Dr Steven Emery
Research Associate
BSc (Hons) Environmental Management (Lancaster)
MSc EU Environmental Management (Lancaster)
PhD Anthropology (Durham)
CRE
School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development
Newcastle University
NE1 7RU
Room 3.22
+44 (0)191 222 8506
steven.emery@ncl.ac.uk
Profile
Following the completion of my undergraduate and Masters degrees in environmental management at Lancaster University I worked for three years as an environmental consultant. I specialised in sustainable waste management, environmental audit and assessment, sustainable construction, technical advice and policy analysis for a range of public and private sector clients. During this time I also worked as a project officer on the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme, which is a government funded resource efficiency programme aimed at finding mutually beneficial resource efficiency solutions between disparate industrial and business sectors. I then undertook a PhD in social anthropology and geography at Durham University examining the nature and importance of farmers’ values in hard work and beneficent change, and the implications of these values for farmers’ responsiveness to recent policy changes such as the Single Payment Scheme and Environmental Stewardship. The PhD was funded by an ESRC-RELU studentship and involved living and working on three different farms in the North York Moors as well as interviewing policy implementers from the local to the European level. I joined the Centre for Rural Economy as a research associate in 2010.
Research
I am currently working as a research associate on the RELU (Rural Economy and Land Use programme) funded project ‘collaborative conservation in agri-environment schemes’. The aim of the research is to assess the environmental benefits and policy implications of applying agri-environment schemes at a scale larger than the individual farm holding and requiring a co-ordinated management approach between farmers. Moreover, the project aims to understand the feasibility and desirability of such approaches from the perspective of farmers, as well as the role of conservation organisations in facilitating such agreements. Further details can be found on the project website: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/collab-con/index.php.
I have also been working as a CRE research assistant on a consultancy project for Defra examining how social science can inform natural science policy-making. In collaboration with the Policy Studies Institute and Land Use Consultants I have undertaken a social science review on environmental conflict management.
Other research interests include:
Rhetoric-Culture
History and processes of cultural change
Rural ethnography
The symbolic and narrative function of landscape
Environmentalism
Ideology and language
Environmental policy
Publications
Emery, S.B. & Franks, J.R. (2012, In Press), ‘The potential for collaborative agri-environment schemes in England: Can a well-designed collaborative approach address farmers’ concerns with current schemes?’, Journal of Rural Studies.
Franks, J.R. & Emery, S.B. (forthcoming), ‘Incentivising collaborative environmental stewardship: Lessons from existing Environmental Stewardship Scheme options,’ Land Use Policy.
Carrithers, M.B., Bracken, L.J. & Emery, S.B. (2011), 'Can a Species be a Person?: A Trope and its Entanglements in the Anthropocene Era', Current Anthropology 52(5): 661-685.
Franks, J.R., Emery, S.B., Whittingham, M.J. & McKenzie, A.J. (2011), 'Options for Landscape Scale Collaboration under the UK's Environmental Stewardship Scheme', CRE Research Report, URL: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/cre/publish/researchreports/options%20for%20landscape.pdf.
Emery, S.B. & Oughton, E.A (2011), ‘Conflict Management Review: Interventions in managing environment conflicts: what works, in what contexts and why?’ A report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Policy Studies Institute. Defra, London. Available from: http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=Conflictmanagementreview.pdf.
Bell, S., Vanner, R., Oughton, E.A., Emery, S.B., Lock, K. and Cole, L. (2011), ‘Defra NE0109 Social Research Evidence Review to Inform Natural Environment Policy.’ Final Project Report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Policy Studies Institute. Defra, London. Available from: http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=Socialresearchevidencereview-Mainreport.pdf.
Emery, S.B., Smith, D.N., Johansson, S. & Cope, J. (2007), ‘Demonstrating how Plasterboard can be Collected more Efficiently on Construction and Demolition sites in the UK’, in Chun, Y-M, Claisse, P., Naik, T.R. & Ganjian, E. (eds), ‘Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies’, pp 575–588, London: Taylor & Francis.
Emery, S.B., Gaterell, M.R., Sammons G., Moon, D. and Smith D.N. (2007), ‘Estimating the Recycled Content of an Existing Construction Project’, Resources Conservation and Recycling 52: 395 – 409.
Emery, S.B. (2005) ‘In Defence of Recycling’, Sustain Jan-Feb 2005: 51-52.
Thesis
Emery, S.B. (2010), ‘In Better Fettle: Improvement, Work and Rhetoric in the Transition to Environmental Farming in the North York Moors’. Doctoral Thesis, Durham University. Available from: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/379/.