School of Earth and Environment
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Vivek Mathur Vivek Mathur

Researcher/Postgraduate student

Telephone number: +44(0) 113 34 31635
Email address: V.Mathur@leeds.ac.uk
Room: 9.118

Biography

I am a Research Assistant at the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) at University of Leeds. I am working on the project "Equitable Mitigation and Adaptation" towards generating new evidence on how equity and justice considerations relate to the performance of mitigation and adaptation projects and plans both from the viewpoint of responding to climate change and in terms of contributions to local sustainable development.

I joined University of Leeds in December 2007 as a PhD student at Sustainability Research Institute (SRI). Drawing on ethnographic research in a village in India, I am researching how users' (and non users') norms, expectations and habits shape their behaviour in relation to a selected renewable energy and water technology. In doing so, I am examining the material as well as cultural and symbolic meanings of the practice of water collection in the given context. I propose that an enhanced understanding of these diverse meanings of the practice is necessary in order to appreciate the diverse motivations for users' behaviours. I am also examining how norms apply differently to different social groups. Further, I am analysing how norms and expectations are linked to users' subjective identities and discourses of development.

Prior to that, I worked as a Research Associate at Loughborough University in the U.K. where I conducted research on stakeholder engagement and related social issues in sustainability assessment of urban development projects. I have completed MSc in Sustainability, Planning and Environmental Policy from Cardiff University in the U.K. and Bachelor of Planning degree from School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India. I have also worked for two years in India that included contribution to the preparation of a regional development plan and a study of socio-ecological changes.

Research Interests

Sociological investigations of sustainable development issues, particularly those related to equity, gender, power relations, practices and discourses.

Publications