About me:

Karen Bickerstaff is an environmental geographer and her work is concerned with: i) the place-based dimensions of living with techno-environmental risks, ii) geographies and temporalities of environmental injustice, and iii) social change and collaborative and participatory practice.

Taking each of these core interests in turn:

i) Living with techno-environmental ‘risks’ and infrastructures that operate at different scales, such as climate change, air pollution, nuclear infrastructures, and domestic low carbon devices. Karen’s work addresses the intersections between technology, emotion and agency, and how the dynamics of place inflect our experience of socio-technical change and failure. In particular, her research challenges conceptions of ‘toxic’ and ‘nuclear’ communities – raising questions about the history of place(s), the experience of harm and the exercise of power.

ii) Ideas about environmental justice, and a critical engagement with their historical, geographical and philosophical roots, and the (possible) application of concepts to support in more sustainable and equitable future ways of living. Her work, for instance, seeks to explore the geographical inclusions and exclusions embedded in foundational ‘tenets’ of energy and climate justice. One way that she is currently progressing this research is through an interest in following the geographies of carbon – and how our multiple relations to/with carbon offer a critical entry point to assessing the ethical and political challenges (and opportunities) of global climate mitigation. This research is funded through a Leverhulme Research Fellowship starting in autumn 2023.

iii) A longstanding interest in the theory, practice and challenges of engaged and collaborative research in relation to environmental policy and practice. Karen is a member of the Leadership Team of the Exeter-led ACCESS network (Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science), lead its Responsive Insights Group, and chairs its Net Zero Task Force.

Karen has previously held research and lecturing posts at the University of East Anglia (Environmental Sciences), Durham University (Geography) and Kings College London (Geography).

Karen is an Editor of Geo: Geography and Environment

Interests:

I’m interested in how ‘sustainable’ technologies, infrastructures and transitions are made sense of in the present and anticipated in the future, foregrounding geographies of socio-technical relations, the rhythms and routines of everyday life and the structuring of social and spatial injustice. A range of projects reflect these interests in different ways.

Qualifications:

BA Human Geography (Staffordshire University)

PhD Human Geography (Staffordshire University)

PG Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Durham University)