Skip navigation

You are in:  Home » Staff and students » Academic staff » Michael Bravo

Michael Bravo, BEng MPhil PhD

University Senior Lecturer and Fellow of Downing College

Convenor of the Circumpolar History and Public Policy Research Group, Scott Polar Research Institute. Member of the Department of Geography's Natures, Cultures, and Knowledges Thematic Research Group. He is also a research associate in the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science.

Biography

Career:

Qualifications:

Research

Michael Bravo has an interdisciplinary background with a humanities Ph.D. (Cantab 1992) in the history and philosophy of science, building on a technical background with a B.Eng. (Carleton 1985) in satellite communications engineering. Bravo has written extensively on the role of scientific research in the exploration and development of the Arctic, exploring issues in historical epistemology including the philosophy of experiment, measurement in fieldwork, the nature of precision and calibration, science and technology in translation, and the historical emergence of new ontologies.

In his book Narrating the Arctic (2002), he explores the implications of the Arctic's extraordinary historical diversity through the lens of the Scandinavian Arctic. The point of this book is to reveal how the Arctic as one of the world's major geographical regions comprises fundamentally different historical processes of colonisation and integration. The field sciences have for centuries played important roles in defining how the Arctic is understood and governed in ways that continue to shape the region as we know it today.

His newly edited collection, Arctic Geopolitics and Autonomy (2011), is the result of a collaboration with Nicola Triscott of Arts Catalyst (London) and the Slovenian artist Marko Peljhan. As the dominant discourses of Arctic geopolitics are blind to the realities of life in the Arctic, its peoples and ecosystems are repeatedly trivialized in both geopolitics and the arts. This book explores how technologies have transformed relationships between environment and politics for Inuit and other northern peoples. The key question seen from five distinct vantage points is to what extent we should look to experiments in technology to bring autonomy to the citizens of the Arctic. Is a strategy to develop new green technologies for Arctic societies coherent and likely to succeed as a means to reduce dependence on hydrocarbons? The authors argue that the liberating potential of technologies to build lasting autonomy depends on the kinds of mobility and transformations of political economy that they make possible. Together the essays reveal a new approach to the study of technology and mobility that may allow us to rethink Arctic geopolitics from the ground up.

His latest project is a study of what the concept of 'the region' means for Inuit who live on and around the waters of Canada's High Arctic. This summer, Bravo in a collaboration with the anthropologist-geographer, Claudio Aporta, will visit Pond Inlet situated near the entrance to Lancaster Sound at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage to begin to document the community's use of these waters. Taking a step back, Bravo and Aporta are asking whether a network of Inuit routes across the Arctic stretching from Alaska to Greenland, constitutes a pan-Inuit region. The question is both philosophical and practical because it asks how knowledge, differentially shared amongst people across space and time, connects them as a people.

Michael Bravo is Head of the Circumpolar History and Public Policy Research Group at the Scott Polar Research Institute, as well being a member of the Geography Department's Society and Environment Research Group.

Current Projects

Arctic Governance

Many significant developments in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions stem from issues of governance. Current attempts to forge self-governing political regions and environmental management regimes raise profound questions about the relationship between community and territory. Traditionally, the competing ambitions and interests of nation-states have defined the structure and boundaries of the polar regions. These histories have tended to divide and stratify the regions.

Governance is inextricably linked to the nature of communities. In my current research, I am studying models of governance around the circumpolar regions, and how their constituent communities can resolve historical conflicts with the sovereign claims of nation-states.

Maritime Geographies of Science

Whereas the importance of the world oceans for global security - particularly their circulation, oil and gas reserves, fishing stocks and indigenous culture - is now widely recognised, they are all threatened or endangered. However our knowledge of their environmental history, how they came to be the way they are, is surprisingly limited and at best fragmented. Dr. Bravo's research aims to develop the historical foundations for a new interdisciplinary understanding of the science of the oceans that can explain the nature and direction of change, and take account of the much greater and more diverse communities of historical actors or stakeholders than has been widely acknowledged.

Institutions and Public Policy in the Field Sciences

'Science' is often made to function as a vehicle of public policy. In G8 nations science and technology have a long history of involvement in economic planning. This is certainly true in the Arctic, my region of special interest, where science has played a variety of roles in colonisation, nation-building, and environmental monitoring

The use of field sciences as policy instruments remains poorly understood, for all that climate change has brought them into the public eye. I am currently working on developing new models that explain the linkages between the field sciences and public policy. To explore the practical application of models, I have also been asked to act as an advisor for the International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP) Working Group 11 on "Science and the Public Interest".

The project has a strong historical foundation in order to ascertain why field stations only came into existence relatively recently (mid- to late-C19), what they are intended to accomplish, and how they have served to mediate between scientists, the state, and the inhabitants of the field. To that end, I am principal investigator and coordinator on 'Polar Field Stations and IPY History: Culture, Heritage, Governance (1882-Present)', an international collaborative project. (International Polar Year Project ID 100.)

Michael Bravo is co-convenor with Bill Adams of the Natures, Cultures, Knowledges Thematic Research Group.

Visiting Professorships:

Postdoctoral researchers:

Current Graduate students:

Recently Graduated Ph.D. Students

Recent and Current M.Phil. Students

Publications

Books

Recent Articles

Significant Earlier Articles

Policy Advice and Impact:

Advising Policy – Authored Reports

Advising Policy – Contributions to Reports authored by Policy Convenors

Popular Writing and Reviews in Science Journals (Nature, New Scientist etc.)

Teaching

Academic Committees and Duties

Faculty and University Committees