Simone Abram

Presentation

How do we collectively imagine, equitable and adaptive energy futures? Academic and Director of Durham University, Energy Institute,  Simone Abram shares key perspectives on energy governance and markets.

Biography

Professor Simone Abram is Director of Durham Energy Institute and Professor at the Department of Anthropology at Durham University.

Simone is known for her work in governance, with a focus on how people collectively manage and imagine change and time. Initially trained as an Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Manchester University), Simone then studied Social Anthropology (DPhil, Oxford University), and developed research into governance and planning, tourism development and urban regeneration in the UK, Norway and France. This interdisciplinary perspective brought her back to energy studies in the 2010s, since when she’s been developing trans-disciplinary perspectives on energy and society, including the governance of energy development, systems modelling, and the changing social and political significance of energies, particularly electricity.

Simone is Chair of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK, and leads the EDI+ network for EDI in Energy research. She is also a lead researcher at the Include Centre for Socially Inclusive Energy Transitions, based in Oslo. Key publications include, Energy Futures (2022), Ethnographies of Power (2020), Electrifying Anthropology (2019), Green Ice (2016), Media, engagement and Anthropological Practice (2015), Elusive Promises (2013) and Culture and Planning (2011).

Image credit/source: Maria Salaru (UCL).

Date of publication

Sat 13 Jan 2024