Research Fellow, Social Anthropology, University of Manchester
Biography
Başak Saraç-Lesavre is a research fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Her research is situated at the interface of Science and Technology Studies, anthropology, and valuation studies. She engages with inter-generational relations, energy futures, environmental ethics, valuation practices, and deep time. Most recently, she conducted an ethnographic research project on the development of robotic technologies to handle the remains of the nuclear age. Her first book project, Nuclear Remains: On Temporality, Valuation, and Responsibility, examines the ways in which an advanced industrial society has been grappling with nuclear waste and interrogates what this case tells us about our current (in)capacities to deal with such long-lasting responsibilities.
Başak received her MRes from the LSE, and PhD in Science and Technology Studies from the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris. During her fieldwork, she held a visiting fellowship position in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Later, she held a temporary assistant professorship position at the Ecole des Mines de Paris, where she examined European nuclear stress-tests. Then, she joined Virginia Tech’s Department of Science, Technology, and Society and contributed to a National Science Foundation-funded research project on post-Fukushima nuclear emergency response initiatives.
Selected publications
Saraç-Lesavre, B. 2021. Deep Time: The End of an Engagement, Issues in Science and Technology, 37, no. 3 (Spring 2021). https://issues.org/deep-time-nuclear-waste-policy-sarac-lesavre/
Saraç-Lesavre, B. 2021. Deep time financing? ‘Generational’ responsibilities and the problem of rendez-vous in the U.S. nuclear waste programme, Journal of Cultural Economy, 14(4), DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2020.1818601
Saraç-Lesavre, B. 2021. Styles of revaluation: The case of levelized cost of electricity, Nuclear Technology, 270 (9), DOI: 10.1080/00295450.2021.1884492
Saraç-Lesavre, B. 2020. Faire avec les Restes de l’Age Nucléaire: Traduire la Formation Salado en une « Solution pour la Nation », Revue d’Anthropologie des Connaissances, 14(4). https://journals.openedition.org/rac/12028
Saraç-Lesavre, B. 2020. Desire for the worst: Extending nuclear attachments in Southeastern New Mexico, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 38(4), 753-771. DOI: 10.1177/0263775819889969
