Guest Researcher
Tomás Usón joined IRI THESys in October 2018 as a PhD researcher to work on practices of memory and anticipation amid climatic and seismic disasters. With his research he aims to understand how different actors remember and anticipate extreme events and the consequences that those diverse practices have in the creation of past and future temporalities in urban environments.
He has a background in sociology, geography, and anthropology. Before joining IRI THESys, Tomás worked as a research associate at the Institute of Geography of the Heidelberg University focused on participative methods for flood-risk assessment. He also takes part in the Stadtlabor of the Institute of European Ethnology.
In December 2023, Tomás successfully defended his PhD thesis “Remembering Future Disasters: Temporal Ecologies in the Peruvian Andes”. He is now based as a postdoc researcher at HU’s Geography Department working on the project “Re-Scaling Global Health: Human Health and Multispecies Cohabitation on an Urban Planet” together with Prof. Sandra Jasper and Prof. Ignacio Farías.
Research Interests
- Anthropology of time
- Science and technology studies (STS)
- Disaster studies
Selected Publications
Usón, T. (2021). Memory Regimes and the Anthropocene: Tracing Causes and Responsibilities under Flood Risk Scenarios in Ancash, Peru. In Réka Patrícia Gál & Petra Löffler (eds.) Earth and Beyond in Tumultuous Times: A Critical Atlas of the Anthropocenes. Lüneburg, Germany: Meson Press, 49-71
Henríquez-Dole, L., Usón, T.J., Vicuña, S., Henríquez, C., Gironás, J., Meza, F. (2018). Integrating Strategic Land Use Planning in the Construction of Future Land Use Scenarios and its Performance: The Maipo River Basin, Chile. Land Use Policy, 78, pp. 353-366, DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.06.045
Usón, T., Dame, J., Henríquez, C. (2017). Disputed Water: Competing Knowledge and Power Asymmetries in the Yali Alto Basin, Chile. Geoforum, 85, pp. 247-258, DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.07.029
Usón, T., Klonner, C., Höfle, B. (2016). Using Participatory Geographic Approaches for Urban Flood Risk in Santiago de Chile: Insights from a Governance Analysis. Environmental Science & Policy, 66, pp. 62-72. DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2016.08.002
Klonner, C., Marx, S., Usón, T., De Albuquerque, J.P., Höfle, B. (2016). Volunteered Geographic Information in Natural Hazard Analysis: A Systematic Literature Review of Current Approaches with Focus on Preparedness. International Journal of Geographic Information, 5 (7), 103. DOI: 10.3390/ijgi5070103
Social Media
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