Marta Macedo

History of Science, Technology, and Environment
Contact:
martamacedo@fcsh.unl.pt
Biography
Marta Macedo is, since September 2022, researcher at Institute of Contemporary History, NOVA University Lisbon. She has a degree in Architecture and a PhD in Architecture (Theory and History) from the University of Coimbra (2010). Previously, she was a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon (ERC project The Colour of Labour: the Racialized Lives of Migrants), she held a postdoctoral position at the CIUHCT, University of Lisbon and was visiting scholar at the University of California – Los Angeles.
Her current research project, São Tomé and the Global Atlantic: a genealogy for the Plantationocene, focuses on the relation between techno-scientific practices and imperial history in the longue durée. More specifically she examines the circulation of plantation systems (São Tomé, Brazil, Angola, Belgium Congo and Cameroon), combining approaches from history of science and technology, labor history, environmental and the history of capitalism.
Research fields
- History of science and technology
- Plantations and colonialism
- Labour history
- Environmental history
Selected publications
- Le Petitcorps, Colette, Marta Macedo & Irene Peano (Eds.). Global Plantations in the Modern World. Sovereignties, Ecologies, Afterlives. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. [link]
- Macedo, Marta. “Coffee on the move: technology, labour and race in the making of a transatlantic plantation system,” Mobilities 16 (2021): 262-272. [PDF]
- Macedo, Marta. “Standard Cocoa: Transnational Networks and Technoscientific Regimes in West African Plantations,” Technology and Culture 57 (2016): 557-585. [link]
- Macedo, Marta. Projectar e Construir a Nação. Engenheiros, Ciência e Território em Portugal no Século XIX. Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2012. [link]
Main projects
- Researcher in the project “The Colour of Labour: the Racialized Lives of Migrants” — Coordinated by Cristiana Bastos (ICS — Universidade de Lisboa) and funded by the European Research Council (Advanced Grant No 695573). 2016-2022 [link]
- Researcher in the project “Visions of Lisbon — Science, technology and medicine (STM) and the making of a techno-scientific capital (1870-1940)” — Coordinated by Ana Simões (CIUHCT) and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/IVC-HFC/3122/2014). [link]
- Researcher in the project “Anthropolands – Engineering the Anthropocene: Colonial Science, Technology and Medicine and the changing of the African landscape.” — Coordinated by Maria Paula Diogo (CIUHCT) and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC/IVC-HFC/6789/2014). 2016-2018 [link]
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Events
junho, 2026
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Detalhes do Evento
Research seminar that seeks to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and
Ver mais
Detalhes do Evento
Research seminar that seeks to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and resistance.
Mind the Gap III:
Unearthing Petromodernity: Oil Studies in the Anthropocene
Online Research Seminar
The rise of fossil fuels has been central to the political, economic, cultural, and material transformations of the past two centuries, yet the forms of power, knowledge, and life enabled by carbon energy often remain analytically invisible. As we confront the converging crises of the Anthropocene, the need to rethink the centrality of fossil fuels to modern life has never been more urgent.
At a moment when toxic landscapes, resource frontiers, and environmental inequality reveal the uneven geographies of fossil modernity, the humanities and social sciences are reorienting analytical attention toward the energetic foundations of modern life. From pipelines and refineries to plastics and everyday petrochemical products, the material properties of oil have fundamentally shaped modern infrastructures and forms of life. What forms of political and social power are created through fossil fuel industries? How have fossil fuels shaped modern societies, their economic models, governmental regimes, everyday lives? How have they contributed to uneven global geographies rooted in colonialism and capitalism? What kinds of transitions to post-carbon futures are possible?
Bringing together approaches from history, anthropology, political ecology, and geography, we seek to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and resistance.
📎 Download full programme (PDF)
Programme:
Every fortnight we will meet online to discuss an article or book chapter circulated in advance. The sessions will start with a 20–30 minute presentation, followed by discussion. The sessions will take place on Mondays at 2PM.
We will explore key concepts such as petro-culture, carbon democracy, extractivism, fossil capital, energy regimes, and transition imaginaries, examining how energy dependence shapes modern subjectivities, infrastructures, economies, and ecological futures. The texts will be shared with participants in advance.
Everyone is welcome.
To register, please fill out the online form. After registering you will receive the readings and access information ahead of each session.
For more information, please write to unearthingpetromodernity@proton.me.
30 March | Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. Selected chapter TBA (Verso, 2011)
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA)
Focus: How fossil fuels structured democratic politics, labour power and modern governance
13 April | Adam Hanieh, “Petrochemical Empire: The Geo-Politics of Fossil-Fuelled Production“ New Left Review (139)
Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Global production networks, the Gulf region and the restructuring of capitalism through petrochemicals
27 April | Carola Hein (ed.), Oil Spaces: Exploring the Global Petroleumscape. Chapter 8: Peyerl, D. “Building Brazil’s Petroleumscape on Land and Sea: Infrastructure, Expertise, and Technology” (Routledge, 2022)
Henrique Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Infrastructure, territorial development and the spatial materiality of oil
11 May | Stephanie LeMenager, Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century. Selected chapter TBA (Oxford University Pres, 2014)
Raquel Ribeiro (CHAM — NOVA FCSH)
Focus: Oil, media, culture, and everyday life in twentieth-century society
25 May | Appel, Mason & Watts (Eds.), Subterranean Estates: Life Worlds of Oil and Gas. Introduction: “Oil Talk” (Cornell University Press, 2015)
Amedeo Policante (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Anthropological and political-economic perspectives on oil extraction and everyday life
8 June | Alice Mah, Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation. Chapter 2: “Enduring Toxic Injustice and Fenceline Mobilizations” (Duke University Press, 2023)
João Pedro Santos (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Environmental justice, pollution, and grassroots activism around petrochemical industries
22 June | Chelsea Schields, Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean. Introduction and Chapter 1. “Crude Bargains” (University of California Press, 2023)
Anita Buhin (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Oil economies, intimacy, and social relations in offshore extraction zones
6 July | Tim Di Muzio & Matt Dow, “Global capitalism and oil“ in Handbook on Oil and International Relations (Edward Elgar Publishing , 2022)
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA), Amedeo Policante & Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Oil in international relations, financialization and the structure of global capitalism
Organisation:
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA)
Amedeo Policante (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Tempo
(Segunda-feira) 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Localização
Link to be provided to registered participants
Zoom
Organizador
Institute of Contemporary History — NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities and Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology
News
Marta Pinto Machado in a double bill in Lisbon: MNAC and CCCV
May 14, 2026
“Ceci n’est Pas Francisco” is at MNAC and will extend to CCCV
VINCULUM is still going in Madeira
May 12, 2026
The Inscription I of the Church of Machico will serve as the theme for a series of cultural events
Nuno Silas is exhibiting at MUHNAC
Apr 29, 2026
He is one of the curators of the exhibition “Olhares Críticos no Arquivo Colonial – Sombras e Memórias”
CONTACTS
WORKING HOURS
