Thermal governance, urban metabolism and carbonised comfort: Air-conditioning and urbanisation in the Gulf and Doha
本文提出“热治理”概念，通过多哈1950-1980年代的城市史，批判性分析气候变化下城市化与热管理的关系，揭示碳氢化合物与政治权力如何塑造空调依赖和热不平等。
This paper develops the concept of thermal governance as a way to think critically about urbanisation and the management of heat at a time of climate change. Through the urban history of Doha between the 1950s and the 1980s, this paper deploys thermal governance to rethink urbanisation and air-conditioning dependency in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) cities, especially in relation to the notion of petro-urbanism. The ‘thermal’ in the concept emphasises the spatial connections of thermal exchanges across different scales and domains. This paper uses architecture, cooling technologies and urban thermal metabolism to understand the relations between hydrocarbons and political power. It specifically explores the linkages between the circulation of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon revenues on the one hand, and thermal privilege and violence in Doha and other GCC cities on the other hand. The notion of ‘governance’ allows the paper to move away from techno-centric and purportedly objective ways of understanding heat to comprehend how social and political power are implicated in the management of heat.