Joshua Kirshner
Reader in Human Geography

Profile

Biography

Joshua Kirshner is a geographer, urban planner and political ecologist whose work explores the political and economic geographies of low-carbon transition and inclusive urban development. He has studied these questions in different sectors, working at international levels and with colleagues in several countries across the world. He serves as Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre at York.

Joshua recently led a British Academy funded project, ‘Linking evidence on One Health, biodiversity and climate justice for climate adaptation policy in the state of São Paulo, Brazil.’ He was a member of CESET (‘Community Energy and the Sustainable Energy Transition in Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique,') a collaborative UKRI-funded project with partners at several African and UK universities, building capacity for equitable community energy systems across diverse social and physical contexts. He was PI in ‘A Political-economic analysis of electricity grid access histories and futures in Mozambique,’ a project funded by UK Aid/FCDO (co-led with Teesside University alongside several Mozambican partner organizations), building on a series of research projects addressing complex energy and environmental challenges in southern Africa.

His research interests include 1) off-grid solar infrastructures and the role of community energy in the transition to low-carbon economies, 2) energy resource frontiers, urbanization and spaces of enclosure, and 3) the science-policy interface in the urban and regional climate transition. His earlier work examined migration and social integration, regional planning, energy sovereignty and post-colonial politics, the role of discourse in megaprojects, and urban infrastructure histories (water, energy, transport).

Funded by grants from the ESRC, British Academy, the Royal Society and the Fulbright Commission, Josh’s research combines textual, observational, field-based, and participatory methods to advance equitable energy systems and climate justice. Conceptually, he is interested in applying insights from political ecology, political and economic geography, science and technology studies (STS), and critical urban studies. He has worked extensively in rapidly growing and resource-rich regions on the global capitalist periphery including Beira and Tete (Mozambique), Khutsong (South Africa), Santa Cruz in the Bolivian lowlands, the Colombian páramos, and Alagoas in northeast Brazil.

Before joining York in 2015, he held teaching and research posts at the Universities of Durham (UK), Rhodes, and Johannesburg (South Africa), and Cornell (USA). He has authored over 35 scientific papers in leading journals such as Nature Energy, Climate Policy, Environment and Planning A, and Geoforum, alongside policy reports for the COP26 Universities Network and the Urban Institute. He serves on the editorial boards of Energy Research & Social Science (IF = 8.5), Urban Planning, and Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales. Joshua holds a PhD from Cornell University in City and Regional Planning, an MA from UCLA in Urban Planning, and a BA (magna cum laude) from Harvard University in Anthropology.

Career

Teaching

Undergraduate

I joined the University of York’s Department of Environment and Geography in 2015 for the launch of the Human Geography and Environment BA degree. This has offered me the opportunity to bring together the various disciplinary approaches I have worked with over the years (urban geography, urban and regional planning, development studies, environmental social science) into my teaching. I received the department’s ‘Making the Difference’ award for the online redesign of an overseas field-based course during the Covid pandemic in 2020. I gained nominations for the ‘Teacher of the Year’ award by York University Students Union (YUSU) in 2019 and 2023.

Currently I am the programme lead and admissions tutor for the Human Geography and Environment BA degree. I have served as external examiner for the Environment and Development MSc program at the University of Cardiff’s School of Geography and Planning. In DEG, I have developed and contributed to several modules:

I convene the Year 2 module Megacities and Urbanisation, and I contribute to several other modules, including Geographical Perspectives for Environmental Issues, Equitable and Sustainable Futures, From Foundations to Innovations in Human Geography Research, Energy Futures and Low Carbon Transitions, and Introduction to Research Skills.

I have taught on the Sustainability Clinic, in which Year 3 students work together in multidisciplinary groups to support community organizations, non-profits and SMEs to achieve their sustainability goals.

Beyond the classroom, I play an active role in supervising undergraduate, MSc and PhD students on a wide range of topics in human geography and related fields.

Research

Research

Overview

Joshua’s research interests converge around the geographies of low-carbon transition and implications for urban and environmental change, particularly for lower-income and marginalised groups. He also has strong interests in urban climate responses, migration and social integration.

Projects

Joshua has supported and led multiple grant-funded projects on these topics with interdisciplinary teams and external partners:

PI, ‘Linking evidence on One Health, biodiversity and climate justice for climate adaptation policy in the state of São Paulo, Brazil,’ funded by the British Academy (2025-26), with the University of São Paulo.

Co-I, ‘Shifting shores: evidence for a gender-inclusive coastal resilience in Thailand’ funded by the British Academy (2025-26), with Mahidol University, Thailand

Co-I, ‘Community Energy Systems and the Sustainable Energy Transition in Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique (CESET),’ a UKRI-GCRF project (2021-2024), which examines the potential of community energy to support inclusive and sustainable energy transitions. The project focuses on diversity of community energy systems and explores community through the lens of intersectionality. Collaborators: Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, Mekelle University (Ethiopia); Mzuzu University (Malawi); University Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique); Universities of Oxford, Durham, Loughborough, Sheffield, UCL (all UK).

PI, ‘A Political-Economic Analysis of Electricity Grid Access Histories and Futures in Mozambique’ (2019-2021), co-led with Teesside University and funded by UK DfID/FCDO. Working with local partners, the research demonstrated how energy access in Mozambique is shaped by the country’s pre-independence and post-colonial histories. 

Co-I, ‘Integrating Ecological and Cultural Histories to Inform Sustainable and Equitable Futures for the Colombian Páramos,’ funded by NERC, AHRC and Colombia Bio programme (2018-2021), with collaborators from Universidad de Los Andes, Humboldt Institute and the Nature Conservancy (all Colombia), Cambridge University (UK) and University of Florida (US).

Co-I, ‘Sustainable Energy Access in Mozambique: Socio-political factors in conflict-laden urban areas,’ in collaboration with Vanesa Castán Broto (PI, Sheffield) and Idalina Baptista (Co-I, Oxford), funded by the British Academy/GCRF Sustainable Development Programme (2016-2018). Kirshner led the project’s work package 2 on the political economy of the energy sector.

Co-I, STRIPES (‘Social Transformative Research Informing Processes of Environmental Science’), a British Academy Knowledge Frontiers project that examined innovation and the socio-environmental implications of advanced bioethanol generation in Alagoas, in northeast Brazil. The project included an interdisciplinary team spanning the social and natural sciences, with collaborators at the University of São Paulo.

Joshua has also contributed to a partnership between researchers at York and University of Ghana to study the management of small-scale and artisanal mining, exploring past, present and future socio-environmental impacts.

Supervision

Completed PhDs:

• Diana Infante-Vargas (with Politics and International Relations): Negotiating the everyday city: women’s mobilities and public transportation in Saltillo, Mexico
• Elizabeth Carper: An examination of farmers’ perceptions, social acceptance, and the disruptive potential of agrivoltaics in northwest India
• Sani Matawalle: Energy geography of Nigeria: Governance, power and social exclusion
• Ariana Nayeli Escalante: Energy (In)Justice in México: An analysis of wind and solar energy projects in Yucatán

Dr Joshua Kirshner welcomes PhD applications in the following areas:

• Energy and development
• Low-carbon transition
• Commodity frontiers
• Urban political ecology
• Urban futures