Amelia Mutter

I am a Researcher and Teacher at the unit of Environmental Communication. I have wide ranging interests spanning energy and natural resource management, environmental governance, and knowledge production processes. I have a background in environmental social science and science and technology studies and earned my PhD in Technology and Social Change from Linköping University examining imaginaries of the fossil fuel free future utilising case studies from biogas and electric vehicles in Sweden. My current research engages with collaborative and participatory processes and examinations of knowledge production and truth claims.

I am course coordinator and examiner for the course Projects and Communication in the Agrarian Sector. I also teach in the master’s program Environmental Communication and Management in the Conflict, Democracy and Facilitation course and the Independent thesis course.

My research interests are broad and varied, ranging from discourses and imaginaries for sustainability transitions to processes of knowledge production and dissemination, participatory and collaborative processes, and environmental governance. I am currently working within a number of projects including: 

MISTRA Environmental Communications - reframing communication for sustainability

A balancing act between swift and slow planning: reimagining deliberative planning in view of the urgency of sustainability challenges

And Collaboration, Deliberation and Participation in Times of Post-Truth Politics: The role of dialogue experts.

I have an interdisciplinary and international academic background within Environmental Social Science. I received my Bachelor's Degree in Communication of Science and Technology from Vanderbilt University (Nashville, USA, 2011) completing courses ranging from writing and rhetoric to organic chemistry and engineering management. I attended the Erasmus Mundus MESPOM (Masters in Environmental Science Policy and Management) from 2011-2013 with courses from Central European University (Budapest), University of the Aegean (Greece) and Lund University (Sweden). I wrote my Master's thesis in Lund at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics on the topic of the Tiny House trend, questioning the sustainability implications of the trend and its possibilities for expansion. 

My PhD is within Technology and Social Change from Linköping University where I worked for five years at the Institute for Thematic Studies. My research focused on the interactions between imaginaries of biogas and electric vehicles within the ongoing transport transition. During this time period, I also contributed to the department through teaching in Sustainable Development and History of Technology, as a member of the PhD Council, and as an editorial assistant for the journal Valuation Studies.

Calderon, C., Mutter, A., Westin, M., and Butler, A. (2022). Navigating swift and slow planning: planners' balancing act in the design of participatory processes. European Planning Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2022.2156271

Mutter, A. and Rohracher, H. (2022). Competing Transport Futures: Tensions between Imaginaries of Electrification and Biogas Fuel in Sweden. Science, Technology, & Human Values 47 (1). 10.18261/issn.2703-8866-2021-02-02

Westin, M., Mutter, A., Calderon., C., and Hellquist, A. (2021). "Let us be led by the residents": Swedish dialogue experts' stories about power, justification and ambivalence. Nordic Journal of Urban Studies. https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.2703-8866-2021-02-02

Mutter, A. (2020). Multiple Imaginaries of the Fossil Fuel Free Future: Biogas and Electricity in Swedish Urban Transport. PhD Diss. Linköping University