Prof. Gordon Walker Division of Geography Lancaster Environment Centre Lancaster University
My broad area of research interest is the social and spatial dimensions of environment, sustainability and risk issues. Recent research and writing has focused on environmental justice theory, concepts and practice and the investigation of inequalities in the distribution of environmental goods and bads; sustainable consumption and practice, systems and transition management; social dimensions of sustainable energy technologies, public engagement with community energy projects; stakeholder participation in decision making and the use of deliberative methods; spatial planning for technological risks and natural hazards; public perceptions of risk and risk communication and warning for natural hazards; the use and production of environmental science by NGOs and the commodification of science in consumer products; the use of Q-methodology in geographical research. Details of publications and research projects can be found below. Also see these dedicated research project web sites: Environmental Justice Research and Resources (a set of pages about environmental justice, including report downloads) Environmental Inequalities Seminar Series (details of all seminar sessions, powerpoints, discussion paper)
Current supervised research students Hugh Deeming 'Vulnerability and Storm Surge: evaluating the role of social networks in building community resilience to an extant threat' Sam Brown 'Understanding Vulnerability to Heat Waves; the practices of heat adaptation' Elspeth Kent 'Conceptualising Adaptation to Climate Change: the politics of ensuring fitness in conditions of uncertainty' Yonjoo Jeong 'Public perceptions of Wind Farm Development in Japan and Korea' Neil Simcock 'Renewable Energy, Cooperative Behaviour and Property Regimes'
External Roles
Recent Publications
Journal papers Shove E and Walker G (in press) Governing transitions in the sustainability of everyday life. Research Policy . Walker G, Cass N, Barnett J and Burningham K (in press) Renewable energy and socio-technical change: imagined subjectivities of ‘the public’ and their implications, Environment and Planning A Walker G (2009) Beyond Distribution and Proximity: exploring the multiple spatialities of environmental justice, Antipode, 41 (4), pp 614-636 Walker G P, Hunter S, Devine-Wright P, Evans B, High H (2009 in press) Trust and community: exploring the meanings, contexts and dynamics of community renewable energy, Energy Policy, accepted for publication. Cass N and Walker G (2009) Emotion and rationality: the characterisation and evaluation of opposition to renewable energy projects. Emotion, Space and Society, 2, pp 62-69 Walker G (2009) Globalising environmental justice: the geography and politics of frame contextualisation and evolution, Global Social Policy, 9(3) pp 355-382 Walker G and Eames M (2008) Environmental Inequalities: reflections on a transdisciplinary seminar series, Local Environment, 13(8), 663-667 Brown S and Walker G (2008) Understanding Heat Wave Vulnerability in nursing and residential homes, Building Research and Information (special issue 'comfort in a lower carbon society'), 36(4) 363-372. Walker G P (2008) Decentralised systems and fuel poverty: are there any links or risks? Energy Policy, 36(12), 4514-4517 Walker G P (2008) What are the barriers and incentives for community-owned means of energy production and use, Energy Policy, 36(12), 4401-4405 Eden S, Bear C and Walker G (2008) Mucky Carrots and other proxies: problematising the knowledge fix for sustainable and ethical consumption, Geoforum, 39(2); 1044-1057 Eden S, Bear C and Walker G (2008) The sceptical consumer? Exploring views about food assurance, Food Policy, 33(6), 624-630. Shove E and Walker G (2008) Transition Management and the Politics of Shape Shifting, Environment and Planning A, 40, pp 1012-1014 Walker G P and Devine Wright P (2008) Community Renewable Energy: what does it mean? Energy Policy, 36, 497-500. Eden S, Bear C and Walker G (2008) Understanding and (dis)trusting food assurance schemes: Consumer confidence and the ‘knowledge fix’. Journal of Rural Studies, volume 24, pp 1-24 Shove, E. and Walker, G. (2007) ‘Caution! Transitions ahead: politics, practice and sustainable transition management’, Environment and Planning A, 39(4) 763 – 770 Walker G P and Shove E (2007) Ambivalence, sustainability and the governance of sociotechnical transitions, Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, 9 (3/4), pp 213-225 Walker G and Cass N (2007) Carbon reduction, "the public" and renewable energy: engaging with sociotechnical configurations, Area, 39(4), pp 458-469 Walker G (2007) Environmental justice and the distributional deficit in policy appraisal in the UK, Environmental Research Letters, 2, 045004, Shove E and Walker G P (2007) Caution! Transitions ahead: politics, practice and transition management, Environment and Planning A, vol 39, pp 763-770 Walker G P, Hunter S, Devine-Wright P, Evans B, Fay H (2007) Harnessing Community Energies: explaining and evaluating community-based localism in renewable energy policy in the UK, Global Environmental Politics, Volume 7, No 2, 64-82 Walker, Gordon P and Bulkeley, Harriet (2006) Geographies of Environmental Justice. Geoforum, 37 (5). pp. 655-659. [Editorial for special issue on Geographies of Environmental Justice] Eden