Last updated March 20th, 2007 by Karen O'Brien
I am a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo and work on global change issues such as climate change, globalization, vulnerability, adaptation, and human security. I am particularly interested in how societies both create and respond to change. I am Chair of the Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) project of IHDP, and I lead the PLAN project on Responding to Climate Change: The Potentials of and Limits to Adaptation in Norway, which is a social-science based project that examines climate change adaptation as a social process.
My research focuses on how integral theory and integral approaches to sustainability can contribute to a better understanding of both the problems and solutions associated with climate change. I explore the ways that environmental changes interact with other global processes to influence equity, resilience and sustainability, and how interacting processes can be used to create positive transformations, including sustainable adaptation. I am also interested in how values, beliefs and worldviews influence the capacity to respond to change, and what this means for individuals and communities faced with complex and interacting changes. Overall, my research emphasizes the need to frame environmental issues in a much broader context, i.e., to consider them as social, developmental and ethical issues that have implications for human security and well-being.
My publications include three books:
Environmental Change and Globalization: Double Exposures (co-authored with Robin Leichenko; Oxford 2008);
Coping with Climate Variability: User Responses to Seasonal Forecasts in Southern Africa (co-edited with Coleen Vogel, Ashgate, 2003), and
Sacrificing the Forest: Environmental and Social Struggles in Chiapas (Westview, 1998), and as well as articles published in
Climatic Change, Global Environmental Change, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, and the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. I was also a lead author for IPCC Working Group II on the Fourth Assessment Report’s Chapter 17: Assessments of Adaptation Practices, Options, Constraints and Capacity. (
Click here to download my CV)
Recipient of the
Association of American Geographer’s 2008 Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography.
