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Staff Profile

Dr William Otchere-Darko

Lectureship in Urban Planning

Background
I am a Lecturer and Researcher with an interest in the interactions between (institutional) planning practices, energy, and environmental politics, especially at key points of transformation. 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 as well as imaginaries of ‘just transition’ in Aberdeen. 
Research

My research generally tracks the interactions between (institutional) planning practices, energy, and environmental politics, especially at key points of transformation: new resource discoveries, projects, infrastructures, policies. 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 investigate the practices through which oil firms establish and maintain ties to the UK. The first case study explores the shifts in UK’s offshore petroleum licensing regime. The second examines the imaginaries of ‘green recovery’ and ‘just transition’, and its related expertise and propositional politics, focusing on the planned Aberdeen Energy Transition Zone.

Additional and past research interests include: district heating and urban regeneration; planning, low carbon and degrowth futures; as well as the spatial impacts of (new) mobility infrastructures.

Teaching

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
Publications