S, Donaldson A and Walker G (2006), Structuring Subjectivities in human geography: Q methodology and the analysis of environmental views, Area, Vol 37, no 4, pp413-422. Bickerstaff K and Walker G P (2005) Shared visions, unholy alliances: power, governance and deliberative processes in local transport planning, Urban Studies, Vol 42, no 5, pp 2133-2144. Bulkeley, Harriet and Walker, Gordon P (2005) Environmental Justice: A New Agenda for the UK. Local Environment, 10 (4). pp. 329-332. [Editorial for special issue on Environmental Justice in the UK] Walker G P, Mitchell G, Fairburn J and Smith G (2005) Industrial pollution and social deprivation: evidence and complexity in evaluating and responding to environmental inequality, Local Environment, Vol 10, no 4, pp 361-377. Bickerstaff K and Walker G P (2003) The place(s) of matter: matter out of place – public understandings of air pollution, Progress in Human Geography, Vol 27, no 1, pp 45-67. Bickerstaff K and Walker G P (2002) Risk, Responsibility and Blame: an analysis of vocabularies of motive in air-pollution(ing) discourses, Environment and Planning A, vol 34, no 12, pp 2175-2192 Buckingham-Hatfield S and Walker G P (2002) From UNCED to the WSSD: reasons to be cheerful, Local Environment, Vol 7, No 3, pp 237-240. Bickerstaff K, Walker G and Tolley R (2002) Transport planning and participation: the rhetoric and realities of public involvement, Journal of Transport Geography, Vol 10, No 1 Bickerstaff, K.J., and Walker, G.P. (2001) Participatory local governance and transport planning, Environment and Planning A, Vol 33, pp 431-451. Bickerstaff, K.J., and Walker, G.P. (2001) Public understandings of air pollution: the ‘localisation’ of environmental risk, Global Environmental Change, Vol 11, pp 133-145. Simmons P and Walker G P (2005) Technological risk and sense of place: industrial encroachment on place values in A Boholm and R Lofstedt (eds) Facility Siting: Risk, Power and Identify in Land Use Planning, London: Earthscan. Sarah Damery, Gordon Walker, Judith Petts and Graham Smith (2007) Addressing Environmental Inequalities: Water Quality, Science Report: SC020061/SR2, Environment Agency, Bristol. Sarah Damery, Judith Petts, Gordon Walker, Graham Smith (2007) Addressing Environmental Inequalities: Waste Management, Science Report SC020061/SR3, Environment Agency, Bristol. Gordon Walker, Sarah Damery, Judith Petts, Graham Smith (2007) Addressing Environmental Inequalities: Flood Risk, Waste Management and Water Quality in Wales, Science Report SC020061/SR5, Environment Agency, Bristol. Carolyn Stephens, Ruth Willis and Gordon Walker (2007) Addressing Environmental Inequalities: Cumulative Environmental Impacts, Science Report: SC020061/SR4, Environment Agency Gordon Walker, Kate Burningham, Jane Fielding, Graham Smith, Diana Thrush and Helen Fay (2006) Addressing Environmental Inequalities: Flood Risk, Science Report: SC020061/SR1, Environment Agency Fairburn J, Walker G and Smith G (2005) Investigating Environmental Justice in Scotland - Links Between Measures of Environmental Quality and Social Deprivation Report UE4(03)01, Scottish and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research, Edinburgh Recent Research ProjectsCAPHAZ-Net - Social Capacity Building for Natural Hazards: Towards More Resilient Societies. FP7 2009-2001. with Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig with Institute for International Sociology, Gorizia ISIG Italy, FHRC Middlesex University; Autonomous University Barcelona; Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research; DIALOGIK Non-Profit Institute for Communication and cooperative research Stuttgart; Lancaster University.
Communication and Dissemination of Probabilistic Flood Warnings, 2008-9 with Nigel Watson, Will Medd and Elham Kashefi, Collingwood Environmental Planning and HR Wallingford. Funded by Environment Agency
Beyond NIMBYISM: a multidisciplinary investigation of public engagement with renewable energy, 2006-9, TSEC/ESRC funded, led by Patrick Devine Wright (Manchester) with Surrey, Northumbria, Loughborough. Environmental Inequalities Seminar Series, ESRC/NERC Transdisciplinary Seminar Series, with Malcolm Eames Brunel, 2006-7 North West Hydro Resource Model, JOULE funding, 2006-9 with Engineering, CEH and other departments at Lancaster. Responsibility for WP5 on public engagement. Further Information Improving Institutional and Social Responses to Flooding, Environment Agency, 2007-8, consortium led by Collingwood Environmental Planning Addressing Environmental Inequalities, Environment Agency, with Judith Petts and Sarah Damery (University of Birmingham) Kate Burningham and Jane Fielding (University of Surrey), Carolyn Stephens and Ruth Willis (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) Malcolm Eames (PSI) and Karen Lucas (University of Westminster), 2005-6 Further Information Support on Common European Strategy for Sustainable natural and induced technological hazards mitigation (SCENARIO) Environmental, health and social justice review, DEFRA via Sustainable Development Research Network, Collaborators: Malcolm Eames (PSI) and Karen Lucas (University of Westminster), 2004, Further Information
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FORTHCOMING BOOK 2010: SPACES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ... EDITED WITH RYAN HOLIFIELD AND MIKE PORTER, WILEY.