My research interests are in the cultures, politics and histories of nature, and  philosophical questions concerning the Anthropocene and plant life.

Current research projects

Growing Liveable Worlds: Collaboration with artist Katy Connor on Vegetal HydroPoetics, growing plants for future liveable worlds, including a involvement in a project on Martian settlement and plants in space exploration. Funded by Bristol's Brigstow Insitute and Research England.

Decomposing an Epoch: Ten Anthroposcenes from a Fractured Planet is a current monograph I am writing, based on entanglements of nature, culture and place in the Anthropocene, emerging from research in the Anthropocene hotspot of Scotland's Firth of Forth. The book aims to decompose colonial, male and anthropocentric histories of the planet's fragemented epoch.

Previous research projects

Glacial flour power: A collaborative GCRF project examining the potential of glacial flour as a novel fertiliser in high-mountain agriculture in the Himalaya. I was Co-I in a multidisciplinary team, interested in decolonial and alternative cosmological understandings of plants and soil care (2018-21)

The Work that Plants Do: As part of the growing field of critical plant studies I co-edited a book advancing new understandings of plant labour and subjectivity (2020-21).

Plant Politics in Pakistan: funded by the RGS/IBG, this collaborative project explored the socio-ecological politics of plants as lively commodities in urban Pakistan. We were interested in how plants circulate in gated communities, private households and municipalities, and the implications for social justice and environmental sustainability in one of the world’s most rapidly-urbanising nations (2016-19).

Ancestral Time: A major AHRC-funded interdisciplinary project, investigating the ethical horizons of Scottish religious organisations and spiritual activists. The project was especially interested in the temporalities of non-secular approaches to climate change and environmental loss (2013-16).

Urban Green Commons: Based on collaborative fieldwork in Lisbon, Portugal, funded by the Carnegie Trust, this project explored the legacies of post-colonialism and the impact of urban austerity on public gardening cultures, and compared top-down state-sanctioned improvement projects with bottom-up claims to urban space for subsistence (2012-14).