Prof. Petra Tschakert
Professor Of Geography And Global Futures, Director Of Impact, Research And Engagement
School Of Media, Creative Arts And Social Inquiry, Curtin University
Western Australia
Prof. Tschakert is trained as a human-environment geographer and applied anthropologist and conducts research at the intersection of political ecology, climate change adaptation, climate and mobility justice, multispecies justice, energy humanities, transformative sustainability education, and livelihood security. She is a passionate educator with a strong commitment to overcoming structural inequities and co-creating just and transformative futures, through inclusive and solution-focused research and practice to address the most pressing challenges of our time – climate/environmental change and inequalities. She combines critical social science insights with grounded methodologies for collective learning and social transformation. Her motivation is to enhance resilience and agency among populations experiencing disadvantage, learn how to live with loss, grief, and hope in our rapidly changing lives, and practice responsible co-existence between people and non-humans in a world in which all of us are vulnerable. She has abundant experience using participatory methods and community engagement practices for capacity and resilience strengthening for >30 years in Senegal, Ghana, Tanzania, India, Nepal, and Panama, and recently in Western Australia.
Speaker agenda
Energy Humanities
Energy humanities is a field of research with highly relevant and timely practical applications. Scholars and practitioners investigate how to make energy transitions just and inclusive, for all people and living beings, everywhere. Critical contributions from the social sciences, humanities, and the arts help us understand who benefits and who experiences harm from decarbonising our societies, whose values and visions count and whose are sidelined, how disagreements are negotiated, and how fairer worlds can be imagined and joint visions pursued.
In this webinar, Professor Petra Tschakert will draw attention to what often remains out of sight in discussions around just energy transitions, namely inequities, structural disadvantage, and uneven positions of power when embarking on energy futures, and the human and non-human winners and losers they entail. These are essential questions we need to engage with in order to approach the needed ethical, lifestyle, organisational, and policy choices we make, now, at this critical junction on the path to renewables and net zero emissions.