Dr Ewan Gibbs
- Senior Lecturer (Political & International Studies)
email:
Ewan.Gibbs@glasgow.ac.uk
617 Gilbert Scott Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7487-7241Biography
I am a historian of energy, industry, work and protest.
In research and teaching, I explore how the production and consumption of energy has pivotally shaped employment, politics and economic change. I use historical insights to frame and explore contemporary debates around achieving a just transition towards a sustainable economy for workers and communities embedded in carbon industries.
My first book, Coal Country: The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland, was published by the University of London Press. It was shortlisted for the Scottish History Book of the Year in 2021. I am currently finishing writing The Unmaking of the British Working Class under contract with Verso.
I have also recently worked with Riyoko Shibe to report on The Grangemouth Refinery Closure: Workers’ Perspectives for the Just Transition Commission independent advisory body. This research informs policymaking on a key test of Scottish commitments to a sustainable environmental and industrial future. My writing has also shaped public understanding of key areas of labour, energy and indsutrial history and relevant current controversies through publication in the London Review of Books, the Times, Prospect, the Break Down, Dissent magazine and Jacobin.
I am strongly committed to teaching and supporting honours and postgraduate students to develop archival and oral history research projects. Collegiate learning allows us to value historical perspectives and understand their burning relevance to contemporary settings. My commitment to sharing and engaging interested learners includes the larger public. I recently developed an online course, Navigating Energy History, which can be completed free on FutureLearn. Furthermore, my web exhibition, Energy In History, includes exhibitions on work, technology, danger and politics and protest which combine imagery, archival research and oral hstory testimonies.
Research interests
My research interests primarily lie in understanding how major changes to the organisation of energy generation and economic production are instigated, negotiated or opposed and remembered through their political and cultural consequences. I firstly developed a strong track record in studying the closure of mining and manufacturing industries. Since then, I have oriented towards understanding the developing political economy of Britain’s energy system through combining archival and oral history methods. My current interests lie in labour and employment, industrial and energy policymaking and the impact of public and private ownership of key economic sectors.
In my PhD project, I studied the end of deep coal mining in Scotland as a decades-long event which unfolded across the second half of the twentieth century. These changes have had profound ongoing implications in towns and villages across the former coalfield, remade the experience of work and reshaped the meaning of class and nationhood. This work became my first book, Coal Country.
Between 2022 and 2025, I completed a British Academy Wolfson Fellowship project themed around Britain’s evolving energy order. It used regional case studies drawn from electricity, nuclear, oil and gas and renewables, incorporating examples drawn from across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Applying a holistic approach to the evolution of the energy economy through localised case studies that includes memory and reflections delivered a unique insight into previous and ongoing experiences of sectoral shrinking and the growth of new forms of energy production, which often overlapped in the same location. This became the basis for journal articles and the Workers’ Perspectives on Energy Transition report for the Just Transition Partnership of trade unions and environmentalists.
Research groups
Grants
British Academic-Wolfson Fellowship Decarbonising the Economy and Society: Policy, Labour and Community in Energy Transitions (January 2022-May 2025)
Arts and Humanities Research Council (Co-Investigator) Mobilizing Community Assets to Tackle Health Disparities (November 2022-June 2023)
Carnegie Research Incentive Grant (Principal Investigator) Energy Nationalisms: Fuel Economies and Scottish Independence since 1945 (May 2021-May 2022)
Carnegie Research Incentive Grant (Co-Investiator) 'Tracks' of the Past: How can a Place-Responsive Pedagogy support new understanding of Industrial Heritage and Economic Change via CfE?’ (March 2018-March 2019)
RSE Small Grant award 2017 Energy Policy and Scottish Coalfield Politics (January 2017-December 2017)
Supervision
I would welcome the opportunity to supervise students interested in pursuing projects across relevant areas of economic and social history, especially but not only as these relate to twentieth and twenty-first century Britain and Scotland. Students with research interests in the following area may find my supervision particularly helpful:
- Working-class politics and labour movements.
- Energy and industrial politics and policy.
- Deindustrialisation and its long-term impact.
- Collective memory and heritage.
I have a strong track record in securing funding for PhD students, including from the Scottish Graduate School for Social Sciences (ESRC) and the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (AHRC).
I am currently part of five supervision teams on funded doctoral projects studying a diverse range of topics including:
- Economic and social life in a refining and petrochemicals town.
- Scotland's community energy sector.
- Working-class environmentalism.
- The Fair Trade movement in Scotland.
- Deindustrialisation in Wapping, East London.
Previously I have supervised projects to completion, including a project on political and cultural identities in the Fife coalfields during the second half of the twentieth century.
- Coyle, Molly
Inclusivity and the transition to sustainability: working-class, BAME and other intersectional perspectives on Just Transition - Gwynn, Michelle
Transformation, Conflict and the Everyday - Wapping 1968 to 1997 - Qi, Hebin
The Political Economy of Energy Transition in the Germany and the United Kingdom, from 1990 to the Present - Shibe, Riyoko
Energy, Industry and Society: Security and Justice in Grangemouth, Scotland, from the 1950s to the 2000s
Teaching
Undergraduate course lectures (Economic and Social History)
Economic and Social History in Global Contexts, c. 1750-1914
Undergraduates honours (Economic and Social History)
British Capitalism and its Discontents
Scotland since 1914
Oral History for Social Scientists
Dissertation supervision
Masters (Global Economy)
Inequalities in the Global Economy
Dissertation supervision
Additional information
Research affiliations and contribution
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Centre for Business History in Scotland affiliate
Centre for Energy Ethics affiliate
Glasgow Centre for Sustainable Energy affiliate
Scottish Labour History Society committtee member
Scottish Oral History Centre affiliate
Research outcomes and links
You can visit the Energy In History website to view an exhibition of my research.
My Navigating Energy History online course can be completed on FutureLearn.
The Just Transition Commission published the report I co-authored with Riyoko Shibe, The Grangemouth Refinery Closure: Workers' Perspectives.
The Just Transition Partnership published my report, Workers' Perspectives on Energy Transitions.
