Steven Farquhar

Steven Farquhar is a PhD researcher in human geography. Steven is interested in human/nature relationships, critical approaches to technology, and questions of territory. Theoretically, he draws upon the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari as well as the feminist new materialism of Karen Barad.

In his undergraduate dissertation, Steven explored the entanglement of social relations and non-human agency in making Belfast Harbour biodiverse. For his MA dissertation, he attended to the role of seabirds (primarily Manx shearwaters) in the emergence of more-than-human territories and what this teaches us about territory itself.

Steven’s PhD thesis, provisionally titled ‘Quantum Geographies of Quantum Science and Technology: Future Ecologies in the UK,’ explores the entanglement of matter and meaning, and of nature, people, and technology, in the landscapes of quantum and nuclear technological development in the UK. There are five research questions associated with this research:

1 How can quantum social theory help to understand the relationships between quantum ecologies and technologies?

2 How can the relationships between quantum ecologies and technologies through time be assessed methodologically?

3 How are more-than-human relations changing with regard to quantum and nuclear technological advancement and associated ecologies?

4 How are techno-utopian discourses and nuclear and quantum technologies associated?

5 How can the relationships between quantum ecologies and technologies be mobilised to advance desirable futures with regard to quantum ecologies and science and technology?