Catherine Cherry is based at Cardiff University and will be working to design and deliver two projects within Theme 1 ‘Visioning: What could low-carbon transformed futures look like?’. Project 1.1 ‘Public engagement for ‘desirable’ and ‘feasible’ visions of change’ will develop and apply deliberative participatory and visioning methods to explore public perceptions of transformational change, both at the systems-level and in relation to each of the four challenging areas: food, mobility, consumption and comfort. Project 1.5 ‘Media representation of climate change and transformative action’ will explore how discourses around transformative change and radical decarbonisation are emerging within the UK media.
Focusing on exploring public understandings and discourses surrounding climate change, my research interests centre on how social understandings, values and imaginaries shape and interact with efforts to transition towards low-carbon futures. Previously, I worked under the interdisciplinary Centre for Industrial Energy Materials and Products (CIE-MAP). My 3year qualitative study made use of a range of deliberative methods (including narrative-, photographic- and scenario-based activities) to explore pubic visions of possible low-material futures. This included exploring how new business models, the sharing economy, and product-service systems (as well as more radical options to reduce personal carbon footprints) are currently understood, both in terms of the perceived impacts they would have on the everyday lives of participants and the meanings and values that underpin public acceptance of such strategies.
