Research

What moves people and what gets in their way?

From November 2024 until April 2026, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the SPHR-NIHR funded COAST project at Durham University. 

I used qualitative and creative methods to understand people’s experiences of walking, wheeling and cycling in East Durham. Though they seem mundane, daily journeys are deeply meaningful to people. Navigating tight resources and thin infrastructures that are not always built with them and their bodies in mind, people put in a lot of work into getting around. Not just to access employment, education and amenities but also to feel that they are getting ahead in life. 

On an island during the pandemic

My PhD research (2024, University of Aberdeen) was about island life in Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic. I lived and conducted fieldwork on the small Isle of Coll between August 2020 and August 2021. 

Coll is home to just under 200 inhabitants and is connected by ferry to the Scottish mainland. My research documented everyday life during the pandemic, following the ways in which the island was entangled with the mainland and exploring how the pandemic unsettled relations to other islanders amidst fear of contagion. I found that islanders did not just experience uncertainty as a challenge but used it as a resource to craft liveable futures for themselves and their island.

Uncertainty

My research is driven by an interest in how we cope with socio-economic and climate change related uncertainties. Uncertainty is not a new or particularly unique experience. Although it is sometimes presented as a relatively recent feature of life in the Western world, it has been an integral part to many people’s and societal group’s lives across the world. I am interested in ways of living with uncertainty that go beyond seeing it as a problem to be solved. What potential is there? Can uncertainty be a resource?