landscapes and, therefore, new attention should be given to the historical human factor in forest settings, which has the power to offer us alternatives models for the development of tropical societies.

In this episode of Urban Nature, Kate Soper and Gabriel Kozlowski discuss the multiple meanings of Nature alongside issues related to environmental activism, feminism and the need for a cultural and economic shift towards a post-growth society and an alternative concept of hedonism. She emphasizes the need for a new political imaginary that challenges current consumerist and growth-driven lifestyles, promoting a path towards a more socially and environmentally just future.

In this episode, Gabriel Kozlowski and Tania Li discuss the concept of land and its inscription, colonization by plantation corporations, modes of distribution beyond the “proper job,” and ethnographic approaches to the practice of politics.

Tania Li is a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto. She's known for her studies concerning land, labor, capitalism, development, politics, and indigeneity with a particular focus on Indonesia. Her work crosses multiple fields like geography, planning, law, and environmental studies, while bringing different actors together from activists to policymakers to make sense of transformations brought about by processes such as land reform, rural class formation, struggles over forests and their conservation, state-organized resettlement initiatives, and problems faced by people who are pushed off their land. Her books include the award-winning Lands End, Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier, Plantation Life, written with Pujo Semedi, The Will to Improve, Governmentality, Development and the Practices of Politics, the edited volume of Powers of Exclusion, and many more.

https://www.taniali.org/

Gabriel Kozlowski is a Brazilian architect and curator. He works on questions pertaining to urbanization from the perspective of political ecology. In Urban Nature, Kozlowski talks to prominent thinkers who have been pushing the boundaries of how we understand the relationship between humans and the natural environment.

In this episode of Urban Nature, Jason W. Moore and Gabriel Kozlowski discuss the concepts of nature, capitalism, and the web of life from the perspective of social construction, relations of power, and Modernity’s dualism. Moore argues that one of the most fundamental problems of Western civilization, both intellectually and politically, is the splitting between society and nature; that this binary is a form of violence that generates conditions of inequality and oppression while maintaining the hegemonic structures intact.

In this episode of URBAN NATURE, Professor of Political Theory and Geography at the University of Warwick Stuart Elden and Gabriel Kozlowski talk about the intersections between people, place, and power, in relation to concepts such as territory, understood as a political technology, and terrain, as the physical materiality of territory. The discussion touches on Lefebvre’s formulations on the rural, Foucault’s notion of milieu, and ideas around a Politics of the Earth.

“It's very easy to think that in the past the world was organized in a similar way it is today, except that the borders were different places and that there were different regimes within them.”  – Stuart Elden, Professor of Political Theory and Geography at University of Warwick

A '74PODCAST Series, URBAN NATURE is hosted by Gabriel Kozlowski, Brazilian architect and curator working on urbanization from the perspective of political ecology. The Series presents guests from a diverse set of disciplines—including Anthropology, Biology, Philosophy, Political Science, Political Theory, Geography, Architecture, and the Arts, among others—that have been reflecting on the relationship between humans and nature.

Produced by ISTANBUL'74.

Bu bölümde gitarist, kompozitör, doğaçlamacı, aranjör ve prodüktör Şevket Akıncı ve şarkıcı, şarkı yazarı, prodüktör Selin Baycan ile ISTANBUL’74’ün sunduğu “Rastlantısal Orman: Bir Okuma Odası” sergisi kapsamında düzenlenen doğaçlama performans üzerine ve canlı performansların günümüzde üretim alanı olarak nasıl ele alındığı hakkında konuşuyoruz.