Karen Parkhill
Biographic Data
| ID | 132178 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karen Parkhill |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karen |
| FAMILY NAME | Parkhill |
| SIGNATURE | PARKHILL K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9655-7414 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 325 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
A technology to solve the water-energy-food crisis? Mapping sociotechnical configurations of agrivoltaics using Q-methodology
“Agrivoltaics” are solar photovoltaic panels mounted above productive farmland so that energy and food production can occur simultaneously on the same plot. Agrivoltaics are proffered as a means to reduce food-energy land use conflicts, and to ameliorate rural community opposition to ground-mounted solar farms. In this study we examine the socio-economic and environmental claims around agrivoltaics as a set of competing sociotechnical configurati…
Just Transition
Transition to a post-carbon economy implies changes that are both far-reaching and unprecedented. The notion that a decarbonization transition must encompass multiple forms of justice is gaining ground. In response, the concept of Just Transition has become ever more popular – and confusion about its meaning ever greater. We argue in this paper that the term Just Transition needs a rigorous updating to develop its full conceptual power for the an…
The Muillean Gaoithe and the Melin Wynt
There is a shortage of scholarly research into understanding the cultural values, drivers and outcomes of community renewable developments. This paper contributes towards addressing this gap, by comparing four community renewable projects set in Scottish Gaelic speaking Scotland and in Welsh speaking Wales. Not only do cultural values drive the developments of these community energy projects, but evidence gathered here through qualitative intervi…
Rethinking energy demand governance
The challenges of climate change and energy security, along with problems of fuel poverty and energy justice bring imperatives to create transitions in energy demand. Academic research and theory have begun to highlight the ways that government policies, strategies, and processes across wide-ranging areas of policy, from health to work and the economy, shape everyday practices with significant implications for energy demand. This brings focus on …
Critical moments? Life transitions and energy biographies
Family and youth research has highlighted the importance of lifecourse transitions, illustrating how they can have a substantial impact on people’s everyday lives and anticipated futures. Given their apparent significance, it is surprising that relatively little attention has been paid to life transitions – particularly unexpected ones – to explore how they can impact upon everyday energy use. This is a central concern of Energy Biographies proje…
The grit in the oyster
It has been argued that responsible research and innovation (RRI) requires critique of the ‘worlds’ implicated in the future imaginaries associated with new technologies. Qualitative social science research can aid deliberation on imaginaries by exploring the meanings of technologies within everyday practices, as demonstrated by Yolande Strengers’ work on imaginaries of ‘smartness’. In this paper, we show how a novel combination of narrative inte…
Public conceptions of justice in climate engineering
Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the rela…
Energy Biographies
The problem of how to make the transition to a more environmentally and socially sustainable society poses questions about how such far-reaching social change can be brought about. In recent years, lifecourse transitions have been identified by a range of researchers as opportunities for policy and other actors to intervene to change how individuals use energy, taking advantage of such disruptive transitions to encourage individuals to be reflexi…
We are a community [but] that takes a certain amount of energy’
Asking about the future
Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multi…
Public values for energy system change
In this paper we discuss the importance of framing the question of public acceptance of sustainable energy transitions in terms of values and a ‘whole-system’ lens. This assertion is based on findings arising from a major research project examining public values, attitudes and acceptability with regards to whole energy system change using a mixed-method (six deliberative workshops, n = 68, and a nationally representative survey, n = 2441), interd…
Farmers’ perceptions of climate change
I'm not a tree hugger, I'm just like you
For many in the Western world, there is increasing recognition of the fundamentally unsustainable nature of everyday actions and modes of consumption that form part of normal life. Some individuals attempt to challenge current ways of consuming and living in order to address these underlying issues. However, these efforts often continue to be positioned as unusual or unconventional, meaning that adopting sustainable lifestyles may be subject to w…
Creating a national citizen engagement process for energy policy
This paper examines some of the science communication challenges involved when designing and conducting public deliberation processes on issues of national importance. We take as our illustrative case study a recent research project investigating public values and attitudes toward future energy system change for the United Kingdom. National-level issues such as this are often particularly difficult to engage the public with because of their inher…
Examining the Dynamics of Energy Demand through a Biographical Lens
It is widely recognized that a major challenge in low carbon transitioning is the reduction of energy consumption. This implies a significant level of transformation in our ways of living, meaning the challenge is one that runs deep into the fabric of our personal lives. In this article we combine biographical research approaches with concepts from Bourdieu's practice theory to develop understanding of processes of change that embed particular pa…
