Riyoko Shibe is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Glasgow. Their research examines the Scottish town of Grangemouth and the development of the oil and petrochemical sector through oral history and archival research. In their PhD, awarded in 2026, Riyoko advanced the framework of the ‘moral economy of noxiousness’, which conceptualises the relationship between injustice and industrial noxiousness in both its environmental-chemical harms, damaging workers’ health and the wider environment, and its sociopolitical harms, causing reduced employment. Riyoko is also an independent researcher on just transition, industrial closure and green manufacturing in Scotland, undertaking projects for the Scottish Just Transition Commission and the thinktank Future Economy Scotland.
Energy, Industry and Society: Grangemouth, Scotland from 1950 to 2005
My project looks at life, work and community in Grangemouth, a petrochemical and oil refining town in Scotland from the 1950s to 2000s. The petrochemical industry is distinct when it comes to deindustrialisation. Rather than closure, employment contraction is coupled with intensive investment into new petrochemical infrastructure. In Scotland, this was concentrated in Grangemouth: while other sites across the UK closed throughout the 1980s, the BP Chemicals site in Grangemouth was kept open.
I am interested in what it was like to live and work around polluting and carbon-intensive industry, and how the experience of the community and workplace changed as petrochemicals became increasingly entrenched in the locality. The analysis is underpinned by ‘noxiousness’ – environmentally destructive industrial production harmful to both humans and non-humans – and its intensification through deindustrialisation as the chemical workforce was shed. My research is based on oral history interviews with former and current workers, residents and political representatives; and archive study – local, regional and national government files as well as business and trade union documents.
Website: https://www.gla.ac.uk/pgrs/riyokoshibe/
