Not just energy futures

Because there is nothing necessarily just about our energy futures. And because our energy futures are never only about energy.

Not Just Energy Futures is a group of social science researchers and faculty members at the University of Edinburgh who are united by a common interest in the lived experiences of low-carbon energy futures in what is sometimes called the Global South. Our research spans locations across South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Together, we pay close attention to improvised practices and life projects that are spurred by, and intertwine with, the deployment of renewable energy infrastructures, technologies and devices.

There is nothing inevitably equitable or more democratic about our low carbon future. The pursuit of energy security, efficiency and sustainability is creating new speculative investments, new pressures on land and natural resources, new forms of business, new pressures on producers, new kinds of consumers and new forms of data.

Neither is the low-carbon future only about energy. Our concerns include the environmental consequences of increased demand for plastics and metals, chemicals and microelectronics in renewable energy systems, new forms of labour in global supply chains; the eco-logics of land acquisition for energy projects; the politics of big data from renewable energy systems; and transformations in social and cultural practices, as well as forms of social and political organisation.

For more information or if you would like to join the group, please contact Jamie Cross.

Social Media

#notjustenergyfutures, #darkgreen
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Doctoral and Postdoctoral researchers

Declan Murray, Solar Waste: Energy, Recycling and Value in East Africa (International Development PhD Programme)
Kirsten Campbell, Gender, Social Transformation and Solar Microgrids in India (International Development PhD Programme, Writing Up)
Kamya Choudhary, Pumping Politics: Solar Powered Irrigation and Social Transformation in Rural India (International Development PhD Programme, Writing Up)
Kristin Fedeler, Hydro-electric Infrastructures and Ethiopia's Grand Renassance Dam (International Development PhD Programme, currently on fieldwork)
Silvia Pergetti, Charged: Imagined Futures and Distributed Generation in the Sundarbans, India (Social Anthropology PhD Programme, Writing Up)
Rishabh Raghavan, Energy Theives: Police and Policing of Electricity in Tamil Nadu, India (Social Anthropology PhD Programme, Writing Up)
Paulina Gonzalez Martinez, Energy justice and urban politics in Mexico City (International Development PhD Programme, Year 1)
Emilio Soberon Bravo, The social and material politics of lithium-ion batteries in Latin America (International Development PhD Programme, Year 1)
Adolfo Mejía Montero, The socio-technical politics of community wind projects on the Tehuantepec Isthmus, Oaxaca, Mexico (Geosciences PhD Programme, Writing Up).

Postdoctoral Researchers