Dr. Susan Murphy
Associate Professor in Development Pract, Geography
Associate Professor in Development Pract, School Office - Natural Sciences

Projects

• Title
  • GEOFORMATIONS
• Summary
  • Geographies of dynamic governance assemblages in development cooperation civil society spaces
• Funding Agency
  • European Research Council
• Date From
  • October 2023
• Date To
  • September 2028

• Title
  • Gender Awareness and Transformation through Education
• Summary
  • Department of Foreign Affairs, Embassy of Ireland to Tanzania institutional collaboration and capacity building award. Co-PI. Gender Awareness and transformation through Education (GATE) project. Scholarship funding for 1 PhD candidate and 1 post-doctoral researcher on gender in higher education in Tanzania.
• Funding Agency
  • Department of Foreign Affairs, Embassy of Ireland to Tanzania
• Date From
  • 2021
• Date To
  • 2022

• Title
  • Transforming gender relations through climate action planning
• Summary
  • The concept of a just transition from unsustainable to sustainable development pathways features widely in Ireland's Climate Action Plan (2019). Since its publication, the relevant Government Department has established a nascent institutional architecture for designing and governing a just transition process which includes the Just Transition Review Group established within the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), and a Just Transition Commissioner, appointed with a specified mandate to "to help ensure a coordinated and effective approach to Just Transition for communities and workers affected by the imminent ending of peat harvesting for power generation in the Midlands region" (Mulvey, 2020, 9). Yet, the concept of a just transition (or just transitions) remains contested. Quite what is understood by the term 'just' and the scale and scope of the 'transition' are underspecified. At present, in the Irish context, this broad and underspecified concept is being narrowly applied to the energy sector and workers directly affected by the transition from high to low/no carbon energy solutions. There is little reflection on the effects of these changes on pre existing spatial and social inequalities; of the spillover effects to populations indirectly connected to these sectors; or across different units of analysis from labour markets to household dynamics. Further, in spite of the rhetoric of 'social inclusion', and repeated references in government papers to 'gender mainstreaming' and 'gender responsive policies', there is no evidence of considerations of the gendered effects of the energy transition in Ireland in the first progress report produced in May 2020. Moreover, the concept of just transition is yet to be operationalised into wider climate adaptation planning and in planning for unavoidable loss and damage. This project aims to critically examine constructions and conceptualisations of the just transition in Irish climate action policy and practice from a feminist political economy perspective. Drawing upon the work of critical relational theorists such as Iris Marion Young (2011) and Nancy Fraser (2013, 2014, 2020), it will examine the multivariant dimensions and scales of justice relevant to the theory and practice of a just transition. These include matters of distribution (involving pre-distribution and redistribution), representation (and degrees of participation and democratic deliberation), and recognition (concerning respect and esteem, membership and belonging - whose voices are heard, by whom, and for what reasons). Further, it will examine the scope and scale of the transition necessary to shift Ireland onto a sustainable pathway. Focusing narrowly on individual production sectors and industries is insufficient to meet Ireland's internationally agreed emissions reductions targets. Perhaps more worrying, it also fails to recognise or address the range of intersecting and interacting social, environmental, and economic crises that have emerged over the past two decades, and have become amplified, globally, during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the scope and scale this transition also presents significant opportunities to drive structural and systemic changes. Thus, empirical data will be gathered, through a mixed methods research design, to explore these opportunities and to construct a just transition framework that is not only 'gender responsive', but actively gender transformative.
• Funding Agency
  • Mary Robinson Foundation, Climate Justice Fellowship Award
• Date From
  • Sept 2021
• Date To
  • August 2023

• Title
  • Gender Awareness and Transformation through Education
• Summary
  • Gender Awareness and Transformation Through Education (GATE) is an institutional collaboration, capacity development and participatory action based research project between Trinity College and Dar Es Salaam University College of Education
• Funding Agency
  • Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Embassy of Ireland to Tanzania
• Date From
  • December 2018
• Date To
  • December 2021

