About

I’m a lecturer in material culture at University College London, where I teach and do research on material and visual culture, the built environment, infrastructure and energy. I am particularly interested in people’s relationships with their buildings in the context of ageing infrastructure and climate emergency.

An experienced photographer trained in visual anthropology at the University of Oxford (MSc, DPhil), I have conducted ethnographic research inside a block of flats in Northern Romania. I studied how inhabitants cared for their apartments in times of austerity and how they came to terms with the uncertainties of a rapidly changing postsocialist society. I filmed and directed The Block, an award-winning observational documentary about the inhabitants of the building. My book The Block: An Anthropology of Architectural Transformation is coming out with UCL Press in October 2024.

I have also conducted postdoctoral research at Durham University about people-centred approaches to urban infrastructure, in collaboration with Durham County Council. This Erasmus+ project brought together universities and non-academic partners from the sustainable living and energy sector, based in Slovenia, Czech Republic, the UK and the Netherlands. I have written about this work in the open access volume Speaking for the Social (Knox and John 2022).

If any of your interests resonate with mine, I would love to hear from you!