Interview with Başak Saraç-Lesavre

Sociologist on the question of energy and environmental futures from the standpoint of intergenerational and planetary responsibilities, Başak Saraç-Lesavre joins Sciences Po and the CSO as assistant professor in environmental sociology and ecological transition. Başak agreed to answer a few questions.

What was your background before joining Sciences Po?

After a thesis in Science and Technology Studies at the École des Mines de Paris, where I studied the governance of nuclear waste in the United States, I did my first postdoctoral project at the Ecole des Mines de Paris, where I researched European nuclear stress-tests and the Europeanization of nuclear safety. I then joined the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech in the U.S. and contributed to a National Science Foundation-funded project on the reimagining of nuclear accident response mechanisms in the post-Fukushima context. Before joining Sciences Po, I was a lecturer and research fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. I am affiliated with the Centre for Energy Ethics at the University of Saint Andrews. 

Your research lies at the interface between the sociology of science and technology, economic sociology and environmental anthropology. How did you come to be interested in environmental issues?

I have always been intrigued by peoples’, communities’, experts’, and institutions’ ways to value what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘desirable’ relations between the present and future generations, between humans and more-than-humans, between the surface and the depths of the Earth, and between ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere’. I realized that nuclear waste, and long-lasting political, financial, material responsibilities associated with it, constitutes a perfect case to examine those relations. Nuclear waste provided me with opportunities to study; 1) situated debates, controversies and negotiations revolving around energy transition and environmental degradation in a period marked by human intervention into deep time; 2) the formulation of a whole range of legal, political, financial, budgetary, and techno scientific technologies conceived to contain and assign long-term roles and responsibilities associated with its handling; 3) the ways in which communities, geologies, and geographies are brought to deal and live with the long-lasting remains of human activities. 

What are the reasons that brought you to the CSO?

To go back in time, many years ago, as a research student, I was introduced to Science and Technology Studies at the LSE; an experience that opened my horizons to a whole range of new theoretical and methodological approaches and which led me decide to pursue my thesis in Paris around Bruno Latour’s school of thought. Since then, I have been following with great interest and admiration the pioneering work of Sciences Po on the ecological transition and environmental futures, but also on social justice, inequalities and urban futures. There are so many stimulating programs, centres, initiatives and schools within Sciences Po tackling these issues in their own enriching and stimulating way.

The outstanding research carried out at the CSO on markets and valuation, on crises and disasters, on knowledge and expertise, on environmental health and environmental futures has long been a source of inspiration for my work. As soon as I saw the opportunity, I applied in a heartbeat. It is a privilege to be part of such an excellent research group. I'm looking forward to collaborating with my colleagues and to developing new research and teaching projects. 

You explore contemporary societies' efforts to formulate ‘good’ and ‘desirable’ relations in a period marked by human intervention into deep time. What are your methods of analysis?

I adopt a pragmatist approach, not imposing my own conception of ‘good’ and ‘desirable’ futures, I examine how actors in the field – people, experts, communities, institutions, law makers - attempt to define those and formulate a whole range of economic, legal, geo-political, financial arrangements to produce them. I undertake extensive ethnographic research, conduct in-depth interviews with policymakers, residents, practitioners, politicians, and concerned groups, and conduct thorough data analysis, including the use of archival sources and institutional documents. My fieldwork has taken me from the town that hosts the only operating geological repository for nuclear waste in the world—located deep inside the Salado Formation (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Carlsbad, New Mexico, USA)—to robotic laboratories that are developing technologies for the clean-up of Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site (Sellafield, West Cumbria, UK), from the U.S. National Archives to stakeholder meetings at the EU Parliament (Brussels, Belgium), and from U.S. Congress (Washington D.C., USA) to the now-abandoned Yucca Mountain deep geological repository project (Nye County, Nevada, USA).

At Sciences Po, among others, you teach the Sociological Inquiries course. As a teacher, what do you want to pass on to your students?

As a teacher, I strive to motivate students to think critically and to develop thorough arguments that will enable them to engage in fair and constructive dialogue. Central to my role, as I see it, is the recognition of their individual strengths and talents, and the development of a creative, challenging, and intellectually rewarding environment in which to nurture each student’s development. I believe that learning is an active, open-ended process that allows for a multitude of styles, preferences, and directions. I am also convinced that learning in a group has clear advantages over isolated study, and I use a variety of techniques to scaffold active learning as a group, including in-class debates, role playing, and small-scale simulations. I deeply care about creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment in the classroom.

At a time of unprecedented challenges the Earth faces, I try to help students engage with different conceptions of desirable futures, equip them with the capacity to critically think about environment-economy-energy relations, enable them to unpack moral and political values inscribed in all sorts of (e)valuation tools and practices, and help them reflect on the existing conceptions of ‘good’ intergenerational relations. 

What are your future projects?

I continue my analysis of contemporary societies’ efforts to formulate political and moral arrangements to cope with responsibilities that cross generations. To that end, I pursue four research avenues:

1. I push my existing analysis further and study how people, communities, and institutions live and deal with what remains. I am extending these lines of enquiry to contribute to collective social scientific inquiry concerning the treatment of intergenerational and planetary responsibilities across different domains and places. 
2. I continue researching nuclear waste futures. I follow the evolution of the ‘consent-based siting’ process in the United States, a process initiated by the U.S. Department of Energy for the siting of nuclear facilities. I also conduct a comparative case study on the uses of a specific assessment method to revalue nuclear waste futures in two nuclear countries (USA, and France) and analyze what those assessments tell us about how they each construe political and moral responsibilities towards the future and define desirable relations between the surface and the depths of the Earth.
3. I research a specific case of marine pollution around Istanbul; a situation that did not only render environmental degradation visible to the naked eye but also raised fascinating questions about planetary relations, and about experts’, institutions’, and communities’ efforts to deal with the remains of human activities.
4. I am starting new research on water futures in France.

I am also excited to develop new undergraduate and postgraduate courses that will connect my long-term research interests in intergenerational relations, contemporary societies’ efforts to deal with the remains of human activities and the formulation of economic arrangements to the growing fields of environmental and energy ethics, sustainability and energy finance.