Dr Marion Ernwein

Professional biography

I am a cultural and political ecologist with expertise spanning urban ecologies, plant geographies and creative methods. Broadly speaking, my research interests encompass the following:

1) The political economy of urban nature

My early research examined how urban responses to global environmental challenges—specifically relating to biodiversity loss, biosecurity, and food sufficiency—are shaped by neoliberal logics of eventification, neomanagerialism, and public-private partnerships. My book Les Natures de la Ville Néolibérale: Une Ecologie Politique du Végétal Urbain (UGA Editions, 2019), tackles some of these questions, drawing on research in Geneva. Building on this work, my research then investigated how austerity policies in France and the UK reshaped local environmental governance, focusing in particular on the politics of urban environmental volunteering, expertise, and local finances. When approaching these questions, I put a particular emphasis on environmental work, its management, and its politics; a focus which encompasses professional, volunteer, and more-than-human work.

2) The changing role of plants in urban environmental management

A second strand of my research investigates how emerging knowledge of plant intelligence and capacities is reshaping ideas about the role of plants in urban environmental management, in areas as diverse as urban design, ecological management, and air pollution mitigation. This research informs the book The Work that Plants Do (co-edited with Franklin Ginn and James Palmer, and published in 2021 with Transcript), which advances a new vocabulary for theorising emerging vegetal economies. I was recently a Co-Investigator on an ESRC-funded knowledge exchange project on the role of plants in engaging publics with the future of heritage sites under conditions of environmental change.

3) Visual and digital methods

I also have a particular interest in qualitative digital methods and filmic geographies. I have made four research films and published about film-making as embodied method in social and cultural geography. I have also used film-making as a method for stakeholder engagement.

I have received research funding for the following projects:

1) Urban Bio-Labs: Engaging publics with urban Heritage through plants – ESRC Impact Acceleration Fund, 2021-2022.

The Urban Bio-Labs project brought together an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Open University and the University of Oxford with non-academic partners from the heritage and art-science sectors to explore how plants can be a vehicle for renewing public engagement with urban heritage and its futures. Building on our academic research base, the project aimed to strengthen on-going collaborative relationships with partners through knowledge exchange and develop impactful engagement activities under the theme of built heritage-plant interactions.

1) Parks in Trust: exploring third sector-led change in the post-austerity city – University of Oxford John Fell Fund, 2020-2021.

Since the beginning of the UK Government’s austerity agenda in 2010, funding for urban parks and green spaces has decreased dramatically, and new management solutions based on blending public and voluntary sector delivery models are being explored through collaborative work between local authorities and third-sector organisations. This project examines how large third-sector organisations attempt to re-shape the work of local authorities in park management. I am the Principal Investigator, and work in collaboration with Dr Alex Vasudevan (University of Oxford).

3) The affective politics of volunteering in environmental management: Manufacturing consent to work for free, producing neoliberal subjectivities? – Swiss National Science Foundation, 2016-2017.

Following years of austerity and a massive decrease in workforce, urban public parks in the UK rely increasingly on the work of volunteers. This research examined how consent to work for free is manufactured, and how volunteering is redefined and revalued when it becomes the main mode of delivery of a public service. It also examined the role of specific materialities – both bodily and more-than-human – in mobilising volunteers. I was awarded an EarlyPostdoc.Mobility fellowship to conduct this research, which I conducted while hosted at the University of Oxford as Honorary Research Associate.

I have an extensive teaching experience, which spans social, cultural, and political geography; the geography of nature, urban ecologies, and conservation; and a range of qualitative methods, including film-making, which I taught both at the Universities of Geneva and Oxford.

I am currently co-chairing the production of DST216: Environment: Inhabiting a Changing Planet. I have previously chaired the presentation of DST206: Environment: Sharing a Dynamic Planet and written print and online material for D325: Researching Everyday Geographies. I have also been involved in DD319: Environmental Policy in an International Context; and SDT306: Environment: Responding to Change.

Postgraduate supervision

I have co-supervised several doctoral students to completion at the Universities of Oxford and Utrecht and am welcoming applications from prospective students with an interest in urban political ecology, plant geography, more-than-human political economy, environmental work, and visual and digital methods.

I have received funding for knowledge exchange with heritage conservation and art-science organisations and have conducted consultancy work for local authorities in France.

I am an associate member of the editorial board of Métropoles and co-editor of the 'Debates, Engagements, Critique' section. I am also a member of the advisory board of Dérivations, Géo-Regards, and Urbanités.