Michelle Pressend

Michelle Pressend is a lecturer in environmental sociology. She previously worked as a researcher, policy analyst and activist on environmental and socioeconomic issues, primarily within the non-governmental sector. She served in the national government during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) 2002.

She is interested in re-thinking the political economy of how energy is harnessed to open collective imaginaries that respond differently to the crises facing the world, particularly related to climate change. She deploys philosophical positions, ideas and approaches based on relational ontology to enhance our ability to undo binaries, alienation and separation. She places emphasis on transdisciplinary methodologies and the contribution that other discourses can make to post-humanism and the anthropocentrism debates. Her research focuses on ways to create, reclaim and defend renewable energy transitions and energy use in terms of relationships, explores what ‘energy democracy’ might look like and engages with the ecocentrism and eco-feminist articulations and ethics of sustainability.

Profile and publications: M Pressend on UCT Department of Sociology