Dr Rihab Khalid (Newton Trust Research Fellow, University of Cambridge)
Abstract:
Current housing and energy policies, with their largely techno-economic focus fail to address the ways of living and patterns of demand that emerge from the specific socio-material and cultural context and determine how the need for energy arises and evolves. Taking the case of middle-class housing in Lahore, Pakistan, this lecture will look at how a socio-technical approach to domestic energy demand can help to:
1) explain growing household electricity-use as a consequence of the co-evolution of household practices and material arrangements (how we got to this point)
and
2) explore potential low-energy interventions in design and use (where do we go from here?).
Speaker's bio:
Dr Rihab Khalid is a Research Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge University. She is an interdisciplinary researcher in sustainable energy consumption and demand management, focusing on socio-technical approaches to societal transitions. In particular, she is interested in the intersections of gender, energy infrastructure and space use in Pakistan and more broadly in the Global South.