We specialize in hard to find items
All Categories
Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi (Experimental Futures)
Share Tweet
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About Spaceship In The Desert: Energy, Climate
Product Description In 2006 Abu Dhabi launched an ambitious project to construct the world’s first zero-carbon city: Masdar City. In Spaceship in the Desert Gökçe Günel examines the development and construction of Masdar City's renewable energy and clean technology infrastructures, providing an illuminating portrait of an international group of engineers, designers, and students who attempted to build a post-oil future in Abu Dhabi. While many of Masdar's initiatives—such as developing a new energy currency and a driverless rapid transit network—have stalled or not met expectations, Günel analyzes how these initiatives contributed to rendering the future a thinly disguised version of the fossil-fueled present. Spaceship in the Desert tells the story of Masdar, at once a “utopia” sponsored by the Emirati government, and a well-resourced company involving different actors who participated in the project, each with their own agendas and desires. Review " Spaceship in the Desert is the fascinating story of a 'zero-carbon eco-city' that demonstrates the stark difference between vision and reality. . . . Günel’s first-hand reportage is insightful and objective." -- Barry Silverstein ― Foreword Reviews Published On: 2019-03-01 "The book is not only a rich ethnographic description of Masdar in all of its intricacies, but also a larger reflection on how global risks are framed according to the beliefs and situated actions of various interest groups." -- Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría ― International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Published On: 2019-07-01 "The global climate crisis is serious, but Günel shows that our attempts to tackle it are less so. . . . Our contemporary moral mess, from the GCC to Massachusetts, can be seen all too clearly through the pages of Günel’s account." -- Deen Sharp ― Public Books Published On: 2019-09-09 "Günel’s deft ethnographic sensibilities and creatively designed fieldwork further distinguish her contributions to anthropological studies of climate change, governance, knowledge production, infrastructure, materialism, and futurity more broadly. . . . Through fascinating and critical ethnographic descriptions, Günel offers a piercing glimpse into the front-lines of global climate change action." -- Gebhard Keny ― Ethnos Published On: 2019-09-18 " Spaceship in the Desert is a timely contribution to a growing field of anthropological scholarship on energy. . . . This book has the potential to attract readers from across the social sciences, not just within anthropology. The richness of ethnographic detail drawn in connection with the work of key thinkers may satisfy some readers." -- Idalina Baptista ― Anthropological Quarterly Published On: 2019-09-01 "Compelling and thought-provoking. . . . Günel encourages us as academics and as persons to rethink, renegotiate, and recreate our imaginations of the future through climate change technologies that do not preserve the status quo, but rather, alter it in the present." -- Hai Ri (Sophia) Jeon ― Anthropology Book Forum Published On: 2020-06-02 “[Günel’s] brilliant ethnography of Masdar reminds us of the limits of the third pilot of Spaceship Earth—the market.... Gu¨nel’s study also shows how the scope of climate change demands administrative bodies beyond corporations and states.” -- Troy Vettese ― Viewpoint Magazine Published On: 2020-08-14 Review “In this inventive, original, and readable book, Gökçe Günel explores the line between the visionary and the folly, examining the planning, execution, and imagination of the first post-oil, renewable energy, carbon neutral smart city in the Middle East. Folding together urbanism and energy politics, climate change and spectacle, knowledge economies and the end of oil, Günel is alive to the ambitions and the contradictions of creating a city so unique it is a ‘spaceship in the desert.’” -- Brian Larkin, author of ― Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Cul
