School of Social and Political Science

Background

I am an anthropologist of development, environment, science & technology. My research explores knowledge practices, environmental perceptions, and decision-making in contexts of social and ecological change. Three key areas of interest are: infrastructure and anticipation; environmental citizenship; and politics of knowledge. My projects to date have focused on highway planning and construction; the production and application of weather and climate forecasts; and the negotiation of environmental knowledges in watershed assessments and interventions. I have carried out ethnographic research and interview-based studies in Belize, Kenya and the UK.

I completed my PhD in Anthropology at University College London in 2011. From 2013-19 I was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (University of Oxford), where I held an ESRC Future Research Leaders grant 2017-18 and worked in projects funded by NERC, DfID and the Oxford Martin School. Directly after my PhD, from 2010-12, I worked outside academia as a parliamentary researcher in the UK House of Commons, focusing on health policy among other areas. I've previously also worked a variety of retail, market research and warehousing jobs. I sit on the Royal Anthropological Institute Environment Committee, convene the Network for Anthropologies of Forecasting Weather and Climate (AnthFOR), and I'm a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Teaching

In the academic year 2025-6 I'll be teaching the following courses:

Social Life and Climate Change (undergraduate): Along with Jacob Doherty and Chiara Chiavaroli, I teach this introduction to the social study of life on a changing planet, informed by knowledge and insight from across the Global North and South, and drawing on anthropology and allied work across the social sciences, environmental humanities and Indigenous scholarship. The course is open to students from across the university. My lectures on this course include classes on the social dimensions of drought and sea level rise, on multispecies relationships in times of extinction, and on disaster preparedness, adaptation and survival.

Energy in the Global South (postgraduate): This course approaches the study of energy, fuel and electricity in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific as the study of social, cultural and political change, shifting focus between big infrastructures, and smaller, decentralised projects. I am teaching the course with Chiara Chiavaroli and my lectures usually include sessions on colonialism, labour and the Anthropocene; life off-the-grid; the geopolitics of oil; hydroelectric infrastructures; and the technopolitics of extraction and waste. The course intergrates multimedia elements including visual essays and video games to encourage critical thinking through the material and political lives of energy objects.

Anthropology and Environment (undergraduate and postgraduate): This elective course examines anthropological approaches to diverse human understandings of and interactions with changing environments, using ethnographic case studies and anthropological theory to examine the socio-cultural, socio-political, and socio-economic implications of environmental challenges and related development, conservation, and human rights issues. We cover themes including environmental justice, multi-species encounters, foreknowledge and environmental futures, protected areas and the idea of wilderness, and other topics relating to climate, energy, and citizen science. The course encourages students to apply learning to real-world predicaments, experiences and case studies of their choice through assessments and weekly activities.

I'll also contribute a lecture for Latin American Anthropology (undergraduate and postgraduate)

I've recently also taught the following courses:

• People First: The Anthropology of International Development (postgraduate)

I supervise undergraduate dissertation projects for students studying Social Anthropology MA and Sustainable Development MA, and taught postgraduate dissertation projects for students in MSc International Development, MSc Africa & International Development, MSc Social Research, and Msc Data, Inequality & Society. Recent topics have included: work and gender in the offshore oil industry; bothying in the Scottish Highlands; religious leadership and climate adaptation in South Sudan; mountaineering, freedom and community in the Alps.

Do get in touch if you have questions about any of these courses.

Selected publications

Journal articles

Haines, S. (2025) Towards a minor logistics: Community and ecology in a watershed project. Theory, Culture & Society. E-pub ahead of print (part of a forthcoming special issue on Logistics & Ecology, edited by Sophie Haines and Scott Lash.)

De Wit S & Haines, S. 2022. Climate change reception studies in anthropology, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 13(1):e742

Di Giminiani, P. & Haines, S. 2020 Introduction: Translating environments. Ethnos 85(1):1-16

Haines, S. 2019 Reckoning resources: political lives of anticipation in Belize’s water sector. Science & Technology Studies 30(4):97-118

Haines, S. 2019 Managing expectations: articulating expertise in climate services for agriculture in Belize. Climatic Change 157(1):43-59

Taddei RR & Haines S 2019 When climatologists meet social scientists: ethnographic speculations around interdisciplinary equivocations, Sociologias 21(51):186-209 (simultaneously published in Portuguese)

Haines, S. 2018. Imagining the highway: anticipating infrastructural and environmental change in Belize. Ethnos, 83(2): 392-413

Other publications 

Haines, S. & de Wit, S. 2024 Pluralizing climates: from observation and reception to translation and praxis. Journal of Political Ecology Grassroots series: Just and plural political ecologies: traditions and futures.

Haines, S. 2022. Encountering the Climate Regime: “Useful” Climate Knowledge and the Work of Forecasts. Hot Spots, Fieldsights (Society for Cultural Anthropology)

Haines S, Cano A, Hislop A & Williams T 2019. Water: environmental knowledge and rural life in Belize. Report of a multi-stakeholder workshop. Working paper.

Haines, S., Imana, C. A., Opondo, M., Ouma, G. & Rayner, S. 2017. Weather and climate knowledge for water security: Institutional roles and relationships in Turkana. REACH Working Paper 5, University of Oxford.

PhD Supervision

Current

• Madeleine Schia, Social Anthropology shipping / sustainability / expert cultures
• Marie-Louise Wöhrle, Social Anthropology conservation / microbes / multispecies
• Jennifer Sands, Social Anthropology urban nature / wellbeing / Scotland
• Chitra Sangtani, Social Anthropology fire / politics / India
• Architha Narayanan, South Asian Studies urban heat / labour / India
• Dani Farrow, Social Anthropology medical waste / circular economy / Scotland
• Nabanita Samanta, Social Anthropology environmental futures / logistics / India

Completed

• Dhaval Joshi, Human Geography 2025 "Between visible and invisible: Pluralising groundwater knowledges of Maharashtra, India"
• Silvia Pergetti, Social Anthropology 2024 “Electric masculinities: Re-producing energy infrastructure in India's Sundarbans”
• Winarti Halim, International Development 2023 “Young farmers regeneration policy in Indonesia: a capability approach”
   

PhD topics interested in supervising

I am happy to hear from prospective doctoral students interested in pursuing a project related to any of the topics outlined above. *Please note that I am not currently accepting new supervisions for programmes starting in 2026*

Please see the links below for more information:

• PhD in Social Anthropology
• PhD in International Development
• MScR Social and Political Science