Irma Emmery
In October 2020, Irma started her PhD thanks to the Starting Grant of supervisor prof. Erik Paredis (UGent). Her co-supervisors are Dr. Anneleen Kenis (Brunell University) and Kasper Ampe (UGent).
Her research engages critically with the Circular Economy (CE), which is typically framed around ‘greening’ growth through ‘innovative’ business models and technologies and through repositioning ‘waste’ as the newest resource for commodity production. Underlying social and economic relations around production and consumption are however rarely challenged.
Subsequently, Irma’s research seeks to study socially embedded and ecologically sustainable production in the context of circular economic activity. By relying on both postgrowth and social and solidarity economy (SSE) perspectives, Irma studies a diverse array of circular economic practices and relations in not-for-profit cooperatives in Belgium and England. Her empirical methods are grounded in ethnography, narrative inquiry, autoethnography / first-person action research.
Irma has an academic background in literature and linguistics (BA) and in Gender and diversity (MA). Before starting her PhD, she worked at the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender (CRCG), co-authoring two articles on the intersection of motherhood, religion, migration, and citizenisation.
Mail: Irma.Emmery@UGent.be
Research Explorer: https://research.ugent.be/web/person/irma-emmery-0/en