So I’m now currently based at the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University in the wonderfully charming, cultural city of Wellington. It has been fantastic to connect with a range of scholars here who’s work I have admired from afar, including Prof John Overtone, whose work on development geography has inspired my in thinking through the intersections of development theory and practice. I’ve been developing lots of new ideas that I very excited to be bringing back to my teaching on the MA ESD program at NUI Galway.

During my time here I am conducting a seminar, entitled ‘Scripting Unsustainability? Exploring contextual drivers of consumption’. The seminar focuses on critiquing dominant approaches to climate change governance that have failed to question the cultural basis of the environmental crises.  It seeks to stimulate discussion on the role of contextual and societal forces, including economic contexts, political ideologies, policy decisions and techno-material landscapes,  in shaping action in often unintended and unforeseen ways. The basic crux of the thesis is that arriving at sustainable consumption will require a much more fundamental challenge to social contexts than is recognised by current policy approaches.