Staff Profile

I am a Lecturer and Researcher with interdisciplinary interest in energy, environmental politics and planning practice. My PhD (University of Milan-Bicocca, 2020), focused on territorial transformations in emerging oil regions in Ghana and Tanzania. I am also part of ‘Fraying Ties’, a UKRI-funded collaborative research project, which examines transformations in the UK oil sector (with colleagues from Durham, LSE, Northumbria, NTNU, VU Amsterdam and Platform-London). Here, my workstream, led by Dr Gisa Weszkalnys (LSE), explores the shifts in UK’s offshore petroleum licensing regimes and the lived experience of ‘just transition’ in Aberdeen. 

My research generally tracks the interactions between energy, environmental politics and planning practice. I am interested in the role of planning practices and lived experiences in relation to new energy-resource discoveries and infrastructure projects, as well as broader spatio-environmental questions regarding the discovery/creation, distribution and consumption of energy.

My PhD in 2020, at the University of Milan-Bicocca, focused on territorial transformations in emerging oil regions in Ghana and Tanzania. Particularly, how planning institutions attempt to reshape and re-value land and marine spaces, and its incommensurability with extant economic, ecological, and cultural conceptions of territory.

I am also part of a UKRI-funded inter-university project (‘Fraying Ties’), which examines transformations in the UK oil sector. My workstream, led by Dr Gisa Weszkalnys (LSE), uses case study methods to particularly investigate the imaginaries and lived experiences of ‘green recovery’ and ‘just transition’, and its related expertise and propositional politics, focusing on the proposed Energy Transition Zone in Aberdeen's green belt.

Other research interests include: district heating and planning practices; low carbon and degrowth futures in planning; as well as the spatial impacts of (new) mobility infrastructures.

As a Lecturer in Urban Planning, I lead two Modules:

• Globalisation and Social Justice Project (TCP8920) – PG
• Spatial Strategies (TCP7021) – PG

I also contribute to other Modules:

• Globalisation and Social Justice (TCP8921) – PG
• Linked Research Project (TCP8025) – PG
• Practice Issues Report (TCP4002) – PG 
• Dissertation Mentoring (TCP8099) – PG
• Dissertation Mentoring (TCP3099) – UG

• Articles

  • Otchere-Darko W. Scaling-up degrowth: Re-imagining institutional responses to climate change. Urban Studies 2023, 60(7), 1316-1325.
  • Otchere-Darko W, Ablo A. Labor power, materiality and protests in Ghana’s petroleum and gold mines. International Development Planning Review 2022, 44(3), 289-315.
  • Otchere-Darko W. Viewpoint: COVID-19, Spatio-epidemiology and Urban Planning. Town Planning Review 2021, 92(2), 209-213.
  • de-Vidovich L, Otchere-Darko W. Residential Segregation and Housing Policies in Vienna: A focus on immigrants of Turkish and former Yugoslavian origins. Territorio 2020, 92, 86-96.
  • Otchere-Darko W, Salah-Ovadia J. Incommensurable Languages of Value and Petro-Geographies: Land-Use, Decision-Making and Conflict in South-Western Ghana. Geoforum 2020, 113, 69-80.

• Book Chapters

  • Ablo A, Otchere-Darko W. Local Content and Local Participation in the Oil and Gas Industry: Has Ghana Gotten It Right?. In: Acheampong T; Stephens T, ed. Petroleum Resource Management in Africa: Lessons from Ten Years of Oil and Gas Production in Ghana. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp.291-313.
  • Ablo A, Otchere-Darko W. Petroleum Extraction in Africa: A Review of the Local Content Policies for the Oil Industry in Selected Countries. In: Onyango,G, ed. Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa. London: Routledge, 2021, pp.634-644.
  • Otchere-Darko W. De-Motorization and Economic Consumer Culture; A Contradiction in the Post-Modern City? Case Studies from Copenhagen and Vienna. In: Stoustrup S, ed. Cities: Changes, Places, Spaces. Vienna: Department of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna, 2017, pp.94-116.