Program Overview

Introduction to the C-SERC Doctoral Program

The Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC) at the University of Technology Sydney offers a doctoral program focused on exploring the intersections between climate, society, and environment. This program is designed to foster innovative research and understanding in these critical areas.

Research Areas

The C-SERC Doctoral Program encompasses a wide range of research areas, including:

• The art and cultural continuum of urban Aboriginal agriculture
• Bio-politics of climate change governance
• The Blue Economy in West Africa: livelihoods of small-scale fisheries
• Climate change and civil conflict
• Climate Movement Strategy
• Climate scepticism in the media
• Environmental movements: bridging the north-south divide
• Feminist Energy Democracy
• Goro nickel mine: An environmental experiment in New Caledonia
• The Imitation Economy
• The impact of coral reef restoration projects on coastal communities in the Philippines
• Implications of Fisheries Governance for Livelihood and Well-being: Current Perspectives from Ghana's Small-scale Fisheries
• Mining the high frontier
• New Environmental Knowledge: Large Dam in Northeast India
• Policy disconnections in the regulation of sustainable seafood in Australia
• Political ecology of illegal marine wildlife trade in Palawan, the Philippines
• Social legitimacy of decarbonisation of energy
• The Sustainability of the Global Food System: A Case Study on Australian Wheat and Indonesian Instant Noodles
• The Weather Diaries
• Wind farm development in Australia and Taiwan
• Comparative analysis of social media use and practice among selected Philippine and Australian media organizations in reporting natural hazards-induced disasters
• Smallholder Farmers' Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climatic Heat Stress in Northern Ghana
• The politics of knowledge valorization and communication: How did the "economic turn" come to dominate biodiversity discourse between the Stockholm Conferences?

C-SERC Research Projects

The program involves various research projects, including:

• Aboriginal land and economic activity
• Blue economy
• Circular economy opportunities for fisheries and aquaculture in Australia
• Coal Rush
• Coastal livelihood transitions and China's Belt and Road Initiative
• Commonwealth fisheries Indigenous engagement strategy
• Decarbonising electricity
• Democracy and global energy transition
• Developing cost-effective socio-economic monitoring for inland recreational fisheries in NSW
• Developing social and economic monitoring and evaluation systems in Indonesian tuna fisheries
• Disruptive Technology
• The Green Square Atlas of Civic Ecologies 2021
• Handbooks for fisheries managers to address the social dimensions of seafood production in Pacific Island countries
• Heat in the Streets
• Heat at Work: United Workers Union
• Institutional effectiveness and political economy of coral reef restoration in the Philippines
• Monitoring framework for social and economic development contributions from Pacific tuna industries
• Scaling up community based sea cucumber culture in Vietnam and the Philippines
• Surfacing urban wetlands in two urban renewal sites in Sydney

Feminist Energy Democracy: A Comparative Ethnography

One of the specific research projects within the C-SERC Doctoral Program is "Feminist Energy Democracy: A Comparative Ethnography of Renewable Energy in Regional Australia." This project explores the role of renewable energy in significantly altering society, particularly focusing on how energy democracy can disrupt the power of multinational energy corporations and place power in the hands of everyday people through community renewable energy.

Abstract

The project argues that while energy democracy theory and practice have sidelined gender, feminist theory and ethics could be valuable additions to understanding and advocating for energy democracy through renewable energy transitions. It draws on energy injustice, energy democracy, feminist technology, and speculative feminism theory to explore hindrances and hopes for a renewable energy transition in Australia.

Researcher Profile

The researcher, Alana West, holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Communications (Social Sciences) and a Bachelor of Global Studies from the University of Technology Sydney. Alana is situated amongst anthropology, sociology, and political economy, striving to be an activist academic producing knowledge useful to progressive social movements and social change.

Acknowledgement of Country

The University of Technology Sydney acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people, and the Gamaygal people upon whose ancestral lands the university stands. Respect is paid to the Elders, both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.