Research Interests

My research interests have moved around over time but have centred on the social, spatial, temporal and normative dimensions of environment, sustainability, climate and risk issues.

I am currently focussing on working with rhythmanalysis in new ways, realising some of its multidisciplinary potential and applying it to questions of energy, climate change, pollution and health. The book 'Energy and Rhythm: Rhythanalysis for a Low Carbon Future' was published in April 2021 and there is a support website for the book and related work, including applying rhythmanalysis to conceptualising heat vulnerability and urban air pollution. See http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/energyandrhythm/

This new theme of work emerged out of my role as Co-Director of the RCUK funded DEMAND Centre (Dynamics of Energy, Mobility and Demand) from 2012-18. I was involved in projects within the Centre's research programme on how energy is related to notions of need, rights and justice; on the work of energy managers in non-domestic settings using smart metering technologies and demand side response systems; on the dynamics of energy use in everyday life; and integration activities across the consortium of academic and non-academic partners.

I continue to be interested and engaged in areas of research and writing that have previously preoccupied me. These include:

• environmental justice theory, concepts and methods and the investigation of inequalities in the distribution of environmental goods and bads. See the book Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics (Routledge 2012) and the co-edited Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice (2018);
• sustainability, social practice, and transitions, work in the Sustainable Practices Research Group (ESRC, DEFRA and Scottish Government) on the dynamics of air conditioning and the imagined future lives of those living in zero carbon housing, and writing more generally about socio-technical transitions and practice;
• energy poverty, vulnerability and thermal comfort. See EPSRC projects Conditioning Demand: Older People, Diversity and Thermal Experience and InCluESEV the 'Interdisciplinary Cluster on Energy Systems, Equity and Vulnerability' - this has led to the edited book Energy Justice in a Changing Climate (Zed, 2013)
• the social dimensions of sustainable energy technologies and public engagement with community energy projects. See the ESRC funded 'Beyond Nimbysim' and Community Energy Initiatives projects);
• risk governance, vulnerability and resilience related to floods and technological risks. See the Hull Flood project and EU projects CAPHAZ, SCENARIO and ARMONIA

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