• Title
  • FOREST
• Summary
  • Tree planting has become widely seen as a panacea for solving the climate crisis. Furthermore, as a nature-based solution, it is viewed as beneficial for biodiversity, and is attracting investment from public and private actors. This project, FOREST, will use the increase in forestry in Ireland as a model system to explore the challenges associated with addressing climate and biodiversity issues, and examine potential solutions through a multi-disciplinary lens.
• Funding Agency
  • Kinsella Award
• Date From
  • September 2021
• Date To
  • 2026

• Title
  • Climate (in)Justice in Practice? Examining the relationship between changing climates, community based adaptive responses and gender relations.
• Summary
  • This study proposes an investigation into the gendered effects of changing climates on communities with low adaptive capacities, high incidences of gender inequality and low levels of female empowerment. More specifically, it will aim to examine the relationship between practices of child and early marriage (CEM) as an adaptation strategy in response to climate shocks and events. In order to examine the linkages between climate disruption, climate adaptation and CEM, this research proposes to conduct a case study in the Lower Shire Valley in Malawi. There is a growing demand of information on the impact of climate change on social systems and relations. While there are frameworks to measure the effects of global warming on ecosystems and economic assets, there are no clear methods that evaluate its impact on social systems. Consequently, there are significant knowledge gaps on the gendered implications of climate change. In order to address this gap, this study investigates how gender relations are accentuated, shifted and changed in response to sudden- and slow-onset climate changes. Early research indicates that climate change amplifies CEM among vulnerable population groups (IUCN, 2020), yet the nature of the relationship and connection between these phenomena remains unexplored in existing literature. In order to meet its research objectives, this study takes an inductive approach, relying on a mixed-methods research design of both quantitative and qualitative research methods, a systemic literature review, semi-structured interviews with community leaders, decision-makers and key elites, focus group discussions, and household surveys. This project explores if and how the impacts of climate changes amplify the root causes of CEM, resulting in an increase of young girls being married off as part of an adaptation strategy to reduce their families' vulnerability to climate change. It develops a structured methodological approach to measure the gendered effectives of climate change on communities in crisis. In doing so, it will facilitate critical insights into the policy, practice, and programs of national and international development cooperation agencies and organisations working to achieve Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, starting with the further behind the first.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity
• Date From
  • Sept 2021
• Date To
  • August 2025

• Title
  • GATE - Gender Awareness and Transformation through Education
• Summary
  • The GATE project - Gender Awareness and Transformation through Education - is a multiyear collaborative project (2014-2018) between researchers at Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Its purpose was to examine constructions of gender within the context of DUCE and to explore opportunities to drive gender mainstreaming, gender equality and female empowerment in this space.
• Funding Agency
  • Embassy of Ireland to Tanzania, Irish Aid; School of Natural Sciences (Geography) Trinit College
• Date From
  • 2014
• Date To
  • 2018

• Title
  • Gender Equality Strategy &Report on Nomadic education and mobility in fragile contexts
• Summary
  • Gender Strategy: . Conduct a literature review on context /landscape analysis of Gender Equality work . Define Gender Equality within a child-focussed organisation . Complete a mapping of World Vision Ireland programmes . Develop a draft Gender Equality Strategy to guide World Vision Ireland Programmes . Facilitate a F2F workshop in Dublin Nomadic education research: . Conduct a literature review on education for nomadic, semi nomadic children, children and mobility and displacement identifying international best practice, with a particular focus on children in fragile contexts. . Conduct key informant interviews with World Vision Programme Staff . Identify and capture key lessons and recommendations in relation to children's education and mobility. . Produce a report containing lessons learned from World Vision Ireland's programming, other international best practice and set recommendations in relation to education, mobility and emergencies. The report should be 20 pages maximum excluding annexes.
• Funding Agency
  • World Vision Ireland
• Date From
  • November 2018
• Date To
  • January 2019

• Title
  • Development Studies Association of Ireland
• Summary
  • Host the Development Studies Association of Ireland Secretariat
• Funding Agency
  • Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Irish Aid
• Date From
  • December 2018
• Date To
  • January 2020