Current research
Mallory James investigates the relationship between what counts as responsible or ethical practice for expert knowledge-workers and the institutional and financial structures of their workplaces. She is interested in disciplinary experiences within interdisciplinary spaces; the changing structure of business and credentialing regimes that enmesh representations of ‘responsibility’ into expert work; and experiences of blurriness between clients’ needs and generalized goods. Mallory’s dissertation, “Burning the Future: Australian Carbon and Energy Engineering” (University of Chicago, 2020) examines the targets of care and responsibility that carbon engineering professionals circulate, negotiate, and advance in their professional activities; and that engineering industries, schools, and professional associations have institutionally cultivated and stabilized over time.
Social studies of energy, climate change, and their engineering sciences
Research governance
Critical theory (genealogies of social-scientific knowledge)
Political economy of engineering ethics
Technology studies (historical, sociocultural, feminist)
Energy policy