Energy consumption and everyday life
In policy and research, there is increasing recognition that the scale of transitions necessary for a low carbon society will require significant reductions in energy demand. Concurrently, advancing knowledge about energy practices has been highlighted as important in developing a basis for the delivery of less energy intensive configurations. In this article, we examine interview (participant n = 53) and visual (photographic) data collected acro…
Landscapes of Threat? Exploring Discourses of Stigma around Large Energy Developments
In UK policy, concerns about climate change, energy security and system renewal, combine to create an imperative for transitions in landscapes of energy production. Some of the energy developments that will be central in these transitions are imbued with historical associations of, for example, ‘risk and threat’, which have been asserted to potentially lead to the stigmatisation of place and people in place. This paper explores stigmatisation thr…
Messing with nature? Exploring public perceptions of geoengineering in the UK
Anthropogenic influence on the climate – and possible societal responses to it – offers a unique window through which to examine the way people think about and relate to the natural world. This paper reports data from four, one-day deliberative workshops conducted with members of the UK public during early 2012. The workshops focused on geoengineering – the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment – as one of three possib…
Living with nuclear power
Perceptions of geoengineering
Geoengineering—the deliberate large‐scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change—is receiving an increasing amount of attention from academics, policy and civil society stakeholders, and members of the general public. This article reviews the available literature on perceptions of geoengineering, including public attitudes and stakeholder perspectives. We describe some of the challenges of engaging wi…
Nuclear Power After Japan
Laughing it off? Humour, affect and emotion work in communities living with nuclear risk1
Over the past two decades, an increasing number of risk researchers have recognized that risks are not simply objective hazards but that the meanings of risk are discursively negotiated, dynamic and embedded within the wider social relations that constitute everyday life. A growing interest in the complexity and nuances of risk subjectivities has alerted sociocultural researchers not only to what is said in a risk situation, but also to how it is…
From the familiar to the extraordinary
Nearly two decades since the last nuclear power station was built and began operating in the UK, nuclear energy is firmly back on the political agenda domestically and elsewhere in the world. Yet since the 1980s, little research has investigated perceptions of nuclear power in the UK, particularly those of communities living in very close proximity to such facilities. Using biographical narrative interviews (n = 61), we explore how local resident…
Public values for energy system change
In this paper we discuss the importance of framing the question of public acceptance of sustainable energy transitions in terms of values and a ‘whole-system’ lens. This assertion is based on findings arising from a major research project examining public values, attitudes and acceptability with regards to whole energy system change using a mixed-method (six deliberative workshops, n = 68, and a nationally representative survey, n = 2441), interd…
Messing with nature? Exploring public perceptions of geoengineering in the UK
Anthropogenic influence on the climate – and possible societal responses to it – offers a unique window through which to examine the way people think about and relate to the natural world. This paper reports data from four, one-day deliberative workshops conducted with members of the UK public during early 2012. The workshops focused on geoengineering – the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment – as one of three possib…
From the familiar to the extraordinary
Nearly two decades since the last nuclear power station was built and began operating in the UK, nuclear energy is firmly back on the political agenda domestically and elsewhere in the world. Yet since the 1980s, little research has investigated perceptions of nuclear power in the UK, particularly those of communities living in very close proximity to such facilities. Using biographical narrative interviews (n = 61), we explore how local resident…
Energy consumption and everyday life
In policy and research, there is increasing recognition that the scale of transitions necessary for a low carbon society will require significant reductions in energy demand. Concurrently, advancing knowledge about energy practices has been highlighted as important in developing a basis for the delivery of less energy intensive configurations. In this article, we examine interview (participant n = 53) and visual (photographic) data collected acro…
Laughing it off? Humour, affect and emotion work in communities living with nuclear risk1
Over the past two decades, an increasing number of risk researchers have recognized that risks are not simply objective hazards but that the meanings of risk are discursively negotiated, dynamic and embedded within the wider social relations that constitute everyday life. A growing interest in the complexity and nuances of risk subjectivities has alerted sociocultural researchers not only to what is said in a risk situation, but also to how it is…
Public conceptions of justice in climate engineering
Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the rela…
We are a community [but] that takes a certain amount of energy’
Farmers’ perceptions of climate change
Critical moments? Life transitions and energy biographies
Family and youth research has highlighted the importance of lifecourse transitions, illustrating how they can have a substantial impact on people’s everyday lives and anticipated futures. Given their apparent significance, it is surprising that relatively little attention has been paid to life transitions – particularly unexpected ones – to explore how they can impact upon everyday energy use. This is a central concern of Energy Biographies proje…
