Paper short abstract:

This paper foregrounds the role of energy over matter in considering embodied experiences of heat stress. It draws on new materialism, theories of social practice, rhythmanalysis, biometeorology and thermal physiology. Multiple western and alternative knowledges of heat shows its multiplicity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper seeks to foreground the role of energy rather than matter in considering embodied experiences of heat stress and heat strain. It takes as its starting point new materialist framings of energy as enabling the liveliness of matter. However, it goes beyond this to critique the focus on matter/states/entities in new materialism and social practice theory, drawing on recent contributions via rhythmanalysis (Walker, 2021), Starosielski’s concept of heat rendering media dynamic (2021) and engagement with biometeorology and thermal physiology. The paper uses this critique to demonstrate the inherent role that thermal energy plays in the experience of heat stress and heat strain. In doing so it will experiment with ways of ‘speaking of’ and ‘staying with’ energetic flows rather than only rendering visible the changes to matter that they cause. In this way, it hopes to a develop a lexicon for engaging with energetic presence, change, absence and work, in ways that are productive for thinking. Having done this however, the paper will then move to considering the particularity of the western, techno-scientific bias of such an account, noting the different ontologies and epistemologies of heat that are present in, for example, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurvedic traditions. As such, the paper closes with a discussion of whether thermal energy is multiple and what this means not only for the study of heat and heat stress but for its governance.