Sarah O'Brien

I am a Research Associate on the ESRC-funded MIMESIS in Action Project, led by Dr Petratjistke Kalshoven. This multi-sited comparative project examines tacit and explicit assumptions that drive human hopes and fears in planning and caring for the future around nuclear sites - in England, Scotland, the Netherlands, and France.

My research focuses on the peninsula of La Hague in France, where I ethnographically explore local landscapes, livelihoods and temporalities in relation to a nuclear fuel reprocessing site.

My PhD thesis "Truth, Action, and Transition on an Energy Frontline in Lancashire, UK" was completed at the University of St Andrews, with a full scholarship awarded by the European Research Council as part of the “The Ethics of Oil: Finance Moralities and Environmental Politics in the Global Oil Economy” research group led by Dr Mette High.

For this doctoral project, I carried out thirteen months of ethnographic research with a community resisting the development of the shale gas industry and the associated technique of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking). My thesis explored notions of truth, action and responsibility, and how conflict was navigated on a frontline where people were not only questioning the kind of energy source fuelling our societies, but also the kind of societies being fuelled.

The link between my doctoral research and my current work with the MIMESIS project includes reflecting on the temporalities and ethics that shape our energy realities. How do time horizons and ethical reflections inform one another in constituting the landscapes we live in? How do we connect and co-exist across different ethical and temporal frameworks? What is amenable to change and transformation in our landscapes, and what do we consider to be essential?