Dr Joanna Allan

Associate Professor

School: Geography and Natural Sciences

Joanna's research focuses on resistance to neocolonial natural resource exploitation, histories of women's anti-colonial resistance movements, Saharawi and Equatoguinean (resistance) literatures, environmental justice, and the relationship between energy and culture. In 2022, she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize (languages and literature category) for her work.

Joanna currently holds an AHRC Fellowship for a project investigating the relationship between poetry and diplomacy in the Saharawi context. Among other activities, she will be producing a bilingual anthology of Saharawi poetry and a Special Collection of poetry and life history recordings for the British Library's Sound Archive.

Joanna's second book Saharan Winds: Energy Systems and Aeolian Imaginaries in Western Sahara was published with University of West Virginia Press in 2024. It focuses on wind imaginaries and how they shape the development of, and politics mediated by, energy systems. Joanna's first book Silenced Resistance: Women, Dictatorships, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea (Wisconsin University Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the 2020 African Studies Association Fage and Oliver prize for best book on Africa and was runner up in the 2020 International Studies Association’s biennial Feminist Theory and Gender Studies book prize. It offers histories of women's resistance to colonialism, occupation and dictatorships in Spain's colonies in Africa during and since the Spanish colonial period.

Before beginning her PhD, Joanna worked at National Energy Action, the UK Consortium on HIV/AIDS and International Development, London Councils European Service and War on Want. She has been part of the Saharawi solidarity movement for years, including as Chair of Western Sahara Resource Watch 2013-2015.

Campus Address

Lipman 201
City Campus
Newcastle
NE1 8ST

Email Joanna

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Silenced Resistance: Women, Dictatorships, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea, Allan, J. 23 Apr 2019
Oppressive energopolitics in Africa’s last colony: energy, subjectivities and resistance, Allan, J., Lemaadel, M., Lakhal, H. 1 Jan 2022, In: Antipode
Decolonizing renewable energy: Aeolian aesthetics in the poetry of Fatma galia mohammed Salem and Limam boisha, Allan, J. 1 Apr 2020, In: Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
Light, energy, and gendered oil gluttony: Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel’s challenges to petrocapitalism, Allan, J. 18 Mar 2020, In: MFS: Modern Fiction Studies
انتقال غير عادل: الطاقة والامبريالية والنمط الايتخرجي في الصحراء الغربية المحتلة , Allan, J., Lakhal, H., Lemaadel, M. 26 Jan 2023, ابار قديمة واستعمار جديد. تحديات المناخ والانتقال العادل نحو طاقة مستدامة في شمال افريقية, Cairo, Sefsafa Publishing
Natural Resources and Intifada: Oil, Phosphates and Resistance to Colonialism in Western Sahara, Allan, J. 2016, In: Journal of North African Studies
Acting with Impunity: Morocco's Human Rights Violations in Western Sahara and the Silence of the International Community, Allan, J., Lakhal, H. 1 Apr 2015
Activist Ethics: The Need for a Nuanced Approach to Resistance Studies Field Research, Allan, J. 1 Dec 2017, In: Journal of Resistance Studies
Privilege, Marginalization, and Solidarity: Women's Voices Online in Western Sahara's Struggle for Independence, Allan, J. 2014, In: Feminist Media Studies
El colonialismo y el patriarcado en la literature afrohispana: los escritos de resistencia de Lehdia Dafa y María Nsue Angue, Allan, J. 17 Jul 2018, Trans-afrohispanismos, Leiden and Boston, Brill

PGR Supervision

Adam Cross Staying rooted in resistance amidst the rupture of displacement: Using the lens of territory to explore everyday, embodied, and place-based resistance practices adopted by displaced activists in Colombia Start Date: 01/10/2024
Adam Cross Staying rooted in resistance amidst the rupture of displacement: Using the lens of territory to explore everyday, embodied, and place-based resistance practices adopted by displaced activists in Colombia Start Date: 01/10/2024 End Date: 17/10/2025