Ben Campbell

Professor, Department of Anthropology

Ben Campbell directs the MSc in Sustainability, Energy and Development, and is Co-Chair of the Low Carbon Energy for Development Network (LCEDN). Research focuses on place, gender, livelihoods and resources in Nepal, innovation among mountain indigenous communities and impacts of environmental conservation on local institutions of common property management. Supported by Durham Energy Institute, he has studied energy transitions in Nepal from fuelwood to biogas for SMEs at high altitudes. Publications include Living Between Juniper and Palm: Nature, Culture and Power in the Himalayas (OUP 2013), and Campbell, et al. (2016) ‘Communities of Energy’ Economic Anthropology 2016; 3: 133–144. His project ‘Energy on the Move’ (ESRC/DFID) from 2017-2018 was on the everyday energy practices of the poor in urban informal settlements in Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria and South Sudan. Since 2019 he has worked with the Association of Commonwealth Universities Climate Resilience Network, focussing in the impact of climate on livelihood resilience. He is currently editing with Mary Cameron and Tanka B. Subba the Routledge ‘Handbook of the Himalayas: Environments, Developments and Wellbeings’.

Ben is designing a research project application about Indigenous languages, climate change and sustainable energy transitions in Nepal. In the 2016 federal constitution of Nepal, the major indigenous languages can become official languages of provincial government. Ben is working with the Tamang Language Research Center to include indigenous understandings of climate and energy in a context in which opposition to large hydro-power threatens indigenous territories.