Gökçe Günel is Associate Professor in Anthropology at Rice University. Her work broadly investigates how infrastructure transforms in the face of energy and climate change-related challenges. 

Her most recent book, Floating Power: Energy, Infrastructure, and South-South Relations (Duke University Press, 2026), examines the emergence of a Turkish-built floating power plant in Ghana, analyzing how such inventive infrastructure shapes South-South relations and embodies broader imaginations of energy futures. If you’d like to learn more about this book, please read “Energy Accumulation” on e-flux, “Leapfrogging to Solar” in South Atlantic Quarterly, or “Cin Fikir: Infrastructure, War, and Progress”  as part of the Against Catastrophe project. Dr. Günel also shared some of the insights from this book project on Freakonomics Radio.

Dr. Günel’s first book, Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi  (Duke University Press, 2019), focuses on the construction of renewable energy and clean technology infrastructures in the United Arab Emirates, with a specific emphasis on the Masdar City project. Please watch a talk about Spaceship in the Desert here. She continues to write about new city projects, such as Neom, and follows climate change-related developments in the UAE.

Dr. Günel co-authored “A Manifesto for Patchwork Ethnography” (2020) and co-leads Patchwork Ethnography.  Patchwork Ethnography: A Methodological Guide will be published with the University of Chicago Press in 2027.  

Dr. Günel is one of the editors of the scholar-led, open-access publication, Limn.