Faculty Directory

Summary of Expertise

I am working at the intersections of science and technology studies, socio-cultural theory, constructivist photography, and political ecology.

My current research looks at technoscience and socio-ecological transformation. I am currently completing a monograph entitled A Theory of Substance. Chemical Burden, Postliberal Empirecraft, and Multielementalism that investigates the notion of subtance and the lives and afterlives of diverse substances and their milieus. I have also co-edited Reactivating Elements: Chemistry, Ecology, Practice (Duke University Press, 2022) which explores new social and cultural research on chemical and elemental thinking.

Another strand of my current research engages with visual, cultural, and landscape studies. I am a research photographer and I work with made as well as found scientific, vernacular, documentary, and fine-art images. I am currently developing a photobook, unecology, and a photo-theory monograph, Landscape After the Event: Constructivist Photography and the Vision of Abolition.

A core tenet of my work is the exploration of alternative modes and practices for generating knowledge. I have co-edited Ecological Reparation. Repair, Remediation and Resurgence in Social and Environmental Conflict (Bristol University Press, 2024) and I have co-produced the YouTube channel Ecological Reparation which discusses work engaged in remediating and repairing as well as claiming reparations for damaged more than human ecologies. My previous monograph Experimental Practice. Technoscience, Alterontologies and More-Than-Social Movements (Duke University Press, 2018) investigates the distributed invention power of community technoscience and social innovation projects in more than human worlds.

My current research draws upon my previous work on social transformation and social justice where I have published a book on Escape Routes. Control and Subversion in the Twenty-First Century (Pluto, 2008) and numerous papers on power and control, on precarious labour and the transformation of work as well as on transnational mobility, the mobile commons and the autonomy of migration.

I have a long-standing interest in the social studies of social scientific knowledge and I have published three books on human experience: a monograph on Analysing Everyday Experience. Social Research and Political Change (Palgrave, 2006); a monograph on the cultural theory of LS Vygotsky (Lehmans, 2010); and the collection Culture in Psychology (Asanger, 2002) which examine socio-cultural approaches to human development and subjectivity.

Research Interests

science and technology studies; visual research; substances and chemicals; photographic practice and photographic theory; ecology and reparation(s); autonomist politics; social movements and more-than-social movements; Deleuze and poststucturalist theory; cultural studies; autonomy of migration, antiracism, and border abolitionism; constructivism; philosophies of experience; materialisms and insurgent pothumanisms; Vygotsky and Bakhtin; subectivity and critical psychology; activism and experimental practices; memory work

Biography, Education and Training

Before joining the History of Consciousness Department I was Professor of Science, Technology and Society, Director of the Institute for Science and Society, and Founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Priority Cluster EcoSocieties at the University of Nottingham, UK, following appointments at the University of Leicester, Cardiff Universty, and the Free University of Berlin, Germany, where I also earned his PhD.

I have been a Leverhulme Fellow in the UK and an Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow at the Office for History of Science and Technology, University of California, Berkeley.

I has supervised 21 PhD students to successful completion and I have supported and mentored more than 15 early career researchers and post-docs.

Honors, Awards and Grants

I have received research funding from the Leverhulme Foundation, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Newton Fund, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation, German Research Foundation (DFG) with a total value of external grant income >£12.1 million. My research projects often include national and international collaborations with scientists across the physical sciences, biological sciences, and engineering as well as civil society, social movements, and community organisations.

Recent grants include:

-No Carbon Lost - Eliminating Co2 Production from Fermentation Processes, BBSRC, Co-I, £1,875,000

-Ecological Reparation, UKRI Covid 19 Funding, PI, £38,179 

-Arid ethno-forestry food systems: a wellbeing alternative for communities living in drylands of the world. GCRF-AHRC, Co-I, £199,985

-Synthetic Biology Research Centre: Sustainable Routes to Platform Chemicals. BBSRC, Co-I, £2,380,595

-Atoms-to-Products: An Integrated Approach to Sustainable Chemistry. EPSRC CDT, Co-I, £6,235,044

-Responsible Research & Innovation Training Design, EPSRC, PI, £31,063

-Benign by Design: The Emergence of Ecologically Sustainable Chemical Innovation. Leverhulme Research Fellowship, PI, £62,051

-Mending the New: A Framework for Reconciliation Through Testimonial Digital Textiles in the Transition to Post-Conflict Rural Colombia. UKRI Newton-Colciencias ODA, PI, £524,733

Selected Publications

Books:

Papadopoulos, D. (in preparation). Landscape After the Event: Constructivist Photography and the Vision of Abolition.

Papadopoulos, D. (forthcoming). A Theory of Substance. Chemical Burdens, Postliberal Empirecraft, and Multielementalism.

Papadopoulos D., Puig de la Bellacasa, M., & Tacchetti, M., (Eds.). (2024). Ecological Reparation. Repair, Remediation and Resurgence in Social and Environmental Conflict. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Papadopoulos, D., & Puig de la Bellacasa, M., & Myers, N. (Eds.). (2022). Reactivating Elements. Chemistry, Ecology, Practice. Durham: Duke University Press.

Papadopoulos, D. (2018). Experimental Practice. Technoscience, Alterontologies, and More-Than-Social Movements. Durham: Duke University Press. 

Papadopoulos, D. (2010). L.S. Wygotski: Werk und Rezeption (2nd edition). Berlin: Lehmanns Media. 

Papadopoulos, D., Stephenson, N., & Tsianos, V. (2008). Escape Routes. Control and Subversion in the 21st Century. London: Pluto Press.

Stephenson, N., & Papadopoulos, D. (2006). Analysing Everyday Experience. Social Research and Political Change. Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Hildebrand-Nilshon, M., Kim, C.-W., & Papadopoulos, D. (Eds.). (2002). Kultur (in) der Psychologie. Über das Abenteuer des Kulturbegriffes in der psychologischen Theoriebildung. Heidelberg: Asanger.