Perceptions of geoengineering
Geoengineering—the deliberate large‐scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change—is receiving an increasing amount of attention from academics, policy and civil society stakeholders, and members of the general public. This article reviews the available literature on perceptions of geoengineering, including public attitudes and stakeholder perspectives. We describe some of the challenges of engaging wi…
Nuclear Power After Japan
Rethinking energy demand governance
The challenges of climate change and energy security, along with problems of fuel poverty and energy justice bring imperatives to create transitions in energy demand. Academic research and theory have begun to highlight the ways that government policies, strategies, and processes across wide-ranging areas of policy, from health to work and the economy, shape everyday practices with significant implications for energy demand. This brings focus on …
Asking about the future
Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multi…
The Muillean Gaoithe and the Melin Wynt
There is a shortage of scholarly research into understanding the cultural values, drivers and outcomes of community renewable developments. This paper contributes towards addressing this gap, by comparing four community renewable projects set in Scottish Gaelic speaking Scotland and in Welsh speaking Wales. Not only do cultural values drive the developments of these community energy projects, but evidence gathered here through qualitative intervi…
Landscapes of Threat? Exploring Discourses of Stigma around Large Energy Developments
In UK policy, concerns about climate change, energy security and system renewal, combine to create an imperative for transitions in landscapes of energy production. Some of the energy developments that will be central in these transitions are imbued with historical associations of, for example, ‘risk and threat’, which have been asserted to potentially lead to the stigmatisation of place and people in place. This paper explores stigmatisation thr…
Energy Biographies
The problem of how to make the transition to a more environmentally and socially sustainable society poses questions about how such far-reaching social change can be brought about. In recent years, lifecourse transitions have been identified by a range of researchers as opportunities for policy and other actors to intervene to change how individuals use energy, taking advantage of such disruptive transitions to encourage individuals to be reflexi…
I'm not a tree hugger, I'm just like you
For many in the Western world, there is increasing recognition of the fundamentally unsustainable nature of everyday actions and modes of consumption that form part of normal life. Some individuals attempt to challenge current ways of consuming and living in order to address these underlying issues. However, these efforts often continue to be positioned as unusual or unconventional, meaning that adopting sustainable lifestyles may be subject to w…
From the familiar to the extraordinary
Nearly two decades since the last nuclear power station was built and began operating in the UK, nuclear energy is firmly back on the political agenda domestically and elsewhere in the world. Yet since the 1980s, little research has investigated perceptions of nuclear power in the UK, particularly those of communities living in very close proximity to such facilities. Using biographical narrative interviews (n = 61), we explore how local resident…
Nuclear Power After Japan
Laughing it off? Humour, affect and emotion work in communities living with nuclear risk1
Over the past two decades, an increasing number of risk researchers have recognized that risks are not simply objective hazards but that the meanings of risk are discursively negotiated, dynamic and embedded within the wider social relations that constitute everyday life. A growing interest in the complexity and nuances of risk subjectivities has alerted sociocultural researchers not only to what is said in a risk situation, but also to how it is…
Living with nuclear power
Perceptions of geoengineering
Geoengineering—the deliberate large‐scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change—is receiving an increasing amount of attention from academics, policy and civil society stakeholders, and members of the general public. This article reviews the available literature on perceptions of geoengineering, including public attitudes and stakeholder perspectives. We describe some of the challenges of engaging wi…
Messing with nature? Exploring public perceptions of geoengineering in the UK
Anthropogenic influence on the climate – and possible societal responses to it – offers a unique window through which to examine the way people think about and relate to the natural world. This paper reports data from four, one-day deliberative workshops conducted with members of the UK public during early 2012. The workshops focused on geoengineering – the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment – as one of three possib…
Creating a national citizen engagement process for energy policy
This paper examines some of the science communication challenges involved when designing and conducting public deliberation processes on issues of national importance. We take as our illustrative case study a recent research project investigating public values and attitudes toward future energy system change for the United Kingdom. National-level issues such as this are often particularly difficult to engage the public with because of their inher…
Examining the Dynamics of Energy Demand through a Biographical Lens
It is widely recognized that a major challenge in low carbon transitioning is the reduction of energy consumption. This implies a significant level of transformation in our ways of living, meaning the challenge is one that runs deep into the fabric of our personal lives. In this article we combine biographical research approaches with concepts from Bourdieu's practice theory to develop understanding of processes of change that embed particular pa…
