PhD Candidate , Department of Social Anthropology
Biography
Hannah’s research explores efforts to create ethical and ontological change in response to environmental breakdown, within the transnational Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement. Through fieldwork with XR activists in London and Madrid she focuses on the movement’s efforts to build ‘regenerative cultures’; intentionally loosely defined in XR as cultures of care for oneself, others, and the planet.
Her research proceeds from four simple questions:
- What practices do XR activists consider regenerative cultures to constitute?
- What ethics, imaginaries of the future, and conceptions of humanity’s relationship to the world, inform their efforts to build regenerative cultures, and emerge through them?
- What tensions and successes are experienced in relation to building regenerative cultures?
- How are the answers to these questions influenced by the different social, political, historical, and environmental contexts of London and Madrid?
Hannah practices engaged anthropology, engaging as both an anthropologist and an activist during her fieldwork, as well as in her writing. Through this research she hopes to contribute insight on how ethical and ontological changes are emerging, and being actively created, in response to climate and ecological breakdown.
Hannah was a Research Assistant on the project ‘Eco Worrier, Eco Warrior’, led by Dr Bradley, which explored everyday experiences of climate anxiety and climate activism in Britain. This research project ran from January – July 2021 and was funded by the Scottish Funding Council.
