I am a political anthropologist specializing in the study of Energy security and ecological vulnerability in the Global North; Energy aesthetics and futurity; and Adverse impacts of climate change for land and marine ecosystems, as well as local ways of life. I have been conducting fieldwork in the Global North for two decades, working with energy consultants, U.S. political leaders, lobbyists, and community representatives across the Arctic. My publications focus on the anthropologies of extractive industry, futurity, and expertise, linked to STS-related genealogies. I hold a permanent position as Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Social Anthropology at Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Research Affiliate with Centre for Energy Ethics at University of St Andrews; and Research Associate with the Arctic Institute of North America at University of Calgary.
I am completing a book manuscript titled Energy Images: Hydrocarbon Aesthetics of Progress and Form which draws on affective imagery to convey ideas on the formation of energy planning associated with the modern integrated hydrocarbon energy system and its contradictions. I edited two volumes titled Arctic Abstractive Industry: Assembling the Valuable and Vulnerable North and Subterranean Estates: Life Worlds of Oil and Gas both of which bring together diverse engagements with natural resource extraction and ecological vulnerability.
My forthcoming book titled Consulting Energy: From Judgment to Decision-Making (fall 2025) examines postsovereign interactions among industry elites taking place in exclusive and guarded environments whereby policy and planning increasingly depends on market knowledge whose veracity finds validation through an aesthetics of security and luxury.
My first book Energy Capitol: The Waning of Regulatory Form employs perspectives from anthropology, political science, and sociology to explore the waning of regulatory politics of large-scale energy systems in the United States at the turn of the millennium. By illuminating key aspects of federal-state political decision-making processes on energy transportation infrastructure, Energy Capitol highlights the activities of regulatory intellectuals whose accumulated work begins to impede pipeline proposals by a reliance on judgments that no longer reflect the conditions in which large-scale projects are increasingly determined.
Recent blog posts
Allegra Lab
Beyond Hot Air
Svalbard Post
Norway Anthropology Journal
Paparazzi Ethnography
StudioPolar