Energy consumption and everyday life
In policy and research, there is increasing recognition that the scale of transitions necessary for a low carbon society will require significant reductions in energy demand. Concurrently, advancing knowledge about energy practices has been highlighted as important in developing a basis for the delivery of less energy intensive configurations. In this article, we examine interview (participant n = 53) and visual (photographic) data collected acro…
Landscapes of Threat? Exploring Discourses of Stigma around Large Energy Developments
In UK policy, concerns about climate change, energy security and system renewal, combine to create an imperative for transitions in landscapes of energy production. Some of the energy developments that will be central in these transitions are imbued with historical associations of, for example, ‘risk and threat’, which have been asserted to potentially lead to the stigmatisation of place and people in place. This paper explores stigmatisation thr…
We are a community [but] that takes a certain amount of energy’
Asking about the future
Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multi…
Public values for energy system change
In this paper we discuss the importance of framing the question of public acceptance of sustainable energy transitions in terms of values and a ‘whole-system’ lens. This assertion is based on findings arising from a major research project examining public values, attitudes and acceptability with regards to whole energy system change using a mixed-method (six deliberative workshops, n = 68, and a nationally representative survey, n = 2441), interd…
Farmers’ perceptions of climate change
I'm not a tree hugger, I'm just like you
For many in the Western world, there is increasing recognition of the fundamentally unsustainable nature of everyday actions and modes of consumption that form part of normal life. Some individuals attempt to challenge current ways of consuming and living in order to address these underlying issues. However, these efforts often continue to be positioned as unusual or unconventional, meaning that adopting sustainable lifestyles may be subject to w…
The grit in the oyster
It has been argued that responsible research and innovation (RRI) requires critique of the ‘worlds’ implicated in the future imaginaries associated with new technologies. Qualitative social science research can aid deliberation on imaginaries by exploring the meanings of technologies within everyday practices, as demonstrated by Yolande Strengers’ work on imaginaries of ‘smartness’. In this paper, we show how a novel combination of narrative inte…
Public conceptions of justice in climate engineering
Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the rela…
Energy Biographies
The problem of how to make the transition to a more environmentally and socially sustainable society poses questions about how such far-reaching social change can be brought about. In recent years, lifecourse transitions have been identified by a range of researchers as opportunities for policy and other actors to intervene to change how individuals use energy, taking advantage of such disruptive transitions to encourage individuals to be reflexi…
The Muillean Gaoithe and the Melin Wynt
There is a shortage of scholarly research into understanding the cultural values, drivers and outcomes of community renewable developments. This paper contributes towards addressing this gap, by comparing four community renewable projects set in Scottish Gaelic speaking Scotland and in Welsh speaking Wales. Not only do cultural values drive the developments of these community energy projects, but evidence gathered here through qualitative intervi…
Rethinking energy demand governance
The challenges of climate change and energy security, along with problems of fuel poverty and energy justice bring imperatives to create transitions in energy demand. Academic research and theory have begun to highlight the ways that government policies, strategies, and processes across wide-ranging areas of policy, from health to work and the economy, shape everyday practices with significant implications for energy demand. This brings focus on …
Critical moments? Life transitions and energy biographies
Family and youth research has highlighted the importance of lifecourse transitions, illustrating how they can have a substantial impact on people’s everyday lives and anticipated futures. Given their apparent significance, it is surprising that relatively little attention has been paid to life transitions – particularly unexpected ones – to explore how they can impact upon everyday energy use. This is a central concern of Energy Biographies proje…
Just Transition
Transition to a post-carbon economy implies changes that are both far-reaching and unprecedented. The notion that a decarbonization transition must encompass multiple forms of justice is gaining ground. In response, the concept of Just Transition has become ever more popular – and confusion about its meaning ever greater. We argue in this paper that the term Just Transition needs a rigorous updating to develop its full conceptual power for the an…
A technology to solve the water-energy-food crisis? Mapping sociotechnical configurations of agrivoltaics using Q-methodology
“Agrivoltaics” are solar photovoltaic panels mounted above productive farmland so that energy and food production can occur simultaneously on the same plot. Agrivoltaics are proffered as a means to reduce food-energy land use conflicts, and to ameliorate rural community opposition to ground-mounted solar farms. In this study we examine the socio-economic and environmental claims around agrivoltaics as a set of competing sociotechnical configurati…
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (15 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy (12 works) · Energy (signal processing (10 works) · Engineering (8 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (7 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Ecology (7 works)