Ivy Scurr
Research student
- Email:ivy.scurr@uon.edu.au
Career Summary
Biography
Ivy Scurr (she/her) is an anthropology PhD candidate and casual academic at the University of Newcastle. She completed a Bachelor of Social Science at UoN, including a 2018 honours research project on activism and community building in the Australian anti-capitalist environment movement. Ivy’s PhD investigates Solarpunk as a movement engaging with the current climate crisis and the need to imagine hopeful alternative futures to work towards. Ivy has been involved with advocacy across environmental, social justice, disability, and LGBTQIA+ issues in the Hunter region for several years. Her advocacy work along with her experiences across a range of employment fields directly informs her research. Ivy’s most recent publication (co-authored with Dr Vanessa Bowden) is “’The revolution’s never done’: the role of ‘radical imagination’ within anti-capitalist environmental justice activism” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23251042.2021.1916142
You can follow Ivy’s research at ivy-solarpunk.com
Keywords
- Anthropology
- Environmental Anthropology
- Environmental Sociology
- Social and Cultural Anthropology
- Sociology
Languages
- English (Mother)
Fields of Research
Code | Description | Percentage |
---|---|---|
441002 | Environmental sociology | 33 |
440104 | Environmental anthropology | 33 |
440107 | Social and cultural anthropology | 34 |
Awards
Prize
Year | Award |
---|---|
2021 |
HASS HDR Publication Prize University of Newcastle, School of Humanities and Social Science |
2021 |
SACHS HDR Publication Prize University of Newcastle, School of Humanities and Social Science |
Recipient
Year | Award |
---|---|
2019 |
University Medal The University of Newcastle, Australia |
2019 |
Faculty Medal Faculty of Education and Arts, The University of Newcastle, Australia |
2018 |
Faculty Medal Faculty of Education and Arts, The University of Newcastle, Australia |
Teaching
Code | Course | Role | Duration |
---|---|---|---|
EPHUMA154 |
The Sociological Gaze University of Newcastle, Pathways and Academic Learning Support |
Tutor | 1/2/2022 - 1/12/2023 |
CRIM1020 |
Victimology University of Newcastle, School of Humanities and Social Science |
Marker | 1/7/2019 - 20/12/2019 |
NURS1101 |
Nursing Professional Practice 1 The University of Newcastle, School of Medicine and Public Health |
Tutor | 1/2/2021 - 1/7/2021 |
SOCA1020 |
Intro to Social and Cultural Anthropology / What is Anthropology? University of Newcastle, School of Humanities and Social Science |
Marker | 1/6/2021 - 1/12/2021 |
SOCS2100 |
Organisation Managament and Social Behaviour University of Newcastle, School of Humanities and Social Science |
Tutor | 1/2/2020 - 1/7/2020 |
Publications
For publications that are currently unpublished or in-press, details are shown in italics.
Journal article (2 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link | ||||||||
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2024 |
Martínez Arranz A, Askland HH, Box Y, Scurr I, 'United in criticism: The discursive politics and coalitions of Australian energy debates on social media', Energy Research and Social Science, 108 (2024) [C1] This paper applies social network analysis (SNA) and natural language processing (NLP) tools within a traditional discourse analysis framework to better understand the polarisatio... [more] This paper applies social network analysis (SNA) and natural language processing (NLP) tools within a traditional discourse analysis framework to better understand the polarisation in the online debate around climate and energy issues. We draw on tweets over 2019¿2021 to characterise a large network of over 10,000 highly followed Twitter users that participate in the Australian climate and energy debate on this social media platform. Through community detection algorithms, we identify five ¿discourse coalitions¿. Drawing on quantitative analysis of hashtags and mentions, topic modelling of their tweets, and identifying the most central users, we characterise four as anti-coal and one as anti-renewables. The former focus on current affairs, grassroots activism, science and technology, and Green politics, while the latter is made up by conservative commentators, including climate change deniers, who emphasise coal as a valuable commodity. A bipolar distribution of opinions is thus easy to discern, but the widespread picture of ¿echo chambers¿ seems inaccurate, since there is significant exchange and interconnection between opposing poles. Another distinct finding is that the debate, albeit civil compared to results from other studies, is focused on criticism and outrage. Those opposed to renewables talked more about wind power than those pro-renewables, and coal opponents spoke mostly about coal. Technological choices with ambiguous positioning, e.g., carbon capture and storage, were ignored across all coalitions. Giving neutral or positive themes greater circulation appears desirable but may require much more interventionism than Twitter and other social media are prepared to undertake.
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Nova | |||||||||
2021 |
Scurr I, Bowden V, ' The revolution s never done : the role of radical imagination within anti-capitalist environmental justice activism', Environmental Sociology, 7 316-326 (2021) [C1] Many individuals become involved in activism due to concerns about contemporary structural conditions and likely (negative) futures arising from them. While negative perceptions a... [more] Many individuals become involved in activism due to concerns about contemporary structural conditions and likely (negative) futures arising from them. While negative perceptions are important for driving initial involvement, visions of positive alternative futures to work towards can be crucial for motivating and shaping activist engagement. Positive visions serve as a goal as well as a potential blueprint to inform practices such that the ¿means match the ends.¿ In this paper, we explore Khasnabish and Haiven¿s concept of the ¿radical imagination¿ as a practice in sustaining and shaping social movement engagement through a shared vision of an alternative future. We emphasise the processes of organising and grounding action in practices of the present, which forms part of a ¿praxis of prefiguration¿¿informing many aspects of community building and activism. While the radical imagination shared by anti-capitalist activists is sometimes depicted as a utopian dream, we suggest that it is, rather, a hopeful imagining in constant conversation with ideological positions and organising practices, situated against and within the margins of capitalist society. These ideological commitments and future imaginings shape the ways that anti-capitalists engage with overlapping environmental and social issues and the wider landscape of political action.
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Nova |