Ema Pires

History of Science, Technology, and Environment
Contact:
epires@uevora.pt
Biography
Anthropologist. Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology/School of Social Sciences at the University of Évora. She has a PhD in Anthropology (Iscte-IUL, 2012), with the thesis “Paraísos Desfocados: Nostalgia Empacotada e Conexões Coloniais em Malaca” [Paradises out-of-focus: Packaged Nostalgia and Colonial Connections in Malacca]. She has a master’s degree in Sociology (University of Évora, 2002) and a degree in Anthropology (ISCSP-UL, 1998).
Her research interests include the processes of social appropriation of spaces, anthropology of colonialism, processes of patrimonialisation and touristification. She has carried out research in European and Asian contexts. She has been an Integrated Researcher at the IHC since November 2015. She is also a Collaborating Researcher at CRIA — Iscte-IUL, in the Research Group on Cultural Practices and Policies. Since 2016, she has also been collaborating with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Brasilia (Brazil).
Research fields
- Space, tourism, and politics
- Social appropriation of places
- Colonialism and patrimonialisation processes
- Historical anthropology
Selected publications
- Pires, Ema, & Maria de Fátima Nunes. “Práticas científicas e colonialismo tardio em Portugal: acerca da (in)visibilidade de género em narrativas sobre quotidianos asiáticos,” Cadernos Pagu 49 (2017): e174911. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/18094449201700490011 [link]🔓
- Pires, Ema. “On Soft Architectures,” e-cadernos CES 23 (2015): 8-22. DOI: 10.4000/eces.1897 [link]🔓
- Pires, Ema. “Re-scripting Colonial Heritage,” Cultura – International Journal of Philosophy and Axiology 11 (2014): 131-141 [link]
Main projects
- Coordinator of the project “Legados coloniais e seus fragmentos: espaços, agentes, conexões” [Colonial legacies and their fragments: spaces, agents, connections] — An non-funded partnership between the University of Évora and the University of Brasília. 2017-2019
- Researcher in the project “Presença Karajá: cultura material, tramas e trânsitos coloniais” [Karajá presence: material culture, weaves and colonial transits] — Coordinated by Manuelina Duarte Cândido (Universidade Federal de Goiás), non-funded.
Pesquisa
Agenda
março, 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
Notícias
‘Double Void’ exhibition opens in Lisbon
Mar 23, 2026
Opened at the Space Zero gallery
Yvette Santos begins archival mission in Paris
Mar 18, 2026
The Laboratoire des Études Romanes at Paris 8 University hosts the IHC researcher
VINCULUM — An end and a new beginning
Feb 24, 2026
FCSH hosted the closing session of the VINCULUM project
CONTACTS
WORKING HOURS
