Dr. Aimee Ambrose; Visiting Fellowship 2022/23
Biography:
I am an environmental social scientist with a passion for understanding the historical and cultural constitution of our contemporary relationship with domestic energy and home heating. I was therefore inspired to learn of an institute linking historical research to contemporary environmental challenges, something I have been striving for most of my career. As such, I have pioneered the application of historical research methods to energy studies, a field which suffers significantly from ‘presentism’, neglecting the historical conditions of our present and future (Mahon, 1992). My research into home heating sits at the confluence of energy poverty, social justice, socio-technical and policy research and my methods borrow from ethnography (visual methods) and history (oral histories). I am interested in the deeply personal nature of home heating transitions and the way they significantly reorganise the way people use energy, triggering deeper transformations of societies, economies and cultures and manifesting these changes at the heart of the home. As we stand on the brink of huge changes to the way we power and heat our homes (towards low carbon, digitalised systems) and come to terms with the social, cultural, political, economic and gender implications of this, my research asks: ‘What is this present of ours? How have we got here and what are the possibilities for a different future?’. I have recently been awarded a multi-million pound grant by the CHANSE programme for a project (JUSTHEAT) gathering oral histories of heating transitions across the UK, Sweden, Romania and Finland and distilling the lessons for the current transition away from fossil fuelled heating. I am keen to link my Visiting Fellowship to this project.
Fellowship, November 2022 and May 2023
My Fellowship will be split across two separate visits, firstly in November 2022 and then again in Spring 2023. During my time a Visiting Fellow, I will focus on the following activities:
Knowledge exchange: In person presentation of my work of relevance to the institute including work on oral histories of heating from the UK, Sweden and AU. A meeting would be held in advance to determine the aspects of my work and methods of most interest to the Institute. A reciprocal presentation from the institute at my institution would be welcomed.
Scoping joint funding collaborations: Identification of complementary interests and scoping of potential joint project ideas and funding sources to target.
Researching heating histories of Slovenia: to extend the JUSTHEAT project into new territory and initiate a social, cultural and political history of a heating system dominated by biomass by researching historic Slovenian heating provision and planned heating transitions via documentary analysis and interviews with experts identified with the support of the Institute.
Exploratory oral histories: gather an initial set of up to 10 oral histories of heating in Ljubljana to explore lived experience of heating and heating transition in the area. This will allow for establishment of an empirical dataset to be built on by me/other scholars and enable demonstration of the method and its applications. Institute staff/ their families would be welcome to participate.
Final presentation: Presentation of key findings and knowledge created and exchanged during the visit, shared priorities identified and agreed next steps.
Post fellowship: a programme of monthly online meetings initially for six months to progress agreed areas for collaboration through funding bids and joint writing projects. Reciprocal visit to the UK for appropriate Institute staff.
Recent publications:
- Raslan, R., & Ambrose, A. (2022). Solving the Difficult Problem of Hard to Decarbonise Homes. Nature Energy, 7, 675-677. http://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01075-w
- Ambrose, A., Sherriff, G., Baker, W., & Chambers, J. (2021). Cold comfort: Covid-19, lockdown and the coping strategies of fuel poor households. Energy Reports. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2021.08.175
- Castano Garcia, A., Ambrose, A., Hawkins, A., & Parkes, S. (2021). High consumption, an unsustainable habit that needs more attention. Energy Research and Social Science, 80. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102241
- Ambrose, A. (2020). Walking with Energy: challenging energy invisibility and connecting citizens with energy futures through participatory research. Futures, 117, 102528. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102528
- Sherriff, G., Moore, T., Berry, S., Ambrose, A., Goodchild, B., & Maye-Banbury, A. (2019). Coping with extremes, creating comfort: user experiences of ‘low-energy’ homes in Australia. Energy Research and Social Science, 51, 44-54. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.12.008
- Goodchild, B., Ambrose, A., Berry, S., Maye-Banbury, A., Moore, T., & Sherriff, G. (2019). Modernity, Materiality and Domestic Technology: A Case Study of Cooling and Heating from South Australia. Housing, Theory and Society, 1-21. http://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2019.1600577
- Ambrose, A., & Mccarthy, L. (2019). Taming the 'masculine pioneers'? Changing attitudes towards energy efficiency amongst private landlords and tenants in New Zealand: A case study of Dunedin. Energy Policy, 126, 165-176. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.11.018
