Working toward environmentally just, low-carbon futures
About
Isaac Thornley
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Environment, Conservation and Sustainability (IECS) and the Department of Human Geography at University of Toronto Scarborough. I am also a Course Instructor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. My postdoctoral research examines Canada’s emerging electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain, drawing on political ecology and energy humanities approaches. This work builds upon my doctoral research on Canadian pipeline politics (specifically, the Trans Mountain Expansion project), where I employed psychoanalytic ideology critique to analyze how state and corporate actors attempted to secure social license for the pipeline. I am broadly interested in the political and ideological dynamics of the unfolding energy transition.
In February 2024, I co-authored a report, “Greenwashing the Ring of Fire: Indigenous Jurisdiction and Gaps in the EV Battery Supply Chain,” as part of the Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism project. My work has been published in the journals Canadian Literature and English Studies in Canada. My article, “Cracks, Gaps, and Oil Spills in the Settler-Colonial Symbolic Order: Confronting Socio-Ecological Antagonism in Canada,” received the Honourable Mention for the 2024 F.E.L. Priestley Prize awarded by the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE). Beyond academia, I have worked with multiple organizations (such as CUPE 3903 and Social Planning Toronto) advocating for better wages and working conditions, affordable housing, and improved public transit and infrastructure.
Let's work together.
My work combines research, teaching, and communications in support of social and environmental justice — in Canada and beyond.
Communications
My professional communications experience has centered on writing, graphic design, and web content management. Whether your organization needs a website, a newsletter, or a media spokesperson, I can communicate effectively with the necessary technical skills.
Teaching
I understand learning as a social process that must be undertaken in an effortful and deliberate way. My teaching draws on principles from critical pedagogy and incorporates a range of best practices to ensure accessibility, inclusivity, and intellectual challenge.
Research
We live in a time of large-scale, complex social and environmental problems. This calls for critical interdisciplinary approaches. I draw on energy and environmental humanities, psychoanalytic ideology critique, and political ecology to analyze the discursive context of contemporary socio-ecological conflicts.
REPORT
Greenwashing the Ring of Fire:
Indigenous Jurisdiction and Gaps in the EV Battery Supply Chain
In February 2024, Saima Desai and I published a report as part of the Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism project. The report analyzed Ontario and Canada’s emerging electric vehicle battery supply chains, with a specific focus on potential nickel mining in the Ring of Fire region of northern Ontario (Treaty No. 9 territory).
Publications
Refereed Publications:
Thornley, Isaac. “The Settler-Colonial Jouissance of Western Alienation: Mapping the Ideological Terrain of Canadian Pipeline Politics.” Canadian Literature 253 (2023): 120–147.
Thornley, Isaac. “Cracks, Gaps, and Oil Spills in the Settler-Colonial Symbolic Order: Confronting Socio-Ecological Antagonism in Canada.” English Studies in Canada (ESC) 47, no. 2–3 (2021): 9–35.
Book Chapters:
Thornley, Isaac. “Battery: Can Batteries Foster a Radically Just Energy Transition?” In Power Shift: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy, edited by Imre Szeman and Jennifer Wenzel. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2025 (in press): 53–56.
Butet-Roch, Laurence, Jacob McLean, Laura Tanguay, and Isaac Thornley. “Dear Comrades: Letters on Extraction and the Crimes of Occupation.” In The End of Extraction As We Know It? edited by Amy Janzwood. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2025 (forthcoming).
Reports:
Desai, Saima and Isaac Thornley. “Greenwashing the Ring of Fire: Indigenous Jurisdiction and the Gaps in the EV Battery Supply Chain.” Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism, February 2024. https://jurisdiction-infrastructure.com/research/greenwashing-the-ring-of-fire-report/.
Book Reviews:
Thornley, Isaac. Review of Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet, by Matthew T. Huber. H-Environment, March 23, 2023. https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=58280.
Non-Refereed Publications:
Thornley, Isaac. “TMX and the Crisis of Consent: Cracks in Canada’s Settler-Colonial Political Order.” Canada Watch, Spring 2023: 26–28. https://www.yorku.ca/research/robarts/wp-content/uploads/sites/466/2023/05/2-CW-Spring-2023.pdf.
Thornley, Isaac. “Sights of Contestation Part I: Unconscious.” Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE), March 23, 2022. https://niche-canada.org/2022/03/23/sights-of-contestation-part-i-unconscious/.