My research examines how communities respond to environmental change, particularly where energy transitions, place, culture, and collective action come together. I am interested in how environmental policies and technologies are interpreted and reshaped within particular communities, and in how local histories, social relationships, institutions, values, and norms influence that process.
My earlier work focused on environmental behaviour and environmental communication. Over time, these interests developed into research on community resilience, participation, local governance, and community energy. Although the topics have changed, a common concern runs through this work: understanding how environmental change becomes part of community life and how people come to act together around it.
Community Energy & Decarbonisation
Much of my current research concerns energy transitions at the local level. I examine how residents, local governments, organisations, and experts become involved in decisions about energy and decarbonisation, and how responsibilities, benefits, risks, and opportunities are understood among them.
I am especially interested in community energy and other locally grounded approaches to decarbonisation. My focus is not simply on whether a new technology or policy is accepted, but on whether the process allows residents to take part in shaping the future of their own community.
Place, Culture & Sustainable Communities
Environmental change takes place within communities that already have their own histories, relationships, practices, and ways of understanding where they live. For this reason, I study how place attachment, local culture, shared values, and social norms influence responses to environmental and social change.
Culture, however, is not something I regard as fixed. Communities continually change, and so do the meanings associated with places and traditions. I am interested in how communities adapt to new circumstances while maintaining meaningful continuity with local ways of life, and in how sustainability initiatives can become part of that process.
Environmental Communication & Collective Action
People involved in environmental issues do not necessarily share the same knowledge, interests, priorities, or sense of what is at stake. Communication across these differences is therefore an important part of my research.
Drawing on my earlier work in environmental communication and group dynamics, I examine how people develop relationships, negotiate different perspectives, build trust, and sometimes move towards collective action. This also leads me to questions about the quality of participation, including the difference between being consulted and actually having a meaningful role in decision-making.
Approach
My research is interdisciplinary, drawing on perspectives from environmental social science, social psychology, group dynamics, and sustainability studies. Rather than applying a single theoretical framework to every case, I select concepts according to the research question and the characteristics of the field. My work has drawn particularly on cultural-historical activity theory, communities of practice, group dynamics, place attachment and identity, relational values, social representations, resilience, collective efficacy, and environmental pragmatism.
Most of my research is qualitative. I use interviews, participant observation, thematic analysis, and document analysis to examine people’s experiences, relationships, and practices in context. Depending on the research question, I also use surveys, text analysis, social network analysis, and mixed-method approaches.
Comparative Research
Comparative research in Japan, Finland, and Austria has become an important part of my work. I do not use these cases in search of a single model that can be transferred from one country or community to another. Instead, comparison helps me examine how similar environmental challenges unfold differently under different historical, cultural, institutional, and social conditions.
This perspective now informs my research on community energy, place-based decarbonization, local values and culture, and community resilience. It also allows me to return to a broader question that has accompanied much of my work: how sustainable change can become rooted in the places and communities where people actually live.