Home>Başak Saraç-Lesavre
Başak Saraç-Lesavre
Assistant Professor
Centre for the Sociology of Organisations (CSO)
Research Interest(s): Intergenerational and planetary responsibilities, Science and Technology Studies, Economic sociology, Discard studies, Environmental anthropology
Discipline(s): Sociology
Research Group(s): Public Policy and Transformations of the State; Law, Norms and Regulation; Governance and Economic Organisations; Knowledge, Science and Expertise Program
Biography
Başak Saraç-Lesavre's research lies at the interface of Science and Technology Studies, economic sociology, discard studies, and environmental anthropology. Adopting a pragmatist
approach, she examines the political and moral values embedded in valuation practices, economic technologies, infrastructures, and the politico-geographic arrangements that link the present to the future, with particular attention to intergenerational and planetary responsibilities, energy futures, environmental ethics, and time(s).
Her new book, Nuclear Remains: On Temporalities, Responsibilities and Values (MIT Press), examines the ways the United States has been grappling with nuclear waste, and asks what this tells us about our current (in)capacities to deal with such long-lasting responsibilities. She is currently pursuing research on nuclear and nuclear waste policies, economic
valuation(s) of nature, waste water and marine pollution, and the transformation of the depths of the Earth into infrastructures.
EDUCATION
2015
Ph.D. Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation
2012
Visiting Fulbright Fellow, Harvard University, The Department of the History of Science
2009
M.Res. London School of Economics, Innovation and Organisations Research
Teaching
Sciences Po
2025
Deep Time Politics: Intergenerational and planetary responsibilities (MSc course at PSIA)
2024
Sociological Inquiries (Undergraduate course in Sociology).
2024
Qualitative Methods (MSc course in Sociology).
AWARDS
- Won the 2025 Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory (GDAT) debate at the University of Manchester, opposing the motion “Theorising the Future is the Future of Anthropology” alongside Stef Jansen.
- Nominated for School of Social Sciences’ Research Excellence Award in ‘Best Outstanding Interdisciplinary Research’ category by the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, 2024.
- Nominated for School of Social Sciences’ Research Excellence Award in ‘Best Outstanding Output’ category by the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, 2022.
publications
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Saraç-Lesavre, B. 2026. Nuclear Remains: On Temporalities, Responsibilities and Values. MIT Press.
- Saraç-Lesavre, B. 2021. Deep Time: The End of an Engagement, Issues in Science and Technology, 37(3 (Spring 2021).
- 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).
- 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.
- Saraç-Lesavre, B. 2019. Stress-testing Europe. Normalizing the Post-Fukushima Crisis, Minerva, 57, 239-260, with Brice Laurent.
- Muniesa, F., Doganova, L., Ortiz, H., Pina-Stranger, A., Paterson, F., Bourgoin, A., Ehrenstein, V., Juven, P-A., Pontille, D., Saraç-Lesavre, B., and Yon, G. 2017. Elements for a Social Inquiry into Capitalization. Presse des Mines, Paris.