Steve Harry is a lecturer and personal tutor in the Department of Geography and a visiting scholar in the Department of Political Economy. He has previously worked as a research associate in the Department of Political Economy and as a postgraduate supervisor in the Department of International Development.

In 2022, Steve completed his PhD at King's in the Department of Geography. His thesis explores the spatial politics of energy transition through a theoretical analysis of the relations between capital, land and energy, and an empirical analysis of two wind energy projects on island archipelagos in Norway and Scotland.

Steve's teaching experience includes undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and supervision, module convening, personal tutoring, and assessment and marking in both the departments of Geography and International Development. He has a background working in a number of fields outside and related to academia, including market and social research, the built environment and ecological charity sector, and academic library services. Steve also worked as a drum teacher, community music worker and as a professional musician.

Research

Steve has been working on a collaborative project, funded through the King's Climate and Sustainability seed fund, exploring the effects of the potentially transformative transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy in the North Sea.

This research builds on and overlaps with two other areas of focus. Steve has been working on various proposals exploring the relations between labour environmentalism, climate politics and ‘just’ energy transitions, including in India and South Africa. This research considers the ways in which workers and trade unions operate, both strategically and structurally, as actual and potential forces for both socio-energy system continuity and change.

These collaborative projects closely align with Steve's ongoing work exploring the politics and processes of decarbonisation and the emergence of new energy spaces and flows, with an emphasis on the spatial and generative role of islands in understanding energy systems, transitions and futures.

Research Interests

• The relations between energy, power, space and society at a time of ecological crisis
• Political ecology and historical geographical materialism
• The politics and geographies of energy systems and (just) energy (transition)
• How energy landscapes are conceived, produced, lived and contested
• Fossil capital, climate capital and petrocultures
• Labour-nature relations, labour environmentalism and industrial relations
• Climate action and delay
• The ‘technopolitics’ of (energy) infrastructural change

Teaching

Current Undergraduate

• 4SSG1008 Geography Tutorials (Critical Thinking & Techniques)
• 4SSG1016 Geography in Action
• 5SSG2063 BA Geography Research Tutorials
• 6SSG0610 Independent Geographical Study
• 6SSG3085 Growing Up UrbanPostgraduate
• 7SSGN002 Practicing Social Research (Masters Climate Change)
• 7SSGN225 Research Design and Project Management (Masters Climate Change)
• Geography PGT Dissertations (marking)

Previously taught

Critical Geopolitics, Development Geographies, Field Research in Human Geography, Geographical Foundations I & II, Geographical Research Skills, Principles of Geographical Inquiry, ‘Right to the City’ (UG and PGT), and PGT Dissertation and Writing.