Overview

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

Qualifications

BA Human Geography (Staffordshire University)

PhD Human Geography (Staffordshire University)

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

Research group links

• Environment and Sustainability

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Research

Research 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.

Research projects

2023-2025: Leverhulme Research Fellowship, ‘Reforming Carbon Societies’ (PI) (£65,000)
 

2022: University of Exeter Societies and Cultures Institute, Workshop on 'Nuclear Futures: Thinking with Failure’ (PI) (£5,000)

2023-2027: UK NWS Research Support Office, ‘Temporalities of nuclear infrastructure: histories and futures of energy and community’ (CoI) (£150,000)

2021-2027: ESRC Climate and Environment Leadership Grant, 'ACCESS (Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science)', (Co-I) £6,249,934

2019-2022: Interreg Europe, ‘Sustainable Heating: Implementation of Fossil-Free Technologies’ (Co-I) € 5,701,122

2017-2018 ESRC Impact Accelerator Award, ‘Re-thinking Energy Demand: Co-creating strategies to transform Local Government energy demand’ (PI) £20,000

2016-2018 British Academy, ‘Working-class environmentalisms in the age of transnational markets’ (Co-I) £10,000

2015-2017: EPSRC, ‘Welfare, Employment and Energy Demand: Examining Tensions and Opportunities in the Delivery of Demand Reduction’ (Co-I) £300,000

2009-2012: EPSRC, ‘Interdisciplinary Cluster on Energy Systems, Equity and Vulnerability (InCluESEV)’ (PI) (£571,000)                                                                                                                                                      

2009-2011: EON/EPSRC, ‘Carbon, Control and Comfort: User-centred control systems for comfort, carbon saving and energy management’ (Co-I) (£2,500,000)                                                                    

2006-2011: ESRC, ‘The Waste of the World’ (Co-I) £3,643,000

Research networks

Nuclear Societies Group

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Publications

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External Engagement and Impact

Editorial responsibilities

I am an Editor of Geo: Geography and Environment

I have served on the Editorial Boards of Environment and Planning A and Geoforum.

External Examiner Positions

MSc Environmental Policy and Regulation, LSE (2013-2018)

MA Environmental Management and Consultancy; MRes Environment and Development, Lancaster University (2012-2017)

Competitively won research fellowships

2023-2025: Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship - Reforming Carbon Societies

External doctoral examining nationally and internationally

I have examined PhD theses for the following Universities: Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon; University at Buffalo, The State University of New York; University of Cape Town; University of Manchester;  Kings College London; University of Melbourne; Durham University; University of Central Lancashire; University of East Anglia.

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Teaching

Undergraduate:

• GEO1310: Geographies of Environment and Sustainability
• GEO3137: Carbon Societies: risk, consumption and governance (Convenor)

Modules

2023/24

Information not currently available

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Supervision / Group

Postgraduate researchers

Alumni

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