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Katy Davis

Katy Davis

Profile

I began my doctorate in 2019, investigating the socially constructed root causes of disasters in the context of climate change. Specifically, I study how social and environmental processes interact to create unsafe conditions on the land and sea ice in Arctic North America, and how these root causes of risk and disaster are addressed in policy narratives surrounding climate and health.

I am interested in the ways that disaster anthropology can be used to study slow and creeping processes that often go under the radar of disaster governance and processes of prioritisation, and draw from feminist political ecology, anti-colonial approaches and considerations of intersectionality in my approach to disaster research.

Before beginning my doctoral studies, I completed an MSc in Global Health and Development at University College London, in which I focused on the gender-specific impacts of climate-influenced hazards on health. I have experience in the use of qualitative, participatory and quantitative research methods for global health research and an interest in creative, mixed-methods and collaborative research.

I am working in collaboration with the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC) project, which is a multi-year, trans-disciplinary, community-based initiative working with remote Indigenous populations in the Peruvian Amazon, Canadian Arctic, and Uganda to understand the climate-food-health nexus.

Research interests

  • Disaster Anthropology
  • Intersectionality
  • Gender
  • Critical Health Geography
  • Participatory Research
  • Political Ecology
  • Anti-colonial research 

Projects and Groups:

Qualifications

  • MSc Global Health and Development
  • BSc Neuroscience