Collegium Helveticum
Switzerland
fellow
Naomi Clara Hanakata
2024-2025
Home institution
National University of Singapore
Country of origin (home institution)
Singapore
Discipline(s)
Earth, environmental and climate sciences; Engineering; Geography
Theme(s)
Energy & Renewable Resources; Environment, Sustainability & Biodiversity
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Naomi C. Hanakata is a planner and scholar specializing in spatial planning and critical urban studies, with a primary geographical focus on Asia. She is an assistant professor at the College of Design and Engineering at National University of Singapore (SG). Her research examines the drivers and dynamics of contemporary urbanization and socio-technical transformations, particularly their impact on the physical urban environment.
With an interdisciplinary background and extensive experience in both Asia and Europe, Naomi is keen to foster dialogues that bridge diverse expertises and knowledge domains with the aim to envision and create sustainable, equitable, and future-ready urban conditions.
Naomi's current research examines the growing influence of digital technologies and platformization on urban planning, governance, and the lived experiences in cities, as well as the uneven geographical impacts of these transformations. She also investigates the socio-spatial dimensions of the energy transition, focusing on the implications of renewable energy production in peripheral regions of Southeast Asia.
Research Project
The Production of Renewable Energy Space: How the Energy Transition Is Reshaping the Urban Environment
The global urgency to mitigate climate change demands systemic transformations, with the energy transition at its core. This planetary challenge creates uneven impacts, necessitating "just transitions" that consider the spatial and social dimensions of renewable energy production. This project critically examines renewable energy as a multi-dimensional process, exploring how energy spaces are planned, governed, materialized through infrastructure, and experienced on the ground.
In Southeast Asia, renewable energy landscapes range from advanced storage systems to traditional firewood collection, reflecting diverse socio-technical regimes shaped by varying knowledge, technologies, user needs, and regulatory frameworks. By analyzing these dimensions and their interrelationship, and engaging with experimental systems of governance, this project seeks to map the socio-cultural and environmental implications of renewable energy practices and identify sustainable and equitable pathways for transition.
Research Interests:
renewable energy; energy transition; just transition; climate change; Southeast Asia; energy governance; socio-technical systems; spatial justice; environmental justice; infrastructure studies; energy policy; regulatory frameworks; energy storage; socio-cultural dimensions; political ecology; landscape studies.