Staff profile

Biography

Raihana’s research interests lie broadly in the field of energy, environment, consumption and development. She holds an MA in Social and Cultural Geography from the University of Sheffield. Raihana had her first degree from Anthropology and soon after she graduated she joined as a research assistant in an ESRC funded multidisciplinary project the Waste of the World. 

Thesis Title: Towards a Spatial Understanding of Solar Energy Transition: The making of a solar energy market in Bangladesh and the experiences of on-grid and off-grid households.

Based on her PhD research, Raihana has recently produced a short documentary Off the Grid with Meghna Gupta, Soul Rebel Films. Off the Grid narrates an emotional journey of solar energy users and their everyday lives.

Raihana is also a co-investigator on an ESRC/DFID Development Frontiers research project: 'Energy on the Move: longitudinal perspectives on energy transitions among marginal populations'. The research examines the energy practices of urban poor women, men and young people living in informal settlements in peri-urban situations in Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria and South Sudan and how these are changing, drawing comparative lessons across the study countries.

Teaching Experiences

Academic tutor: Human Geography: Space and Place in a Changing World, Environment and Society and Introduction to Research Method. Geographies of Development, Geographies of Contemporary Unfree Labour, Urban Geography, Using Geographical Skills and Techniques

• Energy and Society
• Low Carbon Energy Transition
• Gender
• Political Economy
• Urban
• South Asia

• Urban Worlds

Book review

• (2014). India’s Middle Class: New Forms of Urban Leisure, Consumption and Prosperity. UGRG Book Review Series.

Chapter in book

• Crang, M., Gregson, N., Ahamed, F., Ferdous, R. & Akhter, N. (2012). Death, the Phoenix and Pandora: transforming things and values in Bangladesh. In Economies of Recycling: The global transformation of materials, values and social relations. Alexander, C. & Reno, J. London: Zed Books. 59-75.

Journal Article

• Kumar, A., Ferdous, R., Luque-Ayala, A., McEwan, C., Power, M., Turner, B. & Bulkeley, H. (2019). Solar energy for all? Understanding the successes and shortfalls through a critical comparative assessment of Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Mozambique, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Energy Research & Social Science 48: 166-176.
• Gregson, N. & Ferdous, R. (2015). Making space for ethical consumption in the South. Geoforum 67: 244-255.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M., Ahamed, F., Akter, N., Ferdous, R., Foisal, S. & Hudson, R. (2012). Territorial agglomeration and industrial symbiosis: Sitakunda-Bhatiary, Bangladesh, as a secondary processing complex. Economic Geography 88(1): 37-58.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M., Ahamed, F., Akhtar, N. & Ferdous, R. (2010). Following things of rubbish value: end-of-life ships, ‘chock-chocky’ furniture and the Bangladeshi middle class consumer. Geoforum 41(6): 846-854.