Researcher and writer focused on issues of social, environmental, and economic justice.
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 have also worked as 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 social and political theory. This work builds upon my doctoral research on Canadian pipeline politics (specifically, the Trans Mountain Expansion project), where I analyzed how state and corporate actors attempted to secure social license for the pipeline. I am broadly interested in the political and ideological dynamics of infrastructure development amid energy transitions.
I work on projects with multiple organizations within and beyond academia, especially focused on organized labour, labour environmentalism, social and environmental justice, and Indigenous jurisdiction. These include CUPE 3902, Trade Unions and Labour Environmentalism (TULE) Network, Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism, and 8th Fire Rising. In the past, I have also worked with CUPE 3903 and Social Planning Toronto, advocating for betters wages, working conditions, affordable housing, and improved social infrastructure.
Let's work together.
My work combines research, teaching, and communications in support of social, economic, 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 social and political theory and political ecology to analyze the terrain 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 analyzes 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: 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, 2027 (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.
Public Scholarship:
Thornley, Isaac. “No Transition: Affective Infrastructures for the Climate-Class Conjuncture.” Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE), June 29, 2026. https://niche-canada.org/2026/06/29/no-transition-affective-infrastructures-for-the-climate-class-conjuncture/.
Thornley, Isaac. “Ring of Fire Conflict Reveals Gaps in Ontario’s Economic Nationalist EV Battery Fantasy.” Energy Humanities, April 1, 2025. https://www.energyhumanities.ca/news/ring-of-fire-conflict-reveals-gaps-in-ontarios-economic-nationalist-ev-battery-fantasy.
Thornley, Isaac. “TMX and the Crisis of Consent: Cracks in Canada’s Settler-Colonial Political Order.” Canada Watch, Spring 2023: 26–28 https://cwatch.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cwatch/article/view/35779.
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/.