Contact
Biography
I joined the University of Nottingham in 2018 as Professor of Science, Technology and Society, director of the Institute for Science and Society, and founding director of the Interdisciplinary Research Cluster EcoSocieties following appointments at the University of Leicester, Cardiff University and the Free University of Berlin where I also earned my PhD.
My research is in the intersection of science and technology studies, social theory, cultural and visual studies, and the environmental humanities. I am a Leverhulme Research Fellow and I have been an Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow and have held resident research appointments in the Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California, Berkeley and the Centre for Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz. I am a former co-editor of the journal Subjectivity and I am currently an editorial board member of the Sociological Review.
My current research looks at technoscience and social transformation. I have been awarded a Leverhulme grant to study the emergence of green and alternative chemical innovation and I am currently working on a monograph on The Milieu of Substance. Anthropochemicals, Ecological Experience, and Reparative Justice. I have also co-edited a volume on Reactivating Elements: Chemistry, Ecology, Practice (Duke University Press, 2021) which examines new social and cultural research on chemical and elemental thinking. In this context, I am involved in the Green Chemicals Beacon of Excellence, in the EPSRC CDT Sustainable Chemistry Atoms-2-Products, and in the BBSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre.
I have recently completed a co-edited volume on Ecological Reparation. Repair, Remediation and Resurgence in Social and Environmental Conflict (Bristol University Press, 2022) and I have co-produced the YouTube channel Ecological Reparation which discusses work engaged in remediating and repairing as well as claiming reparations for damaged more than human ecologies. My previous monograph Experimental Practice. Technoscience, Alterontologies and More-Than-Social Movements (Duke University Press, 2018) investigates the distributed invention power of community technoscience, political movements and social innovation projects.
In my research I use a variety of methods and approaches such as conceptual analysis, engaged fieldwork, visual constructivism, ethnographic interviewing, and social science fiction. I am a research photographer and I work with scientific, vernacular, documentary, and professional images. I am currently working on a photobook on unEcology in the heart of rural England.
My current research draws upon my previous work on social transformation and social justice where I have published a book on Escape Routes. Control and Subversion in the Twenty-First Century (Pluto, 2008) and numerous papers on power and control, on precarious labour and the transformation of work as well as on transnational mobility, the mobile commons and the autonomy of migration.
I have a long-standing interest in the sociology of social scientific knowledge and I have published three books on how human experience relates to socio-material processes: a monograph on Analysing Everyday Experience. Social Research and Political Change (Palgrave, 2006); a monograph on LS Vygotsky (Lehmans, 2010); and the co-edited collection Culture in Psychology (Asanger, 2002) which examines socio-cultural approaches to human development and subjectivity.
Research Summary
RECENT RESEARCH AWARDS
- 2022-2024, No Carbon Lost - Eliminating Co2 Production from Fermentation Processes, BBSRC, Co-I, £1,875,000
- 2021, Ecological Reparation, UKRI Covid 19 Funding, PI, £38,179
- 2021-2022, Arid ethno-forestry food systems: a wellbeing alternative for communities living in drylands of the world. GCRF-AHRC, Co-I, £199,985
- 2020-2021, Synthetic Biology Research Centre: Sustainable Routes to Platform Chemicals. BBSRC, Co-I, £2,380,595
- 2019-2028, Atoms-to-Products: An Integrated Approach to Sustainable Chemistry. EPSRC CDT, Co-I, £6,235,044
- 2019, Responsible Research & Innovation Training Design, EPSRC, PI, £31,063
- 2018-2021, Benign by Design: The Emergence of Ecologically Sustainable Chemical Innovation. Leverhulme Research Fellowship, PI, £62,051
- 2018-2021, Mending the New: A Framework for Reconciliation Through Testimonial Digital Textiles in the Transition to Post-Conflict Rural Colombia. UKRI Newton-Colciencias ODA, PI, £524,733
RECENT PGR AND POSTDOC AWARDS
- 2020-2023, Leverhulme ECF, Dr Andrea Ghelfi: Politics of Matter: Food Sovereignty and Agroecological Farming Between Science and Society, £127,790
- 2019-2023, Ensuring the Social Legitimacy of Animal Research: Comparing Public and Policy Expectations. ESRC DTP Collaborative Studentship, Co-I, £79,148
RECENT ORGANIZATION OF ACADEMIC EVENTS
Selected Publications