Dr N.F. Alkhalili (Noura)

I am a critical geographer and an assistant professor in Human Geography at the Department of Geography, Spatial Planning and Environment. My research expertise is situated at the intersection of political geography, settler-colonial studies, energy imperialism, coloniality and green extractivism. I am interested in themes around energy and coloniality, energy export, material infrastructure and energy justice.

I’m now working on a new research project, together with Sinoxolo Magaya, entitled ‘The
geopolitics of green hydrogen: the case of South Africa and the Netherlands’. This research is concerned with the extra-territorial repercussions of the EU’s energy policy and energy trade, as well as with emerging green hydrogen frontier. The research will focus on plans to export green hydrogen from South Africa to the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Hence, this research puts emphasis on the South Africa - Netherlands energy relations during current green energy transitions and connects this focus to the wider enduring colonial continuities of the EU.

In my previous research I have worked on energy transitions in North Africa, by interrogating the geopolitical and socio-material dimensions of energy export between Morocco and Europe, as well as the ways in which renewable energy projects perpetuate green colonialism in occupied territories, such as Occupied Western Sahara.

I have also engaged in critical research in Palestine throughout my PhD, contributing to debates within the field of urbanism in settler-colonial contexts, and to Palestinian scholarship on enclosures of the commons (the mushaa') and Indigenous land struggles.

Currently, I am co-editing a Special Issue at Political Geography entitled ‘Euro-Externalities: European Energy Empire'.

I have a PhD in Human Geography from Lund University in Sweden, and I am the recipient of the International Postdoc grant from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet).