Karl Dudman

All Disciplines Award, North Carolina State Climate Office - Social Anthropology

Growing up between urban East London and the rural East Midlands, Karl developed a sensitivity to the diverse ways that political identities form across regional, economic and cultural contexts. Deeply interested in the social fragmentation of recent Anglo-American politics, he believes that current democratic processes – in particular the governance of global climate change – must better understand and accommodate that diversity. This is the basis of Karl’s PhD research at Oxford University’s Institute for Science, Innovation, and Society, drawing on professional experiences from community-based environmental management to UN climate dialogues. With support from Fulbright, Karl has partnered with the North Carolina State Climate Office to undertake a year of fieldwork in flood-prone communities of the US southeast. Working alongside climate scientists, community campaigners, and coastal resilience practitioners, Karl will observe how bipartisan, place-based conversations about sea-level rise are being built from the bottom up in the Carolinas. Karl hopes his research will yield valuable lessons for community-led efforts in the UK, and advance our understanding of the complex relationship between local communities and global north climate governance. Passionate about non-academic forms of communication, Karl also hopes to tell the stories of his fieldwork as a writer and photographer.