Leyla’s two-year postdoctoral research project will explore the construction of ‘oil city’ narratives in Baku, Azerbaijan. The main research objectives are to examine the official and unofficial narratives of urban continuity based on oil production in their socio-cultural context; to explore the practices of collective remembering and forgetting in constructing the narratives of Baku as a historical center of oil production; and to explore how an urban identity based on oil affects the imagination of a post-oil future among these groups.
Pauline’s three-year postdoctoral research project looks at the value of oil and alternative renewable energy sources in Ghana, a country that positions itself as an energy frontier for rethinking the relationship between hydrocarbon dependency and more sustainable energy futures in a context of environmental crisis.
