I am a geographer and political economist focused on the dynamics of capitalist industrialization and the political economy of the global energy industry.
The main focus of my research is on the historical development of the global wind energy industry, from its origins in Northern Europe and the United States through its expansion into other world regions and the massive growth of the industry in China over the past two decades. I am primarily interested in understanding patterns of geographical restructuring, the changing composition of the workforce in the renewable energy industry, and the strategies and tactics of trade union organization.
Theoretically, I am working to revive a tradition of radical industrial geography that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a response to the crisis of world capitalism and the waves of transnational economic restructuring that ensued. David Harvey is usually thought of as the main exponent of Marxian approaches in geography, and while his work has had a major impact on the discipline and the wider field of political economy, researchers like Doreen Massey, Richard Walker, and Jamie Gough developed distinct insights that were specifically focused on the restructuring of global industrial production and the changing composition of the world working class. Building on their insights, and those of researchers affiliated with the Centro para la Investigacíon como Crítica Práctica, my research on the global wind energy industry aims to put the practical transformation of the natural world and the problem of class composition back at the center of geographical analysis.
I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Wind and Energy Systems at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Before coming to DTU, I completed my doctorate in geography at the Clark University Graduate School of Geography (Massachusetts, USA), with extended research visits at the University of Hamburg, the University of Bremen, and the City University of New York (CUNY). Previously, I studied international macroeconomics, human geography, and global economic history at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Main research interests:
geographies of capitalist industrialization
political economy of energy system transformation
labor process theory and labor regime research
methodological topics in the critique of political economy
(theory of value, accumulation, and crisis; dialectical method)
Current research:
My empirical research is focused on the following topics and problems:
First, I am examining the changing spatial division of labor in the offshore wind energy industry, with attention to the dynamics of uneven geographical development in coastal regions in Europe and North America.
Second, I am analyzing the changing spatial division of labor and the development of the renewable energy industry in South Africa. This work is financed by the DANIDA Fellowship Centre (DFC) as part of the project “Overcoming acceleration challenges in the South African energy transition (ACCELERATE).”
Third, I am developing a comparative political-economic account of ‘green industrial policy’ in Germany, Denmark, South Africa, and the United States, analyzing the economic, political, and ideological forms mediating the uneven and faltering development of the renewable energy industry.
Please feel free to write me an email at wiwe [at] dtu.dk