Category: Climate Change

• Teaching climate change & sociology

  The curriculum as a Hope process By Nicola Spurling In spring/summer 2020 I researched and wrote an essay (available below) in response to the shifting tenor of public debate on climate change and the climate/eco anxiety that was experienced by my students. In dialogue with these experiences and my aspirations for the inclusion of climate…

  July 10, 2023

• The social lives of batteries

  By Nicola Spurling and John Griffin (Materials Chemistry) In 2020 I worked with John Griffin (materials chemistry) on a successful application for a PhD scholarship to fund dual PhDs (one located in Materials Chemistry and one in Sociology) via the Leverhulme Material Social Futures Doctoral Training Centre. The details of the Sociology project idea can…

  July 10, 2023

• Lancaster lines

  By Nicola Spurling Inspired by Ingold’s ‘Comparative Anthropology of the Line’ (2016), and based on a very small piece of fieldwork, in 2019 I wrote some pieces of thought titled ‘Lancaster Lines’ for a symposium at Lancaster. I subsequently developed this writing into a book chapter ‘Lines: Material Cultures of Future Mobility‘ for The Routledge…

  July 9, 2023

• mobile utopias

  By Nicola Spurling and Charlotte Louise Jensen (Aalborg University) In May 2016 Charlotte Louise Jensen hosted me as a visiting scholar at Aalborg University (Copenhagen Campus), Denmark (nb. since then Charlotte has moved to the Danish Green Think Tank ‘Concito’ as a Behaviour Analyst). As part of the visit we discussed our experiences and current…

  July 9, 2023

• everyday futures

  By Nicola Spurling and Lenneke Kuijer (Industrial Design, TU Eindhoven) In 2016 I worked with Lenneke Kuijer, an Industrial Design Engineer from Eindhoven University of Technology. Through a theme of ‘Everyday Futures’ we secured funding from the Institute for Social Futures, the Commission on Travel Demand and Design United, to explore how social theory and methods…

  July 7, 2023

• parking in utopia

  By Nicola Spurling and Louise Mullagh (Imagination Lancaster) In 2017 I was funded by the Mobile Utopia Experiment to stage a 2-day intervention with Louise Mullagh (Imagination Lancaster) which I titled ‘Parking in Utopia’. I occupied two parking spaces on Lancaster campus. In one I installed an exhibition of historic maps gathered through archival work…

  July 6, 2023