Joshua Kirshner is a senior lecturer in human geography and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre (IGDC) at the University of York. His research examines the relations and tensions between low-carbon transition, spatial inequality, and urban and socio-environmental change. He has studied these questions in various sectors, working at international levels and with colleagues in several countries in southern Africa, Latin America and Asia. Before joining York in 2015, he held research positions and taught at the universities of Durham (UK), and Rhodes and Johannesburg (South Africa).

Joshua leads a project on climate adaptation policy in São Paulo, Brazil, supported by the British Academy. He was a member of CESET (Community Energy and the Sustainable Energy Transition in Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique), a UKRI-funded project, with partners at several African and UK universities, building capacity for the development of community energy systems. He was PI in Electricity grid access histories and futures in Mozambique, funded by UK Aid (co-led with Teesside University), with partners in several Mozambican organizations.

He is currently carrying out research in several areas including 1) social and political dimensions of energy access in the urbanising global south; 2) extraction, coloniality and the construction of new resource ‘frontiers’; and 3) urban climate policymaking. His earlier work examined migration and social integration, regional planning, energy systems and landscape change, energy sovereignty and post-colonial politics, and urban infrastructure histories.

Josh’s research and teaching combine textual, field-based and participatory methods. Conceptually, he is interested in applying insights from political economy and ecology, economic geography, innovation studies, science and technology studies (STS), and critical urban studies. His work has drawn attention to uneven development and urban investment frontiers in regions as diverse as Beira and Tete (Mozambique), Santa Cruz (lowland Bolivia), and Alagoas (northeast Brazil). Most of his research has been supported through competitive grants, financed e.g., by the ESRC, British Academy, the Royal Society and the Fulbright Commission.

Joshua has published over 40 peer reviewed papers and chapters in leading journals such as Environment and Planning, Geoforum, Climate Policy and Nature Energy, along with policy briefs and reports for organizations like the COP26 Universities Network and the Urban Institute. He serves on the Editorial Boards of Energy Research & Social Science (Impact Factor = 8.5), Urban Planning, and Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales. He has a PhD from Cornell University in City and Regional Planning, an MA from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Urban Planning, and a BA (magna cum laude) from Harvard University in Social Anthropology.

Broad research foci:

Urban futures; urban political ecology; energy transition; extraction frontiers, sustainable cities; off-grid cities; development/postdevelopment; regional planning; international planning; landscape; climate urbanism; decarbonization-development dilemmas

Projects:

Joshua has supported and led multiple grant-funded projects on these topics with interdisciplinary teams and external partners:

PI, ‘Linking evidence on One Health, biodiversity and climate justice for climate adaptation policy in the state of São Paulo, Brazil,’ funded by the British Academy (2025-26), with the University of São Paulo.

Co-I, ‘Shifting shores: evidence for a gender-inclusive coastal resilience in Thailand’ funded by the British Academy (2025-26), with Mahidol University (Thailand).

Co-I, ‘Community Energy Systems and the Sustainable Energy Transition in Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique (CESET),’ a UKRI-GCRF project (2021-2024), which explores the potential of community energy to support inclusive and sustainable energy transitions. The project focuses on diversity of community energy models and explores understandings of community through the lens of intersectionality. Collaborators: Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, Mekelle University (Ethiopia); Mzuzu University (Malawi); University Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique); Universities of Oxford, Durham, Loughborough, Sheffield, UCL (all UK).

PI, ‘A Political-Economic Analysis of Electricity Grid Access Histories and Futures in Mozambique’ (2019-2021), co-led with Teesside University and funded by UK DfID/FCDO. Working with local partners, the research demonstrated how energy access in Mozambique is shaped by the country’s pre-independence and post-colonial histories. 

Co-I, ‘Integrating Ecological and Cultural Histories to Inform Sustainable and Equitable Futures for the Colombian Páramos,’ funded by NERC, AHRC and Colombia Bio programme (2018-2021), with collaborators from Universidad de Los Andes, Humboldt Institute and the Nature Conservancy (all Colombia), Cambridge University (UK) and University of Florida (US).

Co-I, ‘Sustainable Energy Access in Mozambique: Socio-political factors in conflict-laden urban areas,’ in collaboration with Vanesa Castán Broto (PI, Sheffield) and Idalina Baptista (Co-I, Oxford), funded by the British Academy/GCRF Sustainable Development Programme (2016-2018). Kirshner led the project’s work package 2 on the political economy of the energy sector, which examined how conflict around resource investments has created instability in Mozambique’s insertion in global trade circuits.

Co-I, STRIPES (‘Social Transformative Research Informing Processes of Environmental Science’), a British Academy Knowledge Frontiers project that examined knowledge production, innovation and the socio-environmental implications of advanced bioethanol generation in Alagoas, in northeast Brazil, using enzymes. The project included an interdisciplinary team spanning the social and natural sciences, with collaborators at University of São Paulo.

Joshua has also contributed to a partnership between researchers at York and University of Ghana to study the management of small-scale and artisanal mining, exploring past, present and future socio-environmental impacts.

Impact and engagement

Regarding his policy facing work, Joshua has contributed to the CESET project’s Regional Energy Learning Alliance, which fosters knowledge exchange and capacity building to support community energy in the region. This has included hosting a conference on strategies for delivering off-grid energy, preparing briefing papers and hosting a webinar series. The team set up a Community Energy Lab in Maputo with community members, researchers, local authorities, and a social enterprise to co-design a micro-grid for sustainable energy supply that meets users' needs.

Joshua convened a workshop, ‘Learning from Cyclone Idai: Response, Recovery and Future Risk’ in York to explore post-disaster recovery in coastal southern Africa, with participants from the national electricity provider and local governments in Mozambique, along with researchers from University of York.

He has also contributed to a public exhibit, ‘Living with the Network: Experiences of energy access in Maputo,’ for the BA Summer Showcase in London in 2019. The exhibit depicted everyday practices with household energy, using an installation and soundscape.

He has consulted on the Sheffield-based independent filmmaker Sean Lovell’s short animation on charcoal and cooking, ‘Life of a Cookstove,’ and a short film, ‘Community Energy in Malawi: On the Ground Experiences.’