Mining Conversations. The Futurepasts of ... Petroleum

Mining Conversations invites you to join its online session The Futurepasts of … Petroleum. The monthly online series critically reflects and discusses extraction and energy landscapes, across geographies and temporalities—up to this moment in which resource regimes more than ever shape economic, societal and environmental realities planetarily and locally in very unequal ways.

About the speakers

The session will host the following speakers:

Nellys Koyoo is a graduate Law student of Kenyatta University, Nairobi, and an Erastus Mundus student at Humboldt University of Berlin. She is currently pursuing her Masters Degree in Law at Humboldt University. Her professional interests span across the fields of Environmental Law with a focus on Oil and Gas, Dispute Resolution and Commercial Law. She is a Certified Professional Mediator from the Mediation Training Institute of East Africa. She is also certified in Community Mediation from the University of Western Cape and Dullah Omar Institute of Constitutional Law, Good Governance and Human Rights, South Africa. Currently, Nellys is a Legal Researcher for the Trade Lab Centre for Strategic Litigation (CSL), where she examines the efficacy of Good Governance, Human Rights and Rule of Law standards within the East African Community. She has a knack for legal research and writing, which is evidenced by her publications in the University of Nairobi Law Journal titled Pathway to Digital Justice and Innovative Mechanisms: An analysis of Amicable Dispute Resolution in Kenya. She is also published in the Kenya School of Law Journal titled The New Dawn: Innovation and Corporate Sustainability in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMEs). She is equally published in the Law Society of Kenya Journal in a paper titled Paradigm Shift: An analysis on the Role of the Legal Profession in promoting Climate Justice. 

Ana Luiza Nicolae is a second-year graduate student in Harvard’s History of Science department and has an MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University. Her interests lie in tracing the evolution of geological concepts pertaining to the structure of the earth and the mechanisms which lead to its transformation, such as earthquakes. She studies the concepts of porosity and seismicity, which are key to understanding how humans have theorized the interaction between fluids and the underground over time. By participating in structural geology research at Harvard, Ana Luiza’s dissertation work spans the scientific and social history of underground fluid injection and geological hazard risk assessments in the USA and International contexts. Her focus fields span the topics of early modern mining to petroleum exploration and carbon sequestration.

Monique Verdin is a transdisciplinary storyteller, citizen of the Houma Nation, a member of the Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative, and director of The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange, responding to the complex interconnectedness of environment, economics, culture, climate, and change in the Gulf South. Monique is currently working to support the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, a network of Indigenous southeastern gardeners, to grow food and medicine sovereignty in the lower Mississippi River Delta and is a Bvlbancha Liberation Radio collaborator. Monique is co-producer/subject of the documentary My Louisiana Love and co-author of Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations.

The session will be moderated by Henrique Gasperin, international history and politics, Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID) and MPI-GEA.