Prof. Laurence DELINA

Prof. Delina is interested in understanding the complex relationships between the natural environment and society. The core research themes of his current work are located in the intersections of energy system transitions, global environmental change (particularly climate change) and how societies (particularly those in the Global South) interact with energy systems across multiple levels and scales. On these broad issues, he is critically studying the multi-scale and multi-level, rapid and emergent sociotechnical transformations of energy systems with a normative push for addressing the climate emergency and achieving sustainable development for all. The locus of his work has always been on policy and governance of energy systems, including infrastructures, institutions and peoples.

He is concerned with the ways and means by which sustainable energy transitions are processed, navigated, and negotiated in fair and just manner by persistently asking the questions: by whom and for whom the transition is for; and how voices from the margins can be brought front-and-center in decision-making. He employs analytical approaches from science and technology studies, energy policy, and social movements including the use of narratives, case studies, surveys, ethnographic fieldwork, biographies, language analysis, practice analysis, policy analysis, and comparisons to interrogate how energy systems, understood as sociotechnical assemblages, can be accounted for and integrated into environmental, sustainability and policy studies.

He seeks postgraduate students and collaborations to work on a set of interrelated questions including: (1) How can policy and institutional changes, as well as progressive climate action, justly and equitably support multi-scale, yet accelerated, sustainable energy transition? (2) How do diverse actors across multiple levels of governance (i.e. local, state, national, regional, international) justly (or unjustly) navigate and negotiate competing interests for environmental sustainability in plural societies, and what do they tell us in terms of future policy, strategies and interventions? (3) How do diversity, plurality, and polarities (in terms of expertise, class, race, gender, language, etc.) affect the just and equitable design of sustainable energy systems, policies and institutions at multiple scales?