The DEMAND Centre has four new visiting researchers arriving in the Autumn 2017:
Mandy de Wilde is a visiting researcher at the DEMAND Centre during October 2017. She is a sociologist and works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. She currently contributes to two research projects: one that focuses on the role of strategic intermediary organisations in assembling an energy retrofit market in the Netherlands and a research project that focuses on the role of family and gender dynamics in decision-making processes with regard to energy retrofit measures at home. Currently, she is working on a research proposal that focuses on how energy demand is shaped by and affects family and gender dynamics at home trying to integrate insights from the sociology of emotions and gender studies into existing scholarship on sustainable consumption. During her visit at DEMAND she will discuss and explore the possibilities for operationalizing affects and/or materiality into a practice-based account on how families enact (sustainable) belonging in domestic consumption practices.
Benjamin Görgen is visiting the DEMAND Centre between October-December 2017. He is a PhD candidate and member of the Graduate School of Sociology at the University of Münster, Germany. His fields of interest are environmental sociology, social movement research and sustainability research. He is doing his PhD on the sustainability potentials of communal living projects in the urban area and is particularly interested in the question how and under what conditions sustainable practices emerge and evolve. Since 2015 he has been one of the editors of the German online paper “Soziologie und Nachhaltigkeit (SuN)” that focuses on the connection between sociology and sustainability.
Benoit Granier is a Visiting Researcher in the DEMAND Centre from October 2017 to February 2018. After having been Assistant Professor in political science and Japanese studies at Sciences Po Lyon, he is currently Associate Researcher at the Lyon Institute of East Asian Studies. In his PhD thesis, he analysed the transformation of Japan’s behaviour change policies in the fields of energy efficiency and climate change in the years 2000 and 2010. His doctoral research especially examined how policy tools based on behavioural sciences, such as nudges and Home Energy Reports, were transferred from the US to Japan. He also intends to explain why some knowledge are used in public policies while others are not, with the implementation of behavioural sciences — instead of other approaches, such as social practice theories — as a case study.
Kimberley O’Sullivan is a visiting researcher at the DEMAND Centre in October and November 2017. She is a Research Fellow at He Kainga Oranga / Housing and Health Research Programme at the University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand. With a background in Public Health, Kimberley’s research interests are the relationships between energy vulnerabilities (fuel poverty), energy use behaviours, energy efficiency of housing and buildings, and the interaction of these with health. Her latest work explores energy use while working from home.
To read more about DEMAND visitors please visit our People page