Marie Leth Meilvang defends her PhD thesis at Department of Sociology

Marie Leth MeilvangCandidate

Marie Leth Meilvang

Title

Professional work in the rain flooded city – Sociological and historical essays on professional urban rainwater management in a changing climate

Assessment Committee

  • Professor Claire Maxwell, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (chair)
  • Senior Research Fellow Marte Mangset, Institutt for Samfunnsforskning (Institute for Social Research), Norway
  • Senior Scientist Luca Pattaroni, Urban Sociology Laboratory, Switzerland

Host

Head of PhD programme, Professor Bente Halkier

Time and venue

Time: 23 June 2020, 1 PM
Venue: On-line via Zoom

The PhD dissertation will be available via Academic Books as an e-publication. Also available for reading at the Department of Sociology, after the re-opening of the University Campus by contacting phd@soc.ku.dk.

Summary

Climate change is causing changed weather patterns all over the world. Thunderstorms, droughts, and flooding are some of the consequences of these transformations. For many cities, particularly in the global North, urban rain and the changing weather patterns of the future have an impact on urban infrastructural design and planning. Rainwater is increasingly being managed in green structures on the surface of the city; these are called “blue-green infrastructures” or “climate adaptation with added value.” These new ways of managing rain are not only attempts to solve the problem of more rain in cities, but also they reconfigure the way cities have mostly valued rain – from getting rid of rain as efficiently as possible to using rain in urban development and regeneration projects.

This thesis examines the recent changes in how urban rain is managed and practiced by analyzing the work of urban rainwater professionals, specifically engineers and landscape architects. Via different forms of authorization provided by political actors and the state, professionals occupy an important societal position and have the power to develop and provide solutions, justifications, and qualifications for specific urban structures and management practices. The green city therefore emerges in large part through the work of urban rainwater professionals. The thesis answers the general question of how and why new ways of managing urban rainwater are emerging through the work of urban rainwater professionals – and how and why this rearranges the professions themselves.