Hannah Hughes
BSc Resource and Applied Geology, Birmingham University
MSt International Relations, Cambridge University
Tel: +44 (0)1970 623111 ext 4176
Fax: +44 (0)1970 622709
Email: hrh08@aber.ac.uk
Room: 0.10
Year of Entry
2008Supervision
Professor Andrew Linklater, Dr. Richard JacksonThesis
Conceptualising climate change: the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The thesis sets out to explore how climate change is being conceptualised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Adapting the sociological approach of Pierre Bourdieu and his notions of habitus, field, capital and symbolic power, I examine how the scientific way of making sense of the physical world interacts with political and economic frames of reality in the construction of the climate change problematic. This requires a detailed history of the IPCC, in depth analysis of the assessment reports it produces, and interviews with panellists. The aim is to delve into the processes by which issues like climate change become known and responded to as social and political problems and to shed light on the relationship between knowledge and power that produce and struggle over these conceptualisations.
General Research Interests
Politics of climate change
Pierre Bourdieu
Security and environmental politics
Critical Methodology: http://www8.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/iccm/
Co-convenor of the Environmental Politics Research Group: http://environmentalpoliticsresearchgroup.wordpress.com/
Publications and Conference Papers
‘The practice of writing’ in M. Salter & C. Mutlu (eds) Research Methods in Critical Security Studies: An Introduction. Routledge (forthcoming).
Coleman, Lara Montesinos & Hughes, Hannah R. ‘The limits of security as methodology: a conversation on situated knowledge’. Paper presented at Workshop for International Collaboratory on Critical Methods in Security Studies (Edinburgh University, September 2011).
‘The practice of writing and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).’ Paper to be presented at the 6th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis: Discursive Spaces, Politics, Practices and Power (Cardiff, June 2011).
‘Situating security: the case of climate change and the British government.’ Paper presented at International Studies Association Annual Conference (Montreal, March 2011).
‘The practice of writing and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’ Paper presented at the International Workshop on Research Methodologies (Ottawa University, March 2011).
‘Enlisting Bourdieu to situate security: the case of climate change and the British government.’ Paper presented at the Annual Graduate Conference in Security Studies (Warwick University, June 24-5th 2010). **Awarded Best Paper**
‘Security’s part in the struggle over climate change.’ Workshop for International Collaboratory on Critical Methods in Security Studies (Sussex University, February 25-6